Google and jowett.net

[Forumadmin]

I have been looking at the statistics gathered on jowett.org and jowett.net. Sad really.

Anyhow, parts of jowett.net are searched by google and from the stats I can see the IP address of the person who did the search, and what was searched for, and which page was found.
This is one example.
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=jet+nut+ ... ndbook.htm

I love the way google says images may be subject to copyright having just stolen, copied and pubished something they trawled for. Hey they are providing a free service!

[Tony Fearn]

and from the stats I can see the IP address of the person who did the search, and what was searched for, and which page was found.

This is rather disturbing, and a salutary lesson, as Forumadmin is only talking about the Jowett site. 'Big brother' seems to have an even 'BIGGER BROTHER' so take care.

Comments anyone?

Tony.

P.S. Are the private messages actually private??

[Forumadmin]

I have just updated the jowett website to include a better search facility. It now uses google to search the publicly accessible areas of both sites, jowett.org and jowett.net. Note that Google also searches your browser cache, so is useful if you still have any JowettTalk or JowettGallery pages in your cache.

[Forumadmin]

Private Messages are private from all but those with the right privilege unless someone hacks into the JowettTalk database. Hacking is only something you can reduce through diligent security measures. There is always a compromise between cost of security measures, usability and the likely threat of someone taking the trouble to hack through your countermeasures. i work on systems with strong to very strong countermeasures. I would class the jowett site as medium, above the majority of similar forums.

You may then ask who has the privilege to see the database. Forumadmin is the only person with access to the DB, except, possibly for host administrators, although they would need to know the database admin password. Needless to say hackers target getting such information and they can be very devious in trying to do so. I have used strong security techniques to prevent this.

If you want to test the strength then put a few private messages about starting a r i o t and see how quickly there is a knock on your door! If you really want to carry on your nefarious dealings in private, Tony, I could provide an encrypted link that only those guys in Cheltenham would be able to crack.

[Keith Andrews]

As far as I can see there is no sitemap.xml or urllist.txt registed with Google, yahoo or bing.
And in these are webmaster tools areas where a webmaster sets up and config the search engines what pages, exceptions, crawl rates etc etc..also logs of pages etc
This all essentual to basic SEO (search engine opitimisation.)
Without confuring the search engines, these days...well for the last 7 or 8 years it a very much a hit and miss thing with them.
eg
jowettnz.net/sitemap.xml

[Jack]

Copyright is basically dead. Try pursuing someone in China for stealing something you have written or photographed. If multi-million dollar production companies can't prevent film and music piracy, what chance do we have of keeping our online conversations private?

A number of friends are semi-professional photographers, and sell their images for a reasonable amount of money. They have pursued people who have stolen images from them through the courts, and got nowhere. That's in the UK. Now we have to remember that the person or organisation taking them isn't in the UK, and in many cases we don't actually know where they are.

The reality is that almost anything is findable. I guess the problem is whether we consider that to be a problem, or whether we use the accessibility as a means to drive ourselves forward (see other thread) and attract new members.

If they could see the interesting and lively debates that we have here, perhaps they would take an active role and sign up. If Google can't see us, then effectively the internet can't see us.

The final question is whether we have things which we do not want to share. I'd suggest, having seen a lot of the images and data in the gallery and around the forum, that we are not hiding anything that is worth a significant amount financially. The information being public domain is not a big loss for anyone.

We can either see the internet as a scary place where everyone is trying to steal everything and keep it for their own, or we can see the internet as a tool for us to move the club forward and make it stronger. I know which I'd rather do, but that does mean compromises.

Jack.

[Forumadmin]

Copyright and privacy are two different things.

My stance on privacy is ''everything is private until I take a conscious action to publicise it' Nobody should publicise anything that is personal to me (or gossip about it) without my express permission. Sometimes that permission can be implied, but never taken for granted. Friends (in Leo’s definition of the term, not Facebook's ) have a trust relationship and thus can share information more freely. Acquaintances (such as exist on JowettTalk) have a lower trust relationship, thus you should tailor your conversation on that forum accordingly. Gallery is formed of club members who have signed up (by joining the Club) to a trust relationship which is somewhere in between.
So publicise all you want on the Jowett websites, you can explicitly do this ; but since many users are naïve about the Internet the decision was taken to limit the search engines and to set defaults on areas of the site to allow users to keep information private between registered users.
Many people, for various reasons, do not want text or pictures of themselves, their cars or their homes that are accessible or can be interrogated by others.
That does not detract from publicising the Jowett marque; but it must be done with control and purpose.

The rule of law does seem to be taking a bit of hammering lately; but anarchy must be controlled. The problems of the Internet are no different than those experienced when printing started destroying fiefdom control, or photography that showed the world what was really happening, or films that broadened people’s reality and started unrest. Morality too is changing, perhaps it is considered OK to destroy a musician’s or photographer’s livelihood, and to steal intellectual property of those who have worked hard to create it. Perhaps we should have hacking as an Olympic sport.

[Tony Fearn]

Comments anyone? P.S. Are the private messages actually private??

Thanks for the replies.

Private Messages are private from all but those with the right privilege

Does this mean ordinary email is safer?

Tony.

[Keith Andrews]

Google spam bots and any other crawller that tries to get to your private messages details etc etc is all hidden

Or put another way, the stuff u can see once u have logged in cant be seen...the stuff u can see when not logged in can be seen.
unless the automated bots (that search engines harkers etc etc) manage to regist , use a legit email to do so (which they dont) then manage to activate the link they dont recieve...impossible....then run a complete site crawl then yes,,,but the cant regist.
Then u say but what if it is not a automated bot doing it...lets put that into persective...on my web sites over nearly 10 yrs in that time I have had 3 attmpts all where still stopped short smart and they where doing to spam advertising not crawl for privacy stuff...so they dont count.
Its as simple as that...
Now add all the other stuff the Admin here has done and that makes everything tied up pretty damn tight.

