Security issues around publishing email addresses on webpages

[nigelburrell]

Hi,

I'm using a joomla cms to build a website, and have discovered that joomla uses a built-in plug-in called Email Cloacking which obfuscates email addresses prior to showing them on the webpage. They simply appear as "mailto" links which makes it harder for scrapers and bots to pick up.

However, I am developing a website that requires user-login access to pages where user's email addresses need to be shown (and edited) as plain text inside text boxes. I've had to disable this joomla plug-in so that email addresses do not contain the additional javascript and scrambled information for spam protection.

My question is, even though I've disabled an important spam protection function, I'm assuming it doesn't matter given that the email addresses will appear only in webpages requiring user-login access. Obviously, if the email addresses were published in public access pages, then yes... it's a risk, but surely scrapers and bots can't access pages protected behind user logins - as they would need to simulate a user login to access such information, right?

[FlashCreations]

Correct, unless these bots can register on your sites and access the page with your email. You can always protect your email simply by making it an image and putting that image on your page instead of using a plugin like this.

[nigelburrell]

Correct, unless these bots can register on your sites and access the page with your email. You can always protect your email simply by making it an image and putting that image on your page instead of using a plugin like this.

That's true, good idea. I might pursue this option and see if it works well. Thanks for your response.

[FlashCreations]

You're welcome. You know you can also create your own contact form (In a language such as PHP or by using a free service) so that no one would know your email, but that is totally up to you. I ask though if you have no further questions to mark this thread as solved.