Comment by fuzzy2

4 years ago

You're barking up the wrong tree. It's Git, and nothing else, that is to blame. Should GitHub stop being a Git host?

The problem is spammers harvesting emails. Git* makes harvesting emails ridiculously easy. Therefore some solutions are needed (e.g. using Github-assigned email address aliases instead of user-supplied email addresses).

  • Git hosting services cannot change the address on the actual commits, so trying to hide it on the web frontend is pretty pointless. You could always just clone the repo to get the addresses.

    It will always be up to the user to set it up in a way they want.

    Well I guess GitHub could refuse non-GitHub e-mail addresses when pushing, but let's seriously not go there.

    • > GitHub could refuse non-GitHub e-mail addresses when pushing

      This already exists as an option.

      GitHub does as much as they can to protect e-mail privacy without making it impossible to use an email.

That's just a convention in git. I always use fake emails in commits and nothing has happened to me.

  • Yes and no. No, it is not a convention. A commit must contain an e-mail address. That’s how the data structure is specified. Of course, whether you use an existing e-mail address or whatever is entirely up to you. I’m not sure if it needs to be RFC-compliant.

    Still, even a fake address will be visible to everyone.

    • Using something with the syntax of an email address is a requirement. Having that be a real, deliverable email address is a convention. If it's a fake address, then sure, spammers can see it, but spamming it is useless to them.