CasperARC:Privacy policy

NOTE: This policy applies to the Wiki portions of the CARC web site, the CARC email reflector and the CARC discussion board - even if the wording doesn't clearly say that

Publishing and public data

Simply visiting any of the CARC web resources does not expose your identity publicly.

When you edit any page in the CARC - W7VNJ wiki, post to the reflector or discussion board, you are publishing a document. This is a public act, and you are identified publicly with that edit as its author.

Identification of an author

When you publish or edit a page in the CARC - W7VNJ wiki, send a message to the email reflector or post on the discussion board, you must be logged in.

You will be identified by your user name. This may be your real name or your callsign (preferable) if you choose. You may not publish under a pseudonym. Sorry, the spammers have made it this way. For your account to be created, the sysadmins MUST be able to recognize who you are. PSEUDONYMS ARE NOT ALLOWED HERE. You create your user name when you created your account. Once you've published or edited an article on the wiki - your user name can not be changed. However, usernames on the discussion board can be changed on request and for a reason (ie. Issuance of a new callsign, etc)

When posting a message to the email reflector, Your email address is included in the 'FROM:' portion.

Web Cookies

The CARC - W7VNJ wiki will set a temporary session cookie (PHPSESSID) whenever you visit the site. If you do not intend to ever log in, you may deny this cookie, but you cannot log in without it. It will be deleted when you close your browser session.

More cookies may be set when you log in, to avoid typing in your user name (or optionally password) on your next visit. These last up to 30 days. You may clear these cookies after use if you are using a public machine and don't wish to expose your username to future users of the machine. (If so, clear the browser cache as well.)

Passwords

Many aspects of the CARC - W7VNJ web resources depend on the reputation and respect that is built up through a history of valued contributions. User passwords are the only guarantee of the integrity of a user's edit history. All users are encouraged to select strong passwords and to never share them. No one shall knowingly expose the password of another user to public release either directly or indirectly.

Access Logging

Every time you visit any web page on the Internet, you send a lot of information to that web server. Most web servers routinely maintain access logs with a portion of this information, which can be used to get an overall picture of what pages are popular, what other sites link to this one, and what web browsers people are using. It is not the intention of CARC to use this information to keep track of legitimate users.

Here's an sample of what might be logged for a hypothetical page view:

64.164.82.142 - - [21/Oct/2005:02:03:19 +0000]
"GET /wiki/draft_privacy_policy HTTP/1.1" 200 18084
"http://casperarc.net/wiki/index.php"
"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/85.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/85.5"

Log data may be examined by the System Operator in the course of solving technical problems, in tracking down badly-behaved web spiders that overwhelm the site, or very rarely to correlate usernames and network addresses of edits in investigating abuse of the wiki.

Release of data derived from server access logs

It is the policy of CARC - W7VNJ that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs will not be released by the site operators who have access to it, except as follows:

1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement
2. With permission of the affected user
3. To the operator of the CARC - W7VNJ web site, 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 vandalizing articles 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 CARC - W7VNJ or the public.

CARC - W7VNJ policy does not permit public distribution of such information under any circumstances, except as described above.

Sharing information with third parties

Except where otherwise specified, all text added to the CARC - W7VNJ wiki is available for reuse under the terms of a Creative Commons License.

CARC - W7VNJ will not sell or share private information, such as email addresses, with third parties, unless you - the involved user - agree to release this information, or it is required by law to release the information.

Security of information

CARC - W7VNJ makes no guarantee against unauthorized access to any information you provide. This information will be available to all System Operators and Developers with access to the servers.

Email

You may provide your e-mail address in your Preferences and enable other logged-in users to send email to you through the wiki. Your address will not be revealed to them unless you respond, or possibly if the email bounces. The email address may be used by CARC - W7VNJ to communicate with users on a wider scale.

If you do not provide an email address, you will not be able to reset your password if you forget it. However, you may contact the CARC - W7VNJ Server Administrator and plead your case to enter a new mail address in your preferences.

You can remove your email address from your preferences at any time to prevent it being used.

Your email address will be visible to all subscribed members of the email reflector. This is a normal part of email operation. Only subscribers can view the reflector membership list.

The discussion board may allow non-members to view your email address, depending on your profile settings. Exposure is controlled by you, not CARC - W7VNJ. If you'd like help with your profile settings or clarification - please ask.

Deletion of content

Removing text from the CARC - W7VNJ wiki does not permanently delete it. In normal articles, anyone can look at a previous version and see what was there. If an article is "deleted", any sysop/administrator, meaning almost anyone trusted not to abuse the deletion capability, can see what was deleted. Only a developer can permanently delete information from the Wikimedia projects and there is no guarantee this will happen except in response to legal action.

Disclaimers

READ THE DISCLAIMER!!