Re: On the protection of emails in the archives

[Kyle Meyer]

Guillaume MULLER writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I recently sent an email on this mailing list (see
> https://orgmode.org/list/b1e778c5-acbf-8a17-c9bf-dcb6693e9845@univ-st-etienne.fr/
> )
>
> Since then, I'm receiving spams on the email address I used to send
> the message.
>
> After some research, it seems that this email address only appears on
> 2 websites, notably this orgmode.org mailing list archive.

Your email address can also be harvested from the lists.gnu.org
archives.  Inspect the output of

  $ curl -fSsL 
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2020-07/msg00125.html
  $ curl -fSsL https://lists.gnu.org/archive/mbox/emacs-orgmode/2020-07

> Would it be possible to configure the archive to obfuscate / hide the
> email addresses inorder to protect its users?

<https://orgmode.org/list> and its upstream source
<https://yhetil.org/orgmode> are public-inbox
(<https://public-inbox.org/>) archives.  There's an option (disabled by
default) to configure address obfuscation.  However, in my view email
obfuscation is giving you a false sense of security.  Ignoring other
ways spammers get your address, you're posting to a public space, and
your address can be harvested (and, as shown above, not just from these
public-inbox archives).

And this isn't something specific to Org mode's archives.  Just as some
examples, take a look at <https://lore.kernel.org/git/>,
<https://issues.guix.gnu.org/>,
<https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/sr.ht-discuss/>, or
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2021-04/msg00285.html>.

Anyway, that being said and despite my opinion on this, I'm considering
turning on obfuscation at <https://orgmode.org/list> and
<https://yhetil.org/orgmode>.  There's at least one issue that'd need to
be fixed before doing so though:
<https://public-inbox.org/meta/87a6q8p5qa.fsf@kyleam.com/>.