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FrozenGate by Avery

LPF Voluntary Vetting

Premium content for subscribers. General info for public side. If someone wants to troll then it's going to cost them a yearly subscription and a instaban to follow. Subs can post. Public can read some of the sites info. No posting for public. We aren't trying to save the world. Just maintain a community and enjoy a hobby. Some of the less fortunate members can get a free pass after vetting. I don't know how many would continue to be a part of this forum if it wasn't free but since I have been here I haven't seen the donations ever meet the goal. Not a big fee just enough and ties member with debtor. And if the troll still comes back and the site makes a bit off it Alaskan should get a cut of it (jk).
 
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I am personally not comfortable in having people Geo-Locate me, even if it's voluntary or for the good of the forum; I value my privacy above all else. This goes back to my core instinct of following OPSEC, and that this is definitely a huge point of failure which could occur. I am less serious in following OPSEC now than I was in the past, but I do respect the system of OPSEC and following that system has protected me in the past from dangerous individuals, which I will keep to myself.

Firstly, you are storing all of these members inside a database; where their IP addresses, their own location and a multitude of other things are stored. Imagine if I accessed that database, and took everything; I could potentially do lots of damage.

This goes the the 7 deadly fuckups that you can do:



  • Overconfidence

  • Trust

  • Perceived Insignificance

  • Guilt by association

  • Packet Origin

  • Cleartext

  • Documentation


There are 3-4 abuses of those points. These points are like sins in the hacking world, and you are guaranteed to sin in one of these points if you are not careful. I'll list the issues down here:

Overconfidence: Having overconfidence in your tools or even having confidence in keeping my information safe and secure is a point of failure. This is linked to Trust but this differentiates since me having overconfidence that my information will be safe with you is something that I am willing not to do.

Trust: I am not going to trust you with my information, or for anyone who might have information that they could use against me. This includes having my IP address, which could cause multiple issues such as attack towards me. Also, having my address on the internet where it could potentially be comprised is a big no-no. This ranges from having spam mail sent to your doorstep, since GPS is that accurate now to having people stalking you. I'm comfortable knowing that I will be safe withholding my information which is voluntary and doesn't relate to me.

Packet Origin: Speaks for itself really, having a packet or any sort of information which could track my point of origin is already dangerous enough; which some reasons are listed above. Packet Origin can pinpoint my IP address or send packets directly towards me. If you have some sort of insecure database or some sort of fishy details going on with packets then that's dangerous to me.

Documentation: Simple really, having you storing my personal information isn't safe. I will give you my country that I live in but I won't be giving you my geo-location. It's just too insecure to trust somebody that I know only by words and no face.

Continuing on from this topic, I don't think that vetting will even work in denying VPN access. Some people need it and some people want it, for legitimate cause. Don't associate any of those people who may use VPN's for malicious causes. It will not stop chinese scammers, and I know this from past examples.


Having a pay wall is just stupid too, people come on this forum to share their hobby and have fun. I personally don't understand why this is even considered really. Cold makes enough money from the advertisements and people visiting this forum, which is in the thousands of people visiting. It would financially harm this site and also harm our hobby since this place is one of the major areas of information of the laser hobby. I guarantee that if you made a paywall; then someone will just make a forum which is free and most people will go there, leaving the members who actually payed to stay behind in a forum which is abandoned and no longer active.

I will certainly not pay to be part of this site, I enjoy lasers as a hobby and forcing me to pay to have access to information that I could easily get from members that I talk to is not worth it. I may donate in the future but I would rather use that money for lasers and my other projects including my newest laser project which will be revealed soon.

Anyways, apologies for the long post/rant; I just wanted to put this off my chest before it goes out of hand. Have a good day everyone!
 
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Some very good points, another reason it could only work on a voluntary basis and that vetting someone such as yourself who no one suspects as being the forum troll would be very useless.
 
I withdraw my suggestion, the pill is too easily the poison and about as effective as a placebo.
 
I think so, stop the rain to always have sunny days and nothing grows. Bad idea, I withdraw.
 
Another member on this forum just messaged me saying they were a returned banned member and they've been around for more than 1 year with about 100 posts, asking to be banned.

This is quite scary!

-Alex
 
I don't think being a returning banned member is so bad, as long as they don't continue the behavior the 2nd, 3rd or 4th time around. However, I realize once someone admits to being one, they are likely going to get banned again.
 
A voluntary submission of some ID, with parts blacked out, or $1.00 donation to forum kind of arrangement would be great IMO. Main goal would be to just not scare away new members.

Alaskan said:
I don't think being a returning banned member is so bad, as long as they don't continue the behavior the 2nd, 3rd or 4th time around.
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CurtisOliver said:
I agree, everyone is entitled to another chance.
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Completely disagree with this. People who were banned, were generally banned for a reason, and given a whole lot of leeway. Letting them back in will simply mean they will slowly escalate to their old behaviors. If they are truly reformed, let them stay under their new pseudonyms incognito.

It is not as if people are being banned from seeing the forum even, so while I do believe in second chances, the penalty of simply not being allowed to post is not that much so as to warrant one imo.

If someone were to comeback after being on here under a different name after say a couple of years... that's a different story. After a thousand posts, and some rep... nope, not good enough, especially with how freely rep is given out now days. (As if your right to do, I just personally don't agree with it :p)
 
InfinitusEquitas said:
A voluntary submission of some ID, with parts blacked out, or $1.00 donation to forum kind of arrangement would be great IMO. Main goal would be to just not scare away new members.





Completely disagree with this. People who were banned, were generally banned for a reason, and given a whole lot of leeway. Letting them back in will simply mean they will slowly escalate to their old behaviors. If they are truly reformed, let them stay under their new pseudonyms incognito.

It is not as if people are being banned from seeing the forum even, so while I do believe in second chances, the penalty of simply not being allowed to post is not that much so as to warrant one imo.

If someone were to comeback after being on here under a different name after say a couple of years... that's a different story. After a thousand posts, and some rep... nope, not good enough, especially with how freely rep is given out now days. (As if your right to do, I just personally don't agree with it :p)
Click to expand...
I've always had a somewhat lenient attitude towards returning banned forum members. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I've been banned from several forums (Usually for something stupid) and then come back under different names. Usually I never get banned again and contribute normally to the forum discussion without further problems. We all have bad days sometimes and we might act inappropriately on a forum as a result.
 
InfinitusEquitas said:
A voluntary submission of some ID, with parts blacked out, or $1.00 donation to forum kind of arrangement would be great IMO. Main goal would be to just not scare away new members.





Completely disagree with this. People who were banned, were generally banned for a reason, and given a whole lot of leeway. Letting them back in will simply mean they will slowly escalate to their old behaviors. If they are truly reformed, let them stay under their new pseudonyms incognito.

It is not as if people are being banned from seeing the forum even, so while I do believe in second chances, the penalty of simply not being allowed to post is not that much so as to warrant one imo.

If someone were to comeback after being on here under a different name after say a couple of years... that's a different story. After a thousand posts, and some rep... nope, not good enough, especially with how freely rep is given out now days. (As if your right to do, I just personally don't agree with it :p)
Click to expand...

I knew not everyone would agree with it. :) At the end of the day they did do something to get themselves banned, but i think it should be discretional. Maybe this is something that should be voted on to find out peoples overall opinion on the matter.
 
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