TRAI Just Made 1 Million+ Net Neutrality Emails Public, Unintentionally Helping Spammers

Brace yourself. Take a deep breath and be prepared to get a lot of spam, unsolicited calls and marketing trash in the coming days.

Why and how, you ask? Then here’s the answer:

In a not-so-smart move, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) just released a list of 1 million email addresses which it received supporting net neutrality

So if you’ve sent your response to TRAI supporting net neutrality, your data is now public. And it means it’s a free database for spammers, hackers and unsolicited marketers.

 

TRAI could have easily protected personal information by masking out certain letters with asterisks (*) maybe. And this isn’t even the first time TRAI made a blunder

This isn’t the first time for TRAI. Earlier, NDNC databases obtained from it were a rich source of verified usernames to spam with.

— Prasanto K Roy (@prasanto) April 27, 2015

 

And if you think it’s no big deal, think again

This bears reiterating–not just your mail ID, if your mail to #TRAI has a signature containing phone no, address etc, that’s out there too.

— Marco Angelo D’Souza (@marcodsouza) April 27, 2015

 

Well done, TRAI…if you need any help, do let us know

Just TRAI things… pic.twitter.com/Ttf2nVdBjM

— Harshad Sharma (@hiway) April 27, 2015

We’ll forget & forgive if you move in the right direction, TRAI. Just #SaveTheInternet.

News source: Times of India & Indian Express