Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 09:31:41 -0400 From: Ernie Luzar <luzar722@gmail.com> To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: email address being harvested from ports website Message-ID: <5527D0BD.8060401@gmail.com>
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Hello list; I maintain 4 ports and within the last 6 months I have started receiving large amounts of spam on the ports maintainer email address. Last week I went through the process of changing the maintainers email addresses and within 3 days I started receiving spam on the new email addresses. The http://www.freebsd.org/ports/ website is being harvested for email addresses. We all have personally experienced spam email. Now the volunteers who create and maintain the ports in the Freebsd ports collection are being targeted with spam. In todays world of spam emails containing payloads of bots, viruses and mullware, I think its past time for www.freebsd.org/ports/ to stop displaying any email address at all. I release this is only a simple solution targeted at the script kiddies. Any seriously harvester could always download the complete ports tree source and harvest the maintainer email address from the ports Makefile. To address this problem in a way to make it totally go away, a new way of handling the ports maintainers email address in the ports system is fast becoming a priority. Separation of the maintainers email address from the ports Makefile is the ultimate solution. People on the ports team who know the behind scenes workings of the port system are far better suited to develop a new method of accomplishing this. Lets look at this in a different way. I believe that email address are consitered as private personal information and covered under the privacy information U.S. law which says they can not be exposed to the public. This post is intended to generate discussion and shine light on what may be a legal oversight by the ports team. Thank you in advance for you interest and comments.
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