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Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

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Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#121

Post by sheept »

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #41
AznHisoka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I am missing something, but can’t you simply not show the email address in a git commit? (Sincere question, not saying this is trivial. i am dumb and like to ask dumb questions even if might be embarassing) If someone wants to message someone, it goes through github notifications or github emails them Also banning an account doesnt seem like a heavy punishment, given they can simply move to gitlab, bitbucket et…

That would be a fundamental change to how Git works, not just GitHub. Even if the web UI didn't show it, a simple `git log` would reveal it. You can mask your email address in git commits but a lot of open source projects won't accept that. And some pseudo-open-source ones insist on sending you an email to authenticate before they'll give you access to the GitHub repo (looking at you Unreal Engine!) So, no, I don't t…

fyi, you can also see the author email by appending ".patch" to the end of a commit URL

Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#122

Post by progbits »

dewey wrote: post #18

This happens all the time, not really surprised as the GitHub API makes it pretty easy to extract valuable leads with real and confirmed email addresses.

I don't like this way of putting it, it's good the github API makes this easy as that makes it an useful. Should not try to imply this should be restricted just because of some bad actors. It's just going to annoy legit users and the bad ones will scrape anyway.

Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#123

Post by observationist »

martinwoodward wrote: post #31

Martin from GitHub here. This type of behaviour is explicitly against the GitHub terms of service, when we catch the accounts doing this we can (and do) take action against those accounts including banning the accounts. It's a game of whack-a-mole for sure, and it's not just start-ups that take part in this sketchy behaviour to be honest. I've been plenty of examples in my time across the board. The fundamental natur…

Hey, Martin - https://github.com/lucidrains

Mind fixing lucidrains account? Something happened without notice or recourse. He's one of, if not the most well known open source AI researchers on the planet, with implementations and explanations of papers and ideas that are wonderful. If you could bring some sanity to that situation and take it out of whatever kafkaesque account purgatory it fell into, you'd be doing the work of angels.

Thanks!

Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#124

Post by 6thbit »

I wish github could ammend the email of my commits to the private noreply address during push so they _never_ have any other email associated to them. May not be feasible due to the commit changing, confusing local branch and such?

They have this other thing where they reject pushes for the 'known' emails you've told them you have, but kinda seems there should be a setting to do that for any email that is not your noreply private one. is that a feasible thing to ask for?

Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#125

Post by edelbitter »

lordgrenville wrote: post #55

Maybe a dumb question, but isn't this trivially solved with this .gitconfig? [user] name = lordgrenville email = +lordgrenville@users.noreply.github.com

For commits you author.

Kernel guidelines now have a more verbose section about tagging: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/submitting-pa...

Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#126

Post by moomoo11 »

martinwoodward wrote: post #31

Martin from GitHub here. This type of behaviour is explicitly against the GitHub terms of service, when we catch the accounts doing this we can (and do) take action against those accounts including banning the accounts. It's a game of whack-a-mole for sure, and it's not just start-ups that take part in this sketchy behaviour to be honest. I've been plenty of examples in my time across the board. The fundamental natur…

Ban them. Honestly I get the same and it is beyond frustrating.

I will pay more for GitHub if you go hard on these mfs.

Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#127

Post by ignoramous »

cyann wrote: post #88

Got this spam today on my GitHub address, YC affiliated: From: henry@joincactuscompute.com Hey, I hope all is well with you, just reaching out as you seem to be interested in on-device speech models. Cactus is a low-latency AI engine for consumer devices like phones, Macs, wearables, Raspberry Pis, etc. We support transcription models like Whisper & Parakeet, benchmarks available in the attached GitHub repo. GitHub:…

> star if feeling generous ... Thanks a million

A 419 scam?

Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#128

Post by davnn »

observationist wrote: post #123
martinwoodward wrote: post #31

Martin from GitHub here. This type of behaviour is explicitly against the GitHub terms of service, when we catch the accounts doing this we can (and do) take action against those accounts including banning the accounts. It's a game of whack-a-mole for sure, and it's not just start-ups that take part in this sketchy behaviour to be honest. I've been plenty of examples in my time across the board. The fundamental natur…

Hey, Martin - https://github.com/lucidrains Mind fixing lucidrains account? Something happened without notice or recourse. He's one of, if not the most well known open source AI researchers on the planet, with implementations and explanations of papers and ideas that are wonderful. If you could bring some sanity to that situation and take it out of whatever kafkaesque account purgatory it fell into, you'd be doing th…

What was happening with this account? I was often seeing popular but empty (only title of the paper and maybe a short readme) repositories that were created directly after a paper was published?

Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#129

Post by mbesto »

WhatsName wrote: post #29

Doesn't YC have some code of conduct or legal/ethical guidelines? I would assume a legal and compliance department would have some major headache if documented cases of misconduct jeopardize later due diligence. I would not fund or aquire a company on the radar of national regulatory bodies for something as stupid as this.

> Doesn't YC have some code of conduct or legal/ethical guidelines?

Sorry but lol you must be new here.

Re: Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users

#130

Post by drcongo »

john_strinlai wrote: post #118
laserlight wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Providing a negative reference is totally different than gathering negative references and selling them. The former could be legal while the latter could be illegal.

for sure! in my comment, i was speaking more generally than i should have, and that (obviously, in hindsight) caused some confusion between the specific case of the hypothetical company, and the general case of an employer providing a negative reference. my bad -- and it is too late to edit to provide clarification.

No problem, I wasn't very clear either! I remember someone I know looking into this in the early 2000s as part of a wider collective thing. It's long enough ago that I can't remember the details but it was definitely less about a poor reference and more about the individuals' being on a list somewhere without having even applied for a job. And come to think of it, it's probably even more illegal now because of GDPR.
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