RE photos avatar etc.

[dlhunicorn]

Quote:

(nifty-chicken)you need to click upload and then "browse" for the file on your hard drive / computer and upload it to the forum.

Rob...this is the first forum I have visited that has access to my hardrive... I am really not comfortable with that. Is this really necessary to sidestep a host and have access to my harddrive???​

 

[DitzzyChic]

I'm not Rob. But, this is no different than using photobucket or another webhost. Any host you use get's the pic that is saved to your hard drive & then uploads & host that photo. The only difference is the pics can be directly hosted here at the BYC forum instead of another webhosting server. No need to panic as it won't strip all your personal info, etc. All it does is locate the photo on your hardfrive aka "My pictures" & uploads & stores it so you can post it on the board. The BYC forum upload does the same thing that photobucket does. Hope this helps.

 

[dlhunicorn]

I never saw a direct connection on BYC (or any other forum) where I could browse my Harddisk from that forum... I must admit I was a bit shocked...and nervous about this. There are well known instances of boards being hacked into and attcked by viruses and such by disgruntled members (and we know BYC has a couple of those)...

 

[Naztrain]

The avatar upload is the same as any other image hosting account. It has to get the photo off of your hard drive somehow. Rob's server can't just pop into your hard drive for a visit once you send a picture.

Remember, though, most skilled computer hackers spend most of their time inside, and wouldn't really think to raise chickens, so they wouldn't likely be on here. Now, if we ticked of a really rich person and they wanted revenge, they could pay a hacker to pull down rob's server, but most people arent rich enough to seek revenge at that level.

Remember also that the big ezboard hack of '05 (that was the correct year, right?) took down all of ezboard, which is a vastly enormous community. There's just no thrill in hacking into a chicken owner message board.

I think we're relatively safe on this server. I think Rob said he backs up the servers daily too.

 

[dlhunicorn]

I understand what you are saying about the HOSTER (like photobucket)...but I signed up for a message board...not a server to host my photos...I have already made a choice on that...I would feel the same way about any other message board having this capability...with photobucket I have an agreement or such...and I think it would be less easy to get a worm on my computer from them than a message board... Rob asked for comments and suggestions...so I am giving it...I would prefer no direct connection from his site to my harddisk.

EDIT: I clear my cache and run my spyware after each visit to photobucket...I visit BYC much more than I do photobucket...

 

[LittleChickenRacingTeam]

You know, the original BYC website had a photo hosting service. Many of us used this service that Garm provided to host our pics that we used on the forum. At some point, I think we exceeded the storage capacity of that service & it crashed. We then had to use other pic hosting services. I know how the technology works with photo hosting anyways. This is a non issue as far as I am concerned.

 

[chickchair]

LCRT is correct...Garm had a gallery hosting service which he made available at no cost to the member...It did have a limited capacity however, no more than 200 pics in any one gallery. He also hosted a personal web page for anyone who wanted to use it....

Those haven't been available for a couple of years now, so a lot of folks don't know about it.

I've used upload services such as the ones Microsoft offeres for it's web pages...with no ill effects.
I guess I don't see a whole lot of difference in uploading here...I just see skipping the photobucket and directly posting a pic.

However, that being said...I don't want anyone uncomfortable with this, so do continue to use photobucket, make that page public and just post the link to your pics....We'll go see them...

 

[dlhunicorn]

...well...I suppose if the only issue was "persistant cookies" (third party cookies) ... I have my settings set (I think!) to deal with that (but do all members know how to do this?... for those members who do not see the article below) ... I do not know the details of what is involved exactly to make this connection to my hard disk possible nor what the eventual security risk is...the connection is there whether I use it or not?

http://www.grc.com/cookies.htm
......"third-party" cookies are sneaky cookies that were never really meant to happen and they have been, and are being, exploited by advertising and marketing firms and others, to track your actions and movements as you surf the web.................any of those unknown and unseen third-party Internet servers are able to plant their own persistent web browser cookies onto your computer!

In other words, not only can the site you are visiting ask your web browser to accept and carry a cookie so that it can keep track of you as you move about the site, but ANY of the other Internet servers that supply component parts of that web page are also able to give your web browser their own cookie which refers to their own server....................

How does Internet tracking work?

While you might not like the idea of third-party Internet servers, for sites you never even visited, planting their cookies onto your computer, it still might not seem like a real problem.


Third-party cookies are a problem because they
allow centralized Internet advertisers to track your
movements around the Internet to develop a profile
of you and your web surfing history and habits.
Here's how that is done:
...................The third-party cookies your browser is carrying from global advertisers uniquely identifies you to that advertiser no matter where you roam. Every time your web browser asks the advertiser for an advertisement, it also tells the advertiser which site and web page "referred" it to the advertisement. (This is how advertisers pay the sites which host their ads.) So the advertiser also knows where you are, and what page you are looking at on the Internet.

(The article further explains in detail a workaround for this problem and shows you how to change your cookie settings)

 

[BYC Support]

Everyone, a few quick points of clarification:

1) The only photo uploader on the forum is for your avatar. I haven't installed an image uploading mod to this forum. With how efficient photobucket works, and everyone's familiarity with it, I'd actually prefer to have the images hosted there until I work out a good / efficient way to host images on BYC.

2) The uploader on this forum (again, only used for avatars) is totally safe! There is no way I, or anyone else can gain access to any of your data by uploading an image. In fact: I need to be more concerned about what people upload then you need to be concerned about uploading something!

3) If you're concerned about the uploader... don't use it. If you don't want to use it, but want an avatar, send your image (or URL) to me, CC, or a mod and we'll upload it.

 

[dlhunicorn]

Thank you for the solution! (I have no idea how to resize the one on my computer)