email addresses of forum members show in feed

system · 2006-10-09T05:47:41.000Z

Thought I would drop in and let you guys know that anyone pulling the feed for the forum can see your email addresses next to the posts in the feed if you have it set in your profile to allow your email address to be viewed.

tis not a good idea, and thought you would like to know. Spammers find all kinds of ways to get your addys

system · 2006-10-09T07:31:53.000Z

Good information to know connie. Thanks for the heads up on this one. Fortunately I had this already hidden in my profile. Don’t need any more spam than I already receive.

DavidR · 2006-10-09T13:10:10.000Z

They can already do that in the normal html delivery, just that you can’t see the email address, just hover the mouse pointer over the email icon in a members info and a tooltip will display the email address. This is available to any bot that trawls the forum pages looking for email addresses.

So no difference just that it is visible in the feeds, but the phicisical email address is in the code of the page.

system · 2006-10-09T14:10:40.000Z

Funny. Tried to open this page as guest - I see no emails. Tried to get raw xml with the news - no emails.

I don’t use any RSS reader to verify it in a better way.

Lisandro · 2006-10-09T15:03:45.000Z

Connie, can you compare your experience with Kubecj’s one?
Are you sure there is a way to disclose the email address from forums?

system · 2006-10-09T15:45:31.000Z

Tech post:5:

Connie, can you compare your experience with Kubecj’s one?
Are you sure there is a way to disclose the email address from forums?

Tech hi

Yes I am positive. I wouldnt come here to let you know otherwise I’ll do a screenshot of my feed and email it to Alwil to kubecj so they can see what I am referring to. There is some talk about it at Simplemachines Forum. I “believe” but am not positive there is a way they “Alwil that is” can fix this, but they will have to go read thru the thread there and find where they are discussing this matter. It is not something in the normal settings. UNLESS they disable feeds completely and they can do that in their admin panel. It is obviously enabled, as I can pull it.

The only emails that do show are mine (it will show your own to you) and anyone who has their email set to be viewable in their profile. No one elses will show up.

I’ll get kubecj’s address now, get the feed and email it to him so he can see… will find the thread at simplemachines too.

system · 2006-10-09T15:50:38.000Z

btw there is another little thing that happens with feeds (it is not so far as I can see occuring from this forum). If it was I would have emailed Alwil privately to let them know

If an SMF forum has a board setup that is not viewable to guests and most members. Let’s say it is only available to a few “groups” But invisible to all others. You will see the messages in that feed even IF the feed is setup so that it is to only show certain boards. This is suppossed to work by permissions and cookies but it does NOT work well at all. You can tell the feed to pull specific boards but you can NOT tell it to deny specific boards.

i.e. the boards you think the public can not see - they can

system · 2006-10-09T16:06:46.000Z

kubecj - see if this will help you. http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=25009.msg731684#msg731684 If not there is a ton of information there to weed through and I cannot remember exactly where I did see it the other day when doing some research over there, sorry.

I have the screenshot for you, and highlighted where the addresses show so you don’t have to look too hard. Will email it as soon as I can find your address

system · 2006-10-09T16:36:36.000Z

email sent… and as I said in the email Ive cleared cache, deleted cookies, closed and reopened browser (tested in IE and Firefox) and it does the same in both. I tested this on 3 other forums that I have never entered, did not enter the forums threads and am able to see the addresses of the members in the feed (only those that are set as viewable in there profiles)

David, yes it is hardcoded into the page and this would be why they are viewable. But, it is only there for those (and I know Im repeating myself) who have it set as viewable in their profiles.

Gotta run… hope this has helped

Lisandro · 2006-10-10T00:58:29.000Z

I’m really disapointed with the possibility of having my email address disclosed :‘(
Maybe this is the reason of increased spam from one year ago to now :-\ :’(

Kubecj, can’t you encript this info?

Lisandro · 2006-10-10T01:05:31.000Z

I’ve received the following info:

So long as you have it set in your profile not to show your email address it does not show up in the feed at all. You'll be fine... so not to worry :)

I’m happy to know this 8)

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