I've changed the format of all the e-mail addresses listed on this website to include the characters "(nospam)" just before the "@" symbol.  I did this because the unscrupulous, conniving $&!+heads who pollute the internet with spam have been using automated tools to "harvest" e-mail addresses from this (and countless other) websites.  They then sell lists of these addresses to other spammers.

Unfortunately, if you've previously listed your e-mail address on this website, it's probably too late.  However, any new addresses you send me will get posted in this new format, hopefully preventing automated harvesting.

How Does It Work?

This method works because the programs which surf the web for addresses simply look for an "@" symbol, then grab all the characters before and after until they hit the spaces on either end.  Some are smart enough to reject "dot-mil" or "dot-gov" addresses, but as some of you have found, that isn't always true.  However, if they harvest a name with "(nospam)" in it, mail sent to it will bounce for one of two reasons.  One, the name does not really exist.  Two, parentheses are not valid valid characters for an e-mail address. 

Of course, someone could manually remove these characters, but believe me, spammers generally aren't interested in working that hard.  It's doubtful they'd create another automated tool to remove the extra characters, as that's extra work too, and there's plenty of un-modified e-mail addresses out there on other websites to purloin.

How Do I Use The Addresses Posted Here?

It's as simple as cutting/pasting the address from this website into your e-mail program's "To:" line, and then deleting the "(nospam)" characters.  Be sure to get rid of the parentheses too!  For example, "jimbo(nospam)@usafa82.org" would become "jimbo@usafa82.org". 

An unfortunate side effect of this technique is that I can no longer put automatic links to e-mail addresses here.  It used to be that if you clicked on an e-mail link here it'd start up your e-mail program, create a new message, and automatically insert the "To:" address.  I can't do that anymore, because it requires me to put the correct (unmodified) e-mail address in the HTML code that makes up the page.  Even though I can make it invisible to your web browser, it'd still be there in the HTML code, and an automated tool could still parse out the address.

How Can I Fight Spam?

Well, you can always hit "delete" I guess.  But personally, I like to fight back, even if it is only urinating in the ocean in hopes of raising the tide.  One of the best tools I've found is SpamCop.  This is an automated tool (a web page) which parses your Spam and figures out who to send a report to complaining about it.  You cut/paste your spam (including all headers--this is absolutely key!) into a text box on the site, and click "submit".  After several seconds, you'll see information on where the spam originated, and a list of administrative contacts to whom a pre-formatted complaint message will be sent to.  If you're happy with all you see, you click another button, and a sysadmin somewhere will get the formal complaint.

In general, sysadmins are responsive to these complaints and shut down the accounts of people who abuse their e-mailing privileges. 

PLEASE.  Before you submit a complaint, be sure it really IS spam.  Sometimes you may have subscribed to a legitimate mailing list and forgotten about it.