Privacy of Members on Physicsforums: What is Stored and Protected?

[gfd43tg]

I have a question regarding the privacy of the members of PF. I am wondering if our private messages are recoverable by admins or anyone else, as well as what exactly is being stored. If Greg was sent a subpoena for a member's private message history, would that be possible? Are the members being protected? Is there even an obligation to protect us?

Is there only a technological limiting reason for why IP Addresses are needed to register accounts and to log on? Would it be possible to not store that information? For us to post with only our Username and no IP address or anything else associated with us, unless of course choosing to reveal more on our profile page.

How much do the admins know about us??

Hopefully this doesn't come off as stark, I am just curious.

Thanks

 

[jtbell]

I've flagged this for attention from Greg. He's traveling at the moment, so there may be a delay in responding. In the meantime, any posts from non-admins speculating about our possible policy on these questions will be removed. Let's wait till we can get it from the "horse's mouth", so to speak.

(I assume you've seen the privacy policy which is linked at the bottom of every page here. It doesn't appear to mention private messages explicitly.)

 

[Evo]

Private messages are addressed in the forum guidelines.

Private Messages (PMs): If exclusively personal contact is needed, use the Private Message system. PMs are NOT to be used to seek assistance with homework assignments or textbook exercises--post such questions in the appropriate forum in our Homework & Coursework Questions area. The administrator reserves the right to, and can, view all private messages.

As far as how much is archived and for how long, that would be a question for Greg as to whether he wishes to answer.

 

[mfb]

Is there only a technological limiting reason for why IP Addresses are needed to register accounts and to log on?

All internet communication works via IP addresses. You cannot be in the internet without an IP address. Concerning storing that information:

Would it be possible to not store that information? For us to post with only our Username and no IP address or anything else associated with us, unless of course choosing to reveal more on our profile page.

It has a juristic reason. Forum owners do not want to be responsible for posts made by other members, so there has to be some (at least theoretical) way to say "he did that, not me".

See our https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=131804 :

IP addresses of users, derived either from those logs or from records in the database are frequently used to correlate usernames and network addresses of edits in investigating abuse of the site, including the suspected use of malicious "sockpuppets" (duplicate accounts), vandalism, harassment of other users, or disruption of the site.

Policy on release of data derived from page logs

It is the policy of Physicsforums.com that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs may be released by the staff in the following situations:

1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement
2. With permission of the affected user
3. To the owner of Physicsforums.com, his legal counsel, or his designee, when necessary for investigation of abuse complaints.
4. Where the information pertains to page views generated by a spider or bot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues.
5. Where the user has been vandalising the site or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to assist in the targeting of IP blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers
6. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the owner of Physicsforums.com, its users or the public.

Physicsforums.com policy does not permit public distribution of such information under any circumstances, except as described above.