Why do the e-mail addresses in the Directory of Volunteers look funny?

Peace Corps Online: Frequently Asked Questions: Why do the e-mail addresses in the Directory of Volunteers look funny?
How to Contact PCOL
If you have a question:
You can send us an email to the email address below next to the stamp
If you have a question about PCOL or about how to use this Message Board, you can go to our FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions and leave a message.
If you have a question about the Peace Corps or want to make an announcement to the RPCV community, you can go to our Bulletin Board and leave a message.
If you are looking for a lost RPCV, leave a message in the Lost Volunteer Section and/or leave a message in the volunteer's Country of Service Section.

By Admin1 (Admin) on Monday, May 14, 2001 - 6:09 pm: Edit Post

Why do the e-mail addresses in the
Directory of Volunteers look funny?


The e-mail addresses of returned volunteers in the Directory and Message Boards topic have been "munged" or purposefuly "broken up" for your protection to avoid junk email and spam being sent to you.

Junk emailers "harvest" email addresses from web sites using spam robots or spambots. Most address harvesting software used by junk emailers does not discriminate; anything with an '@' sign is considered an e-mail address.

By changing the e-mail address, unsolicited bulk/ commercial email can be greatly reduced or eliminated.

More information on munging is available at this link.

The procedure we use for munging is simple and effective:

"@" is changed to "a" for "at" (in blue)

"." is changed to the "d" in "dot" (in blue)


For example:

john.jones@starfleet.nasa.gov

becomes

johndjonesastarfleetdnasadgov

If you want to send an e-mail to that person, you will have to un-mung the address by performing the reverse substitution.