Gravatars Can Leak Users Email Addresses - Should i complete my profile in SQLA?

[Former Member]

Gravatar service is being used here during registration process. And todays slashdot article says Gravatars Can Leak Users' Email Addresses, stopping me from updating my profile. Is it ok to update email address in my profile, what do you think?

[Former Member]

Tried to tag it as profile-registration, but new tag creation is restricted for new user.

[Breck_Carter]

Welcome aboard, unknown (google). Thanks for posting this question. I just edited your tags down to simply "faq" because (for the time being) we are using tags as general classifications, not search keywords. Plus, as I keep repeating, "this is not stackoverflow"... sqla is being run differently, and nobody needs to apologize for posting "meta" or "faq" questions... in other words, your question is not "off-topic" (one of the tags I zapped). The "philosophy" of sqla is discussed in several questions here, as well as several posts on sqlanywhere.blogspot.com.

[Breck_Carter]

BTW, if you decide to register, I can "merge" the points from your original user id into your new one.

[Breck_Carter · Accepted solution]

Here is my response to an email I got from unknown (google) yesterday, on this subject [with names edited for privacy]...

Thanks for your email!

The article about hacking email addresses on stackoverflow says this: "If a user named paul registers as john@some.domain then this approach doesn't work." In your case, there doesn't seem to be any obvious path from your actual names [Name] and [LongerName], and your email address "SomewhatScrambledName@BigNameEmailProvider.com"... so you may be safe.

And... what's the worst that can happen if someone discovers your email address? Some more spam? ...sometimes, spam can be FUN: http://centerconsole.blogspot.com/2009/12/united-state-fbi.html

Anyway, it's all up to you, there's no requirement to fill in your profile.

BTW if you want to post that link to the slashdot article on SQLA, go ahead! Other people may be interested.

Breck

[reimer_pods]

For registration purposes in most cases I use a "dirty mail" account, where I check messages for confirmation of my address. For "real" mail I have another account (with appropriate spam filtering).

So either way, I don't think an email address is such a confidential thing that I wouldn't want to use it here.

[Former Member]

You could simply replace the Gravatar image with another image of your choice.

Bonus marks for using someone else's Gravatar.