= Live Admin Panel Demo = [3.0.4]

[Black Antitoon]

Ok, so the point is that some people don't like disclosing it. My point is that people should not really worry about that, since it's quite easy to obtain anyway, but this is just my idea, and nothing more.

[Techie-Micheal]

Ok, so the point is that some people don't like disclosing it. My point is that people should not really worry about that, since it's quite easy to obtain anyway, but this is just my idea, and nothing more.

People shouldn't worry about it? So that's why Tor exists from the EFF, a group that is there to protect privacy. Now, you can say "then people should use proxies." Sure, but not everybody knows how. And not everybody thinks that the world should be able to view their IP address in the first place.

[Black Antitoon]

Tor is really slow, I would be suprised to hear that somebody uses it for his/her normal browsing. I think it's more intended to cover your a** when you browse some kind of sites...

but not everybody knows how.

People who want to administer a board should know.

And not everybody thinks that the world should be able to view their IP address in the first place.

Then don't register here.



I am writing all this because I don't understand your real point. Should this demo be taken off just because some people, who voluntarily register, will have their IP disclosed to other users? If you don't want to take the risk, install a demo yourself on localhost, but let the others try this.

[Techie-Micheal]

Tor is really slow, I would be suprised to hear that somebody uses it for his/her normal browsing. I think it's more intended to cover your a** when you browse some kind of sites...

When did I ever suggest what people should and should not be using proxies for?

but not everybody knows how.

People who want to administer a board should know.

All board administrators should know how to install and configure a proxy tool? Interesting.

And not everybody thinks that the world should be able to view their IP address in the first place.

Then don't register here.

I don't plan to. How about a notice alerting users to these facts that I've pointed out?

I am writing all this because I don't understand your real point. Should this demo be taken off just because some people, who voluntarily register, will have their IP disclosed to other users? If you don't want to take the risk, install a demo yourself on localhost, but let the others try this.

If you don't understand my point, then go back and reread my posts. It is clear as day.

[Black Antitoon]

When did I ever suggest what people should and should not be using proxies for?

Never. Probably you didn't get my point.

it's just that everyone who signs up gets an admin account (well, that is the general idea) and there's nothing stopping anyone from going around and deleting everything.

Are you sure that's a good idea? Email addresses, IP addresses, plenty of fun to be had.

Here you are implicitely (correct spelling? ) stating that providing everybody with an admin account may not be a good idea. Since this is, as the title of the topic states, a Live Admin Panel Demo, not a generic test board, changing this would in fact mean taking off the demo. If I am still too stupid to miss the point, then please explain me. Otherwise I'll go on thinking that you were either suggesting to take off the demo or just criticizing without suggesting a solution.

All your following posts were about how bad - or at least unpleasant - was disclosing your IP, and that's the reason why TOR and proxies exist. You said you suggest putting a notice, which IMO is indeed a good idea, only in this last post. Before, you have only criticized the weaknesses of this demo, which are almost impossible to fix if you really want to allow people to test the demo as administrators, and not as "enhanced moderators". I have kept replying to you each time, but it seems that I since I do not agree with you, I must certainly have missed "the point".

All board administrators should know how to install and configure a proxy tool? Interesting.

No. Please go back and read again.
I said that all board administrators should be able to use a proxy, not a proxy tool, which is as easy as googling "free proxies", opening Firefox (or even IE) preferences, clicking "connection settings" and copy-pasting a random IP from the list there, and repeating the process until you find one that works. If you can't do that, how will you be able to understand the concept of IP banning, and why this can't be a ultimate solution if people use proxies, for example? You don't need to be a php developer, but such basic knowledges are important. If you don't have them and want to run a board, then don't cry if you can't get rid of a spammer, or if you can't stop a spammer without banning other users too.
For God's sake, unexperienced people are welcome too, and the support forum here is open for everyone, everybody has been a "noob" at first, and this is just my personal opinion. But it is supported by the fact that all boards I am registered to have at least one experienced person among the admins. I have yet to see a single board run by an unexperienced admin (alone) go far.
Sorry for this off-topic, this topic would deserve its own topic ( ).

[ToonArmy]

The crux of what Micheal is trying to say is, people are signing up and performing actions etc. But as anybody can sign up anybody can view the email addresses and IP addresses associated with other accounts, sure on a board with only a few administrators this is fine but not really a good idea when the information is essentially there for anyone to look at.

[Black Antitoon]

This is nothing new and was clear from his first post. But he forgot to suggest a way to fix that. Criticism is useless if it does not come together with a suggestion. My feeling was that he was suggesting that the demo should be taken off.

By the way, I think that there is no way to fix that. It's a risk you have to take if you want to run an admin demo. Adding a notice reminding that e-mails and IPs are logged and public is fine, but little more can be done. Hiding all IPs would mean setting several limitations to admins, which would not be able to test everything. They should be denied the permission to view logs, to manage users (they see registration IP), to view post details, to view IP's in viewoline.php and to alter moderator permissions, since they would be able to give themselves permission to do the last two things I listed. Even if I hadn't forgot anything in this list, managing users and editing permissions are IMO two core features of running a board, and should not be forbidden to a tester for any reason.

By the way, Dog Cow, you can confirm that there is no account validation, can't you?

Another solution would be the one used by vBulletin. When you sign in for a demo, a demo board is created for you, and only for you, and it is automatically deleted 24 hours later. But this requires time and php knowledge. If anybody wants to set up something like this, we'll all appreciate it. Since then, I don't see any better solution.

[ToonArmy]

This is nothing new and was clear from his first post. But he forgot to suggest a way to fix that. Criticism is useless if it does not come together with a suggestion. My feeling was that he was suggesting that the demo should be taken off.

Criticism is not useless without a solution, its just not as useful. A quick solution would be to force all email addresses to a dummy value in the user_add() function and the IP addresses could be set to 127.0.0.1 with a single line modification.

Another solution would be the one used by vBulletin. When you sign in for a demo, a demo board is created for you, and only for you, and it is automatically deleted 24 hours later. But this requires time and php knowledge. If anybody wants to set up something like this, we'll all appreciate it. Since then, I don't see any better solution.

If you have no knowledge of PHP/phpBB you probably shouldn't be running a demo.

[Dog Cow]

IP addresses are not private. Every server you access records your IP address. Anyone can start a web site and record them. IP addresses belong to the ISP, anyway. Email addresses are not private. I like to give my email addresses to my friends so they can email me. Other people enter their email addresses to get newsletters or sign up for web sites. If you have a business, work, or personal email account, then you make sure it gets used for those purposes. The only thing private are the thoughts in your mind. Nothing will change.

Account activation is set to 'none', as it has been for over a year.

[ToonArmy]

IP addresses are not private. Every server you access records your IP address. Anyone can start a web site and record them. IP addresses belong to the ISP, anyway.

Yeah but most websites don't publicly post IP address of visitors.