Saying 'Aye'

[Steve Ashton]

Elizabeth,

Please do not be concerned. No! the forum is not constantly accessing your home computer. Your photos will still appear even if your home computer is turned off or completely disconnected from the internet.

What I should have said is that many forums, like this one, use what is called the PHP/MySQL language. There are two parts. One is the forum that you see on your screen. This is the code that puts the wallpaper of our Tartan up, shows the little boxes and icons etc. But the actual image of our Tartan and all of the photos you see are actually stored in a place sort of like a big file cabinet. What you see on your screen are attachments and links to the actual images.

The image you upload is stored for display as needed but each image still contains the source code back to where the image originally came from.

If you would like to see an easy and safe example of how this all works upload a photo to any photo hosting site. Then post that photo to one of your posts. After a while go back and move that photo. Viola, all you will see on X Marks is a little icon saying that the photo is no longer available.

It is possible (and I stress possible) for a hacker, if they were able to gain access to our data, to follow the links back to your computer.

This is very unlikely and I don't think any hacker would be interested in my photos of my fish tank.

But could it be done? Sure.

This is why I changed the definition of PM on X Marks to mean "Personal Message" instead of "Private Message". Nothing on the web is ever 100% totally secure.

It requires the signature of a judge on a court order for the police to tap your telephone. But any hacker with a cell phone can listen in on any other cell phone call.

All I am trying to do is remind our members to treat the internet with due caution.

I would also caution everyone to have a dummy email in their address book. I use "0@00.com". If a scammer or hacker gains access to your machine the first thing they usually do is start sending spam to everyone in your address book. At least this way you will get an error message saying that your computer tried to send an email message to this dummy address and it was sent back as deliverable.

It is amazing how some people do not take even the most fundamental and basic care when they start up their computers. This is the main reason that there is so much junk mail on the internet. How do you think most spammers get your email address?

Some businesses actually sell the email addresses of everyone who buys something from them. Sometimes spammers set up entire computer banks that constantly surf the internet collecting every link and every piece of data they can find.

It is my responsibility to protect your data. Warning our members about posting links to your photos and/or personal information in a PM, thinking that it is 100% secure and safe, is one of the things I feel honor bound to do.