This is not a photography related question. This thread is about problems we have had with security on this forum, and what to do about that, as well as question marks over hosting.

The first issue is security. I have been imitated recently on these forums, with someone else maliciously using my name and entering my email address to post a message. This has happened before (people I have noted it has happened to have been sajeev and albert chris), and I suspect will continue to happen.

What to do about that? Well, first there is a question over forum hosting, which perhaps Bob Atkins can answer. I had heard that greenspun.com was to be shut down, in favour of photo.net. However, photo.net has basically relegated all equipment questions, such as those we look at here, to the 24-hour, non-archived forum. Thus, if this forum is shut down, there isn't a place for those subjects that are covered here.

I believe it is possible to kill two birds with one stone, however. There are many regulars here, as well as people who just pass through. I believe a better format for forums, rather than this list in chronological order, is to bump to the top the most recently answered thread. The standard software used for this over the web is vBulletin, as found on www.bit-tech.net, www.overclockers.com.au, and many other sites (www.naturephotographers.net use something similar, if not vBulletin itself). This software requires user accounts and passwords which would solve the security issue.

My suggestion is, that if this forum is indeed to be shut down (and I had heard that it was to be done long since), then we need to move onto a new host, and with that move we can take the opportunity to change to an account-based form, such as vBulletin.

What views do other people have? Particularly regulars and moderators?

-- Isaac Sibson (isibson@hotmail.com), March 18, 2002

Answers

Well I'm the only moderator here, so I guess I'm the guy to ask.

If greensun.com does go down, this forum will not go with it. It may either be hosted on photo.net (most likely) or another server (less likely).

Since I like this format, I have no plans to change it. In addition this forum is free. vBulletin costs around $300 for intallation and licencing. This host is free. A commercial host would be ~ $100/year. To date security has not been a big issue, but that could change in time.

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), March 18, 2002.

If a move of this forum to photo.net happens - wouldn't this remove the security issue as one has to be logged on to write in the forums there?

-- Kenneth Darling Soerensen (kenneth@darling.dk), March 19, 2002.

If the move to photo.net did include using the photo.net login system, that indeed that would solve the problems.

-- Isaac Sibson (isibson@hotmail.com), March 19, 2002.

i completely agree to isaac. its ofcourse a big issue when it come to information and security especially when people are using names of others maliciously. i would be really happy to see some security given to this important forum.

-- sajeev (chack74@yahoo.co.in), March 19, 2002.