Questions about Privacy and the Cafe

[ThirdGeneration]

Bro. John-

Having read far too many Nancy Drew books; I have some questions that I am interested in learning the answers to.

I suspect others may also be interested in your answers, so I am posting this publically.

1. If we send a private message or email through the Cafe, is the recipiant the only person who can read it? In other words, do the moderators have access to such messages?

2. Do we leave a trail when we come to the Cafe? Can you look at yesterday and know what threads any particular poster was looking at, at what time?

3. When we answer polls: do you know who answered the polls and do you know how they answered them?

Enquiring minds want to know! :cool:

[searching]

I also don't believe the email thing works. I emailed ForeverBlessed about two weeks ago, and either the email doesn't work, or she's just ignoring me......LOL!

Me...

[ddc101]

Wow,
I get my emails.lv sis.c

[servant]

Third,
I have reason to believe that the moderators can see EVERYTHING that goes on on this board, which doesn't bother me 'cause I got nuthin' ta hide! I'm sure they will be discreet and confidential about what they know. ;)

Serv :)

[John Atkinson]

I will be forthright and honest in these answer, of course, how could I be anything less?

1. If we send a private message or email through the Cafe, is the recipiant the only person who can read it? In other words, do the moderators have access to such messages?

If you send a private message to another user it is indeed private, *BUT* the content of a message is stored in a database on the web server, if I really wanted to read it I could. The deal is I got better things to do than read your mail. The private messaging feature has to be turned on in your profile, you can turn it off.

Also, this data, which travels accross the internet is not encrypted, using ssl for a discussion board is just, well, a waste. So in theory it *COULD* be viewed by a third party, but then so can just about any email you send. Don't put credit card info in it :redcool:

2. Do we leave a trail when we come to the Cafe? Can you look at yesterday and know what threads any particular poster was looking at, at what time?

No, it doesn't record what thread you were looking at and when, however, I do have access to the IP number you connect from, from that I can get the city you are in and your internet service provider. Your ISP does log everywhere you visit. I do mean everywhere. This is how kid porm people get snagged and prosecuted, often ISP logs are used as evidence.

Every web site you visit captures this information. If you are REALLY concerned about online anonmity you need to use a SOCKS proxy to mask your IP, explaining that is beyond the scope of what I do here.

3. When we answer polls: do you know who answered the polls and do you know how they answered them?

I know who answered what in polls as there is a feature that tells me so in the admin backend. the deal is again, I don't care.


The real deal is you are not anonymous online. As far as GNC goes, I am the only one with access to the database and administrative backend. The moderators are limited in their access. Also we don't release any info on anyone to anyone else. i.e. if Goodshepherd contacted me asking for ThirdGen's email address the answer would be "No. sorry, we don't do that" (usernames used for example only)


There are ways to become anonymous, like buy this http://www.anonymizer.com/ or something similar. Using something like the aforementioned package doesn't mean you have something to hide, it just means you want privacy. Privacy could mean nothing more than masking yourself from hackers.

Internet privacy is a big concern, to have true privacy online requires a high degree of computer literacy, use of complicated encryption programs for email etc; etc.

The thing is though, with the millions of people online at any givin time, someone find you is like finding a needle in a stack of needles.

[Truthseeker]

Will my info be sent to the FBI or CIA? :)

[ThirdGeneration]

Bro. John states, "I will be forthright and honest in these answer, of course, how could I be anything less?"

Indeed, Bro. John, I do not believe that you could be anything less! :D

Thank you for your informative answer. I am sure that it was eye opening for some. :eek:

[foreverblessed]

Thank you Third for your enquiring mind! :bow:

So what happens to PM's when you have deleted them, are they gone forever or does administration still have access to deleted PM's?

I had been wondering why the emails that I have sent haven't been received by others. Is this feature ever going to work?

Searching, I haven't received an email from you. I am not ignoring you. Try foreverblessedx3@aol.com, or foreverblessedx3@yahoo.com. Both of these should reach me.

[John Atkinson]

Once you delete a private message it is gone forever. Actually I would prefer you delete them, saves space :D

As for the PMs not working, they seem to work for some and not for others. I have no Idea why as there is no commonality from which I can troubleshoot.

I nearly disabled the feature altogether. I will be upgrading the board from rev 2.2.9 to 2.3.0 in a few days, perhaps that will fix it.

Also 2.3.0 is an interim release, version 3.0 is in beta at the moment, It has some REALLY awsome features added! We will keep thgis updated as updates are released.

Once I get back from the AWCF conf. in May I will be purchasing another license for vBulletin to use on the Apostolic Youth forums. I will be promoting that as well.

[John Atkinson]

Bro Rob, my report to the FBI on you is nearly complete, anything you would like me to add?

:jk:

[accurate]

maybe we should all switch to usenet.. just kidding, they don't got all the neat avatars and stuff, and banning people would not be possible.

Bro. atkinson, why don't you just make the email's on the board visible? I think some are having a problem with sending email.

Also, if this is cgi.. i know the pain it can sometimes be, even to edit it the way you want it.. (I have no programming experience), lol

(update: also, this is only suggestion: dont feel like you have to do anything because I know you have a good reason why you have things setup the way they are. -- html in signatures or post would be nice)

[dllong]

And how about getting rid of that ANNOYING Popup when we enter the cafe'?

My pop-up-killer is able to stop it, but it is very annoying.

IMHO

Dave

[foreverblessed]

What popup?

[John Atkinson]

There is no pop-up associated with the cafe, what ever you are getting, it doesn't come from us. If you go through Apostolic.Net to get here there is an annoying popup there. I put it there apurpose.

UseNet- You are back to 10% of PC users being able to use it because, like IRC, requires a degree of literacy and learning that some folks don't want to fool with. Adn the fact that you can't enforce rules and usenet is the spam freindliest medium next to email. Once the spammers get the name of your news group you are done.

HTML in sigs and posts, nope-gives the users a level of control I don't want to give. I don't have people's email displayed by default because: Some of them may not want to communicate outside of this board with the people on it. It is a privacy thing. If I wasn't the admin of this thing, my email would be hidden.

It isn't cgi, it is PHP/MySQL. CGI boards are slow and kludgy, the old board was CGI.

On the email, I do have several cafe' user emails in the error logs of the server listed as "Unroutable mail domain". I will have to look into this, but don't have time right now.

All of my energies for the next month are going to have to be put into preparing for the AWCF conference as we have a booth there, so, as long as the basic functionality of the cafe is in place, i.e. everyone can post and read posts, any fluff items that aren't functioning are just going to have to wait. But I am considering some additions that everyone may like. I will start a poll on another thread.

God Bless!!

[searching]

I don't get a pop up either, although I get them with everything else.

Forever, can I just add you to my AOL and Yahoo buddy lists? And I knew you weren't ignoring me, that was my lame attempt at being funny.

Me...

[dllong]

I digress. I found out that the popup is associated with the Charter.net pass through server? Or something like that. I have written a formal complaint to the company.

I'll just pump up my popup killer.

Dave

[Goodshepherd]

I got my private mesages and as servant said, " I have nothing to hide." However, it would be nice to know the answers to Third's questions.

[John Atkinson]

They are all answered in this thread, did you miss them?

[Goodshepherd]

I guess so Bro. John........... I just saw it. I think I was surfing too late last night. .........I was really tired. lol

[John Atkinson]

Happens to the best of us :D

[foreverblessed]

Searching

Yes you can add me to your buddy list on AOL, I don't use the Yahoo one, although I guess I could. Take care