[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #14682: Privacy leakage: gravatars leak identity information

[WordPress Trac]

#14682: Privacy leakage: gravatars leak identity information
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 Reporter:  jmdh             |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  defect (bug)     |      Status:  reopened
 Priority:  normal           |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Privacy          |     Version:  3.0
 Severity:  normal           |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  privacy-roadmap  |     Focuses:
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Comment (by pputzer):

 Ways to fix this without replacing Gravatar with another user avatar
 system:
 * Cache the Gravatar response and serve the images from the local server.
 * This also improves performance (at least on HTTP/2), because no other
 connection needs to be opened.
 * The public URLs of the cached images should use a more secure algorithm
 than MD5 (like SHA256) and a site-specific salt.

 Doing this will leave only the lesser issue of always disclosing the
 hashed email address to Gravatar.com, possibly without their consent
 (especially if they don't even have a Gravatar account). Fixing this as
 well requires the addition of a checkbox, and an alternate way to create
 non-static default avatars. (Not technically hard, because all the dynamic
 default images available in Gravatar were once standalone WordPress
 plugins.)

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/14682#comment:45>
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