In response to an automated request for me to verify my email address as
being that of a human by first clicking a link and then by completing a
"Simple" task of recognising the text in a graphic image and then typing
the characters into a form on the page thus displayed:
Dear Mr. Kay,
I, like yourself, despise unsolicited electronic mail. While the
principle basis for the measures you are taking to prevent spam from
reaching you are bound to provide certain guaranteed results, there are
arguably many disadvantages to what you are doing. I am afraid I am the
victim of one of them. Being totally blind, I cannot use a graphic to
confirm my existence to you. Assistive technology, like a spam robot, can
only read the text of your emails and web pages. You might compose
another, less biassed technique - ask the user a random question. Perhaps
randomly generate a sum in words to which the human must answer - EG:
"What's ten plus twenty-five?"
Please don't take any of this message in offense, but your email asking me
to confirm myself as a human almost went in the analysis folder for much
scrutiny and possibly would have had me write a complaint to your ISP; it
had the suspicious edge of the classic spam validation procedures and an
appropriate amount of oily friendliness, in this case well-meant. A quick
few lookups in the DNS, chasing all the MX references, and a further
moment's moral consideration in realising that what you were doing was not
advertising or anything characteristic of spamming put away these
suspicions in favour of amazement. I had never seen anyone actually do
this and implement a working system. Does it really do what you want?
The email address that triggered this response was <postmaster(_at_)sabahattin-
gucukoglu.com>; I wanted to let you know, automatically as it just so
happens :-), that your mail contained HTML data - which, alone, represents
a pretty accurate measure of spamminess.
I am sorry to have inconvenienced you, or other unconcerned or
uninterested list members, by writing to you in this way. I regard email
as a very valuable means of communication and would surely like to know
you and others here as well as possible, if only as a side-effect of our
wish to combat the whole problem of spam. Again, my views are not meant
in offense.
Best wishes,
Sabahattin
--
Thought for the day:
Book (n): a utensil used to pass time while waiting
for the TV repairman.
Latest PGP Public key? Click:
<mailto:PGPPublicKey(_at_)sabahattin-gucukoglu(_dot_)com>
and send that message as is.
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
Phone: +44 (0)20 7,502-1615
Mobile: +44 (0)7986 053399
http://www.sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/
E-mail or MSN Messenger: <mail(_at_)Sabahattin-Gucukoglu(_dot_)com>
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