[boost] Virus defense

From: scleary_at_[hidden]
Date: 2003-08-21 13:36:52

Hello, Boosters -

I am sure that many of you have received many e-mails from the
W32.Sobig.F_at_mm
(http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[e-mail]
) e-mail virus.

The problem with this virus is that it will spread itself to e-mail
addresses - not just from Outlook's address book - but to any addresses it
finds in the user's files.  e.g., HTML files on the user's hard drive.
e.g., HTML files that are part of the Boost distribution.

I think you see where I'm going.  As Boost developers, many of us currently
have our e-mail addresses in cleartext spread throughout many, many user's
systems.  This particular virus also has connection with spamming systems.
There's no technical reason why other virii and spammers can't behave in a
similar way.

I recommend that we remove (or munge) all e-mail addresses in the Boost
distribution.  I know that I for one will be putting CVS changes in ASAP.

I further recommend that we discourage future developers from making the
same mistake.

The following simple script reveals 138 e-mail addresses affected in this
way (it also picks up on pserver: anonymous connections, since they look
like e-mail addresses):
  grep -EIhor --exclude=*.pdf
[a-zA-Z0-9_+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9_+-]+\\.[a-zA-Z0-9_+-]+\(\\.[a-zA-Z0-9_+-]+\)*
boost | sort | uniq

(run from the parent directory of your boost distribution)

        -Steve