Feuerfest

Someone I follow on LinkedIn announced a webinar regarding OPNsense and a paid plugin. As I currently use OPNsense a little in my home lab, I was mildly interested. Unfortunately, the webinar was scheduled to take place during a customer meeting. When I asked about a recording of the webinar, I was told that:

"Yes, there will be a recording. The link will be send to all participants after the meeting. So just register and you are fine."

Cool, I thought.

Yeah but mandatory fields are:

• Full name
• Phone number
• Mail address
• Company
• Position
• Country
• Postcode

I know that this is for gathering contacts, or 'leads' in sales terms. After all, it's a paid OPNsense plugin. I am also familiar with services such as "Frank geht ran" (Frank takes the call), which is operated by the data privacy NGO Digital Courage. They provide two numbers: One is a mobile number and the other is a landline number. If you call, a recorded message informs the caller that the person they are calling does not wish to receive any more telephone calls.

But... I just couldn't be bothered. I could have provided a disposable email address with a fake company name and a "Frank geht ran" phone number. Or I could have saved myself all the trouble and ignored it. Which is what I did.