Lack of interest [privacy] Email parsed to image

[Floris]

I have no problem disclosing my google talk or other details, but it would be nice if those where it is an email that is disclosed to the public (though by choice) is rendered via gd to an image.

 

[Brandon_R]

Yep this is necessary to prevent spam.

 

[Cezz]

I have no problem disclosing my google talk or other details, but it would be nice if those where it is an email that is disclosed to the public (though by choice) is rendered via gd to an image.

Agreed or maybe using other obscuring methods, as though images are great to hindering bots it also makes userbility a pain... It would be good if the email addresses are then called via ajax after page load and replaced with plain text.

This would mean that those with javascript would be able to just copy and paste the email address into their client expecially on mobile devices this really helps userbility

 

[Floris]

I have bad eye sight myself, like .. bad, so I am not dishing on accessibility, but .. they are a rare occurrence in a web site, vs constant spam bots. I chose to fight spam.

 

[James]

*Bumps*
I thought about this, never suggested it.

+1 from me.

 

[Greg]

Perhaps have it parse to image for guests and users below X posts, and then above that have it stay as plain text?

 

[James]

If you're parsing to an image don't bother wrapping it in a conditional (IMO). Guests and members alike should be able to read an image no problem.

 

[Cezz]

If you're parsing to an image don't bother wrapping it in a conditional (IMO). Guests and members alike should be able to read an image no problem.

I disagree, I think putting text in images is a pain to copy etc... Expecially on a mobile device, if I say was looking at Floris profile on my phone and wanted to add him to gtalk it would be so much hard work I wouldn't bother if it was an image... I think conditionals should work nicely... or a mixture of image and AJAX callbacks to replace the image with the actual link etc. (though this could be gamed by bots so would still need a guest/member/postcount setting)..

 

[James]

For copying, yeah I get what you mean... I didn't consider that - thanks Ceri... perhaps a conditional would be useful then!

 

[Eric]

http://www.secondversion.com/scripts/email.php

The bbcode seems to mess it up, so add ?email= at the end

<?php

header('Content-type: image/png');

$email = filter_input(INPUT_GET, 'email', FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);

if (empty($email) OR !filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL))
{
    $email = 'Invalid email.';
}

$im = imagecreate(strlen($email) * imagefontwidth(3), 15);
$background_color = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255);
$txt_color = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 0);
imagestring($im, 3, 0, 2, $email, $txt_color);

header('Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT');
header('Last-Modified: ' . gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s') . ' GMT');
header('Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate');
header('Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0', false);
header('Pragma: no-cache');

imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im);

?>

 

[James]

http://www.secondversion.com/scripts/email.php

The bbcode seems to mess it up, so add ?email= at the end

//code

FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL was proven not to be 100% accurate when validating e-mails

 

[Eric]

FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL was proven not to be 100% accurate when validating e-mails

depends on what version of PHP you're using. PHP >= 5.2.12 should be fine.

 

[Nix]

I have no problem disclosing my google talk or other details, but it would be nice if those where it is an email that is disclosed to the public (though by choice) is rendered via gd to an image.

+1 sounds good to me