libuv / libuv/ci-tmp-libuv-node

AUTHORS File Used for SPAM and Scam

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Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
9
Forks
8
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

It seems the email addresses in the AUTHORS file are being scraped and used in an apparent scam. Below is the full text from the SPAM email:

How are you.
I am Jessica, from United States,
I'm working with United Nation military team, 
I'm a single woman,
I came across your email Id in this website 
(https://github.com/libuv/ci-tmp-libuv-node/blob/master/AUTHORS) 
i decided to get in touch with you for true friendship,
It will be a great honor to be friends and share ideas with you.
I'll send you my picture and I'll tell you more about myself,
I'm waiting, 
Best regard Jessica.

What are peoples thoughts on using obfuscation techniques like images of email address or other types of techniques to help curb this type of problem? I am aware it won't stop someone dedicated enough that wants to scrape email addresses, but it could reduce occurrences.

My thoughts are something like this:

cat AUTHORS | convert -background none -density 196 -resample 72 -unsharp 0x.5 -font "CourierNew" text:- -trim +repage -bordercolor white -border 0 email-address-image.gif

Which would yield:
email-address-image

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Review the AUTHORS file and the reported scam text, then consider the proposed email-address image approach and its effect on usability. Done would mean agreeing on a concrete way to protect the listed addresses and documenting or applying that decision in the repository.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
documentation
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
20/100

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