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Privacy
vanderaj - February 18th, 2004 at 01:11 PM

Executive Summary

This place is a public forum, and everything is out in the open or else you wouldn't be here. You control what you post publicly, and control the amount of data you make available to the public. The software hides your e-mail address, but not your chat client details.

Administratively, we record some additional stuff in various logs, but are too lazy to use it except for when we run out of disk space or bandwidth.

(Except for me), we can't access your U2U's but that doesn't mean they're private - security bugs might exist, and members can forward your messages to others. I don't have time or the inclination or the lack of ethics to read your U2U's as I have a hard enough time reading my own let alone yours.

Information the forum software collects about you

Any personal information we have about you is up in your profile (Click on "UserCP -> Edit Profile and Options). You can enter as little or as much as you like. We like to see your location particularly if you buy and sell a lot, but beyond that, the rest is up to you.

The forum collects usage information in various logs when you use the system. This ranges from your IP address when you post (see the IP button on each post), to web access logs when you do anything with our site, which also collects things like your browser type and referrer information if you have any set. Some privacy software strips these last two out, but that's okay, I don't bother with it much.

When you post to the forum, your posts are public. Google and all the other search engines can index them, so don't say something you'd prefer your Mum not to know. However, there are two private forums (Bad Attitude and Moderator's Paradise), and these are not generally reachable.

U2U's, a close cousin to e-mail but contained solely within this forum, is considered private by many, but it's not really that private. So be careful of what you say to others, and only keep in your inbox / outbox stuff you wouldn't mind seeing on the front page of the Age.

How we use this information

* Forum posts - everyone can see.
* Your e-mail address is protected by this software unless you write it into a post
* Your chat addresses and blog details may expose your e-mail address (eg MSN)
* U2U's - generally only the sender and receiver can see

What the staff can do

There are three categories of staff on this forum:

* (super) moderators
* super administrators
* me. I'm special.

Moderators (of all types) are just normal members, and can only:

* moderators can edit, move, delete any post only in "their" forums
* super moderators can do this to any post or thread in all forums

Most moderators are super moderators.

Super administrators (Jim, Brad, Me, a few others) can do pretty much everything, except read people's u2u's. That function was removed back in 2004. It has never been used.

Me. I am a special case as I'm the system administrator. It's my job here to look after the place from a technical point of view. My duties are behind the scenes and include:



The ISP also has full access like me, but they have thousands of customers and probably have far better things to do than drop in one one of their customers.

Web logs

There are two ways to see the web logs - statistically via a log analysis web program, and in raw format. I use the analysis program to determine if anything is a space or bandwidth hog. I don't care about the rest and it's not that useful. From your privacy point of view, your info doesn't make it into the logs as no one makes it into the Top 50 pages on this site.

No one has ever bothered with the raw logs. I've never looked at them this way, as it's a waste of my time and it's too unrefined to be useful.

Database

All of this site is stored in a big ol' database, which is simply a structured file, upon which the software (and me) can make queries, inserts, updates and deletes. When we were having data corruption issues, I've dealt with the data that represents this site in that very raw form as it is necessary from time to time.

I also use that very raw form when it's time to do backups. Without backups, we would be stuffed if our hoster really screwed up.

Theoretically, it's possible to view U2U's (and all data!) through this method, but it's really very painful to do so. It really is quite arcane.

Code of Ethics

My personal set of ethics prevents me from accessing your data improperly, and when I do have to access it, I keep it confidential. I used to be the President of SAGE-AU, the System Administrator's Guild of Australia, and even though I'm not a current member (it's not what I do professionally any longer), I still abide by their code of ethics, which is available here:

http://www.sage-au.org.au/ethics.html 

Any of you who use e-mail or Messenger products have system administrators looking after your interests and protecting your privacy, even though, they too can read all your e-mail or read your most "private" of communications. There is no difference here, and no conspiracy or secret cabal.

Encryption

This site does not use SSL (like your bank does with Internet Banking) as the value of the data is *different* - it's a public discussion forum. not a transactional system worth billions of dollars.

Therefore, do not use a logon or password you use elsewhere that you actually care about. This is not to say that we don't take care with them - the passwords in the database are transformed using MD5, so no one can see them, but still please don't use a really sensitive password as it travels across the Internet in the clear. The Internet is not a private medium, never has been, never will be. That's why SSL is in place for things that should be protected.

Legislation

We don't earn any money from this site. I make every effort to comply with all applicable laws, such as the Privacy Act and the National Privacy Principles as I believe in them.

thanks,
Andrew

[ Edited on 5-7-2006 by vanderaj ]

[ Edited on 5-7-2006 by vanderaj ]

Cam - February 18th, 2004 at 01:30 PM

You're doing a top job Andrew :thumb

splitbusaustralia - February 18th, 2004 at 02:02 PM

Oh, I dunno. I reckon I could do all that
stuff after a few years training...

I probably would have a problem picking up the karmic philosophical outlook though - so I still wouldn't be any good at the job!

RobK

lugnuts - February 18th, 2004 at 02:29 PM

I dunno what your doin Andrew but keep it up,we're all countin on you :D:thumb:P

fatboy - February 18th, 2004 at 02:35 PM

"me - I am a sort of special case"

Andrew - you cant feed me lines like that :P

IMHO your doing a top job

Thanks

fatboy - February 18th, 2004 at 02:39 PM

Just a thought - is it wise having that first pic with the ip's in ?
(even though you show an internal one ?).

It may be a risk to the others if they have static

Brad - February 18th, 2004 at 02:47 PM

Yep I agree you do the niggly stuff cause I think that sucks :D

I have access to a heap of other stuff not listed above but who really cares as it doesn't affect anything.

I also think you are doing a Top Job ....

Now what did you do with our banners ??

vw54 - February 18th, 2004 at 04:57 PM

Andrew Well said

bugboymatt - February 18th, 2004 at 06:40 PM

Thankyou to you and all the others that run and keep this place going.

:D

vanderaj - February 18th, 2004 at 08:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by fatboy
Just a thought - is it wise having that first pic with the ip's in ?
(even though you show an internal one ?).

It may be a risk to the others if they have static


It's a risk to be on the Internet. Advertising the IP addresses is no more risky than not. If you have static IP addresses, this shows up in the IP button anyway for every post you do.

In fact, looking at the logs, it's actually getting my proxy server's internal IP address (127.0.0.1) or my pre-natted address (192.168.0.54) for REMOTE_HOST rather than looking at the correct PROXY_VIA header.

Oh well. Still keeps details of the administrative functions used by whom and when, which is the important thing.

Andrew

VWFOOL - February 19th, 2004 at 05:47 PM

andrew, u hav always made the time to hav a quik msn chat late at night and answer my questions and i thank u for that, ur doing a great job and we all appreicate it im sure...:thumb

Midlife crisis - February 27th, 2004 at 07:01 PM

I think you all are doing a great job

Thanks

Marc & Kathy

68AutoBug - March 10th, 2004 at 10:44 AM

Andrew
You are doing a great Job, something I couldn't do... or understand.... ever...
regards

Lee

ootimoo - March 8th, 2006 at 02:33 PM

wow

vanderaj - July 6th, 2006 at 02:29 AM

Updated the privacy details to reflect UltimaBB and recent changes.

thanks,
Andrew

MickH - March 14th, 2009 at 10:24 PM

Cool....when are you going to update your location???? LOL

ExitBit - September 18th, 2010 at 08:54 PM

Fair play! Great sight, good info, and quality members. And based on the first post - awsome Admin!

Andrew, really appreciate your efforts.