security

[offtheradar]

How secure is this site? Can I be tracked by making posts? Have authorities ever tried to make this site give out I.P.s or anything like that?

offtheradar Reviewed by offtheradar on 07-13-2005. security How secure is this site? Can I be tracked by making posts? Have authorities ever tried to make this site give out I.P.s or anything like that? Rating: 5

[Beeblebrox.420]

To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever been busted as a direct result of posting here. A few people who post here have been busted (and told us about it at great length), but the two things have thus far been unrelated, and usually the legal trouble is due to user error, if you catch my meaning.

[Cannabis.com]

Most often people who experience trouble with the law authorities in regards to cannabis, etc do so after making personal contact via Email, IM, Phone, etc; blabbing about their activities to friends, relatives, etc...

Blabbing to friends/family and/or due to nosy neighbors is how many folks engaged in questionable activity run into "problems" ...

In regards to security - most all website / posting activity IS logged - the reason is that the alternative could lead to our sites being forced off-line ... our experiences when we experimented with a no logging policy over the years is that abuse quickly became a much greater problem; increased liability - without logs, the authorities will typically operate under the assumption that all content originated from the website operators themselves until shown otherwise; in effect, we'd be presumed guilty until shown otherwise - not maintaining logs is a very risky move for website operators, and thus we maintain logs...

With that said, most logs are cycled out after a few weeks ... but we have no stated policy on log retention; some are maintained indefinitely due to various technical and operational reasons.

With all that said, to be clear, we have never been forced to release any logs/IPs to law enforcement...

And it's unlikely we will be forced to in the future, since most often the law authorities obtain the information/evidence they're looking for from one-on-one contact, such as through Email, IM, Phone, Meeting in Person, etc.

Finally, everything one does on the net is trackable; the logs of one's ISP will tend to mirror the logs maintained by the websites, etc they have visited - use of anonymizers, etc can help, but don't count on much real security using them - many anonymizers have gapping holes/limitations; infiltrated by the government; all network access points (NAPs) through which most internet data travels are tapped - if the authorities are seeking out a particular person(s), they will most always be successful; governments have vast resources at their disposal way beyond what any individual, group, or even large company has ... one needs to use some common sense and not let the paranoia get the best of them

Ron