[R] UNSOLITED E_MAILS: Integrate R data-analysis projects wi

[Doran, Harold]

Can a CAPTCHA be implemented as a prevenative measure 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org 
> [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of 
> Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk
> Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 7:33 AM
> To: Gorden T Jemwa
> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] UNSOLITED E_MAILS: Integrate R data-analysis 
> projects wi
> 
> On 18-Mar-08 12:08:44, Gorden T Jemwa wrote:
> > Dear R Admins,
> > 
> > I received an unsolicited e-mail from BlueInference as an R 
> user. Does 
> > it mean that R that our e-mails (and  names) is sharing it's user 
> > database with third parties without our consent? Or perhaps the 
> > BlueInference guys are using an e-mail address miner to get our 
> > contact details?
> > [SNIP]
> > Dear Gorden Jemwa,
> > 
> > As a fellow R user, I am sure you agree with me that R is a 
> dear gift 
> > from the R-project community that should enjoy broad use.
> > [...]
> > Ben Hinchliffe
> > Inference Evangelist
> > BlueReference, Inc.
> > ben.hinchliffe at bluereference.com
> 
> It would not be difficult to mine a database of email 
> addresses from the R-help archives. Each month's postings can 
> be downloaded as a .gz file. Each posting in the resulting 
> unzipped .txt file has a line of the form
> 
>   From: user.name at email.domain
> 
> and all that's then needed is to replace " at " with "@", and 
> you have the email address.
> 
> On a Unix system, a quick 'grep | sed' would do the job in a second!
> 
> In this case, the spam was clearly carefully targeted at R 
> users, so quite possibly they took a bit more trouble over it 
> (to the point of extracting full names as well).
> 
> I can't see the R people deliberately sharing their database, 
> and the list of subscribed email addresses is accessible only 
> to the list owners. So it seems much more likely that the 
> publicly readable archives have been mined along the lines I 
> suggest above.
> 
> Best wishes,
> Ted.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
> Date: 18-Mar-08                                       Time: 12:32:30
> ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>