How can I hide my email address from spammers?

I am receiving a lot of junk email about messages I did not send...

If you are experiencing a rash of 554 (service unavailable) or 550 (user unknown) "bounce" errors, welcome to the club... this will eventually happen to any common or published email address.

You may have noticed messages in your inbox with the subject "Delivery Status Notification" or "Returned mail: user unknown" that refer to recipients you don't recognize. Called "NDR", for non-delivery receipt (NDR), this is a message that a mail server sends to notify the sender when a problem occurs with delivery.

Why am I getting these messages? 

Please be aware that if you publish an email address on a website, spambot harvesters will eventually find it and use it in spam attacks.

This problem will also occur if your email address has been leaked from a compromised system; for example:

• your address is stored in a friend's contact list, and their computer is infected with spyware, your address can be harvested
• you signed up for an online discussion group or forum, and a harvester found your email address in the member list
• you have an email address that is a common name or address, such as " This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it " or " This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it " 

If your address is used as the "reply to" address during a spam attack (known as spoofing), then you will receive hundreds or thousands of "bounce" messages from the receiving servers.

• More information from Google/Postini about this problem 120.16 Kb

How can I prevent spammers from harvesting my email address?

To prevent your address from being harvested, you should avoid corresponding with anyone who regularly sends email to large CC: lists. You must also "cloak" any email address you wish to publish on a website. 

The onslaught of bounce messages is usually temporary, and will pass after a few days when the spammers move on to a new victim.

Please google "hide email address from spammer" or click
http://tinyurl.com/3kzb75

This will give you a list of links to information about hiding email addresses from spammers.

If you will look at the email addresses displayed on chattanooga.net, you will see that our content management system (Joomla) uses a cloaking Javascript.

If you view the page in a browser with javascript turned on, the addresses appear normal and are clickable.

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

If you view the source code of the page (as a harvester program would), then you will see only encrypted javascript code, e.g.: