Give harvesters some emailadresses

Hej
This post is dedicated for those who run their forums on shared servers, and do have problems with exceeded bandwidth and harvesters.

Im running UBB 7.2.2 and when I view in the referrer log, I'd noticed a lot of strange visits from spammer-sites which problably harvest emails, and my host told me to decrease bandwidth or moving my board. Therefore I'd like to share a little script which generate false emails and links to harvesters. (Harvesters doesnt respect a robots.txt file!).

The script does only requires PHP, and can be used in all pages or forums.

PHP Code


<?php
/* Script which generates false emailadresses and bogus links in a endless loop */

$min_length = 6; // min. numbers of chars & letters in emailadress 
$max_length = 12; // max. numbers of chars & letters in emailadress
$min_emails = 100; // min. numbers of emails
$max_emails = 200; // max. numbers of emails
$min_bogus_links = 1; //min. numbers of bogus links
$max_bogus_links = 5; // max. numbers of bogus links

mt_srand ((double) microtime() * 1000000);
$your_domain = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
$self = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
$set_to_use = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz_1234567890";
$set_length = strlen($set_to_use);
$number_of_emails = mt_rand($min_emails,$max_emails);

echo"e-mailadresses<br>";
While ($number_of_emails > 0)
{
	$number_of_emails--;
	$this_ones_length = mt_rand($min_length,$max_length);
	$s_x = "";
	for ($b_x = 1; $b_x <= $this_ones_length; $b_x++)
	{
		$s_x = $s_x . $set_to_use[mt_rand(1,$set_length)];
	}
	echo "<a href="mailto:".$s_x."@".$your_domain."">".$s_x."@".$your_domain."</a>;  ";

}
echo"<p>links<br>";
$this_run_bogus_links = mt_rand($min_bogus_links,$max_bogus_links);

While ($this_run_bogus_links > 0)
{
	$this_run_bogus_links--;
	$this_ones_length = mt_rand($min_length,$max_length*2);
	$s_x = "";
	for ($b_x = 1; $b_x <= $this_ones_length; $b_x++)
	{
		$s_x = $s_x . $set_to_use[mt_rand(1,$set_length)];
	}
	echo "<a href="http://www.".$your_domain."".$self."?".$s_x."">"."http://www.".$your_domain."/".$s_x."</a><br>";
}
?>

Heres a how to do:
1. Copy the script into a text editor and name the file 'emails.php' ( or whatever you prefer)
2. Upload it to server
3. upload 'pixel.gif' to server (NOTE! pixel.gif is a 1x1 transparent pixel, and is therefore invisible)
4. Call the script with a link to it in the top and bottom of your board, ex. header.php and footer.php

HTML

<a href="/emails.php"><img src="/pixel.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a>

Enjoy!

Grazie - JustDave did something like this for the old 5-series - anything to give spammers some of their own medicine

Well, I'd hope you don't have any catchall email addrs setup, as you seem to be referring your own domain, i think it'd be more fun to refer their hostname

...

use it as your 404 page