it's really easy to capture contacts this way. As Mathias said, they have to limit the view of the saved form to the one who sent it in the first place... and add an expiration for deleting such data.
So what's missing ? an ID for knowing the first sender, a timestamp, a checking process and a garbage collector to delete the expired ones periodically ? Ok, we don't add a column so easily in the big DB table here, but they can add a sister table with both IDs, the timestamp and a "IsActive" boolean... and start filling the new table with no reference ID, so only the timestamp works for the existed ones. the system will repair itself at the end of the expiration date.
Minor correction: it was “d4d1a179c0f3” who reported and suggested that solution, not me (although I agree with their proposal). I’m just the guy who posted this on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mathias/status/452714683628527616) and Hacker News.
So what's missing ? an ID for knowing the first sender, a timestamp, a checking process and a garbage collector to delete the expired ones periodically ? Ok, we don't add a column so easily in the big DB table here, but they can add a sister table with both IDs, the timestamp and a "IsActive" boolean... and start filling the new table with no reference ID, so only the timestamp works for the existed ones. the system will repair itself at the end of the expiration date.