Yeah the internet is a wild west, espec from wild counties that dont give a stuff like turkey, Brasil, Russia, ukrane, china, nigera korea, even isrial of late..where most of these bots orginate...and a lot of the USA to.
One of the biggest things that add to this wild west is legal software, operating systems...all of them not just MS...these pirated systems cant be updated so are easy found, taken control of unknown to the person and used as automated bots remotely.
The next biggest is free hosts, free file hosts, free blog , freetwitter, free facebook social networking stuff...basically u get what u pay for....not just the servers but the people on them have no idea it is a good idea to at least close the front door and windows to your home when u go shopping or to work....the concept to lock the the bloody for is totally foreign to them.
Is this server free? NO
is this software free? well yes, but reputable very long term highly supported and secure
Its the Admin here stupid enough to left his front door open? no bloody way.
Are u running illegal pirated software? if so u are a major part of the problem
Is your software updated? yes nps no u are part of the problem.
Do u have updated basic virus scanners? No? cost to much now? or yes? If u have windows, uninstall and download and install microsoft secutiy essentuals ...for free..its top notch

[Forumadmin]

Does this mean ordinary email is safer?

Ordinary email is not 'safer' than sending PMs or emails via JowettTalk.
Why?
The main reason is that JowettTalk does not disclose the recipient's private email address to the sender. So that means neither the sender nor any hacker who has got onto the sender's PC or anybody who is eavesdropping on the many links between the recipient and the sender will find out the recipient's or sender's private email addresses. Think of this as the difference between a couriered letter and normal post. You only have to trust one person.

Your email address is like your home address. If they know where you live they can break in, if they do not know, then they will be random in their attacks.

Also ordinary email goes through many servers to get to you, whereas JowettTalk Private Messages only rely on the security of the jowett.net server and the links to it from the sender and recipient.

Also both have to log on with different credentials than perhaps the more widely known ones of the mail services of the parties in the communication.
Think of this as the difference between your home letter box and a PO box. The mail to your home can be intercepted, but that to a PO box is more difficult.

Also it is unlikely the 'authorities' and 'others' are bothering to spy on the JowettTalk database, whereas they are on public mail systems.

[Forumadmin]

Yesterday I put the pre 2006 JowettTalk onto jowett.org and included it in the search engine Sitemap. I am waiting to see how long it takes before it is indexed by any of the search engines. It is possible that the robots.txt and sitemap.xml is not working correctly I have not done any submissions to specific search engines hoping the robots will pick it up.

This will be the last part of the old site which was on the home server; so when Google sees it on jowett.org, I can switch keithclements.co.uk off! Note this site has been accessible to the public since the early 1990s so it is about time it was retired.

The old JowettTalk will not work correctly as it uses a deprecated version of FrontPage extensions. This will not be enabled as it introduces security vulnerabilities. However the posts are still viewable. Note that any links in there that point to keithclements.co.uk should be changed to point to jowett.org. The links should then work.

[Keith Andrews]

You have opened web mater a/c for google yahoo and bing and submitted the sitemaps.
They get picked up fairly quick...
I have always used Gsite crawler to create my sitemaps espec when dealing with forums...1000s of pages.
Its conviently configurable.

[Forumadmin]

I use a php script that I can control very tightly to generate the sitemap. Hopefully I have not screwed it up in its latest change!

Looking at the logs it seems the site has been getting a lot of hits from here http://luiscezar.blogspot.com/search?q= ... ch-results

You can change language and do research, so search for Jowett.

http://luiscezar.blogspot.com/2006/08/m ... -o_28.html references a Jupiter and a very pretty lady.

[Keith Andrews]

you have regist with the main search engines and submitted sitemap and url list ?
I seriously suggest using something like Gsite crawer....espec on something like phpbb.

[Leo Bolter]

Hello Keith C.

Are you able to help with one problem I appear to be having when using the new Google web site searching facility that you set up at (http://jowett.org/search.htm) on Fri Aug 26, 2011? I have used that search facility to try to find a posting that I know I made some time ago. This is referred to in the recent post shown below.

In " Cars and Parts", I commented in "Re. Jupiter 1953" (http://jowett.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2111). I QUOTE: . . . . . but I described a DIY (do it yourself) method which utilises a sandblast, Kerosene (Paraffin oil in UK?) and a bit of very mild heat and cold water. This is already in the forum somewhere . . . I'll give the new search engine a tryout to locate the URL and edit this post soon with that address.

Now, I have spent several hours using the new Google searcher looking for the referred to post using all manner of "key words and parts of sentences" that were, or were likely, to have been used in the text and title, but all to no avail. I have, of course, searched "View your posts" too using the inbuilt forum search engine and even scanned "manually" all my posts . . . . . Is there a possibility that the post describing the location of cracks in wheels by the use of paint removal by sand-blasting , warming, washing with Kerosene, hosing off and then re-warming, could have gone missing?

Other forum users have seen this “missing” post as they have made reference to it in their correspondence.

There’s very likely to be some other (simple!) explanation that I haven’t cottoned on to, I guess!

Other than this “issue”, I find the new search facility is so much superior for finding things than the one built into the forum. I thoroughly recommend that all forum members give it a try!

We hope all is going well with Jenny's recovery. Would you please give her our best wishes.

Cheers.
Val and Leo.