Your Privacy On ATS Is Now Certified by TRUSTe

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


OK, so I have to ask this (no disrespect intended). If you basically retain no personally identifiable information aside from that which we willingly post about ourselves, then isn't this kind of like bragging about offering free tidal wave insurance for home owners in Arizona? Seems like you've sort of done something completely unecessary here for little reason other than to look like you've got everybody's backs.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


It's one thing to say we adhere to a well-intended privacy policy, it's quite another to subject ourselves to a lengthy audit so that an independent group may certify we do what we say.

very nice!

Now please don't pull a "I'll take a database home on my laptop to work on" and forget it in a train

Congratulations

So,......does that mean that TRUSTe now has everyone's information etc.?

Originally posted by agent violet
So,......does that mean that TRUSTe now has everyone's information etc.?

Never.

Please reference our privacy policy...

...we never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described above. Your profile information is protected from web-spiders that search for e-mail addresses and other personal information...

TRUSTe is a third party, and we don't share any data with any third party, ever.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


That is a good question and I note that in characteristically open style Bill clarifies.

My take is that we're not protected from packet sniffing for passwords, but we aren't open to casual exposition.

Maybe there's a FAQ somewhere that details just what the certification means.

Whatever it is, it's certainly prudent to take normal precautions on the User end and not to post any personal information.

Great job Amigos!

Ok, those this mean that the FBI and Homeland deception I mean security would not be able to track us down?

Anyway thanks for doing everything you can to keep us safe.

Hum I think I have hear that on before.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


hey great news, great work...thanks a lot to the whole ATS team, really appreciate that....

Ah!! It feels so good to be in safe hands

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Your Privacy On ATS Is Now Certified by TRUSTe

For years we've been saying that the privacy of our members and users is important to us, and now, we've actually gone and put our money where our mouth is, and certified AboveTopSecret.com through TRUSTe, the largest independent organization certifying the privacy of users online.

Thanks for all your effort in this SkepticOverlord, I never doubted for even one second that the privacy of me wasn’t always important to you and your colleagues.
So I am convinced that our privacy is as much as possible guaranteed by TRUSTe.
But, there is always a but, my second thought is that despite all the good work of ATS in this and TRUSTe I am nonetheless convinced that if necessary for whatever reason even they can’t guarantee 100% my privacy against “those” who control it all and I don’t have to explain who that are I assume.
You can call me paranoid of course, but it is just a simple second thought and nothing more.

this is truly a great site. i have really enjoyed the reading.
and thanks a lot for all the extra work. an audit in any form is never fun. you all are great.

This why I love ATS, you guys always go above and beyond to protect your members.

Coo...

So the database is more or less secure and you won't intentionally store information with regards to us personally...?

Well color me impressed.

You realize of course that above the above network intentionally disclosing personal information about its users means exactly nothing when the users of above top secret have no way to securely submit information to the site?

Give me some session security and then maybe you'll get a grudging respect...

Give me a series of blind relays, a secure session and a memory locked virtualised terminal and then we can talk.

No real use in sealing a letter after its been read by everyone in the chain after all..



Its not your integrity that some of us are worried about Bill, though the gesture is appreciated.

Absence.

P.s.
Good avatar..
Captures a lot.


[edit on 21-8-2008 by Absence of Self]

Well Done SO!!

This is welcome news indeed. I've always thought that this site was worth trusting in but now more so than ever. You have gone above and beyond the call of duty.

Originally posted by Absence of Self

You realize of course that above the above network intentionally disclosing personal information about its users means exactly nothing when the users of above top secret have no way to securely submit information to the site?

Give me some session security and then maybe you'll get a grudging respect...



[edit on 21-8-2008 by Absence of Self]

Why, does ATS ask for any personal information? Not that I'm aware of. The "gear" store is with www.cafeexpress. com - a third party.

If you provide personal information in threads willingly then you have only yourself to blame.

BTW, good move 3 amigos

[edit on 21-8-2008 by Tuebor]

Thanks Amigos,Once again you guys show that the members here are what matters to you all.Great work and thanks for making the greatest website on the net also one of the safest.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by agent violet
So,......does that mean that TRUSTe now has everyone's information etc.?

Never.

Please reference our privacy policy...

...we never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described above. Your profile information is protected from web-spiders that search for e-mail addresses and other personal information...

TRUSTe is a third party, and we don't share any data with any third party, ever.

If that is the situation, they why even bother with the third party? ATS is as good as it's policies, and if they violated those, that would be damaging enough to turn most users off. I mean don't get me wrong, i checked out the info and it looks all good to me. I appreciate the lengths ATS goes to protect our perconal info.

With that said, let me take on the skeptic role for a second if I may. To me, this is almost like a casino picking a regulatory commission for itself. Once again, thats the skeptic role talking.

While most will be pleased, I think the people who were so worried about their info being stolen in the first place probobly won't be as pleased. Don't you think people will start to wonder why ATS needs a third party to take care of these things? Has there been problems in the past? Is there really a need for more bureaucracy?

Once again, I would like to say I appreciate the effort and the steps taken by ATS to protect it's members.

[edit on 8/21/08 by AcesInTheHole]

Can we get some https in the house?

When I try to use https, I always get this:

An error occurred during a connection to abovetopsecret.com.

SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length.

(Error code: ssl_error_rx_record_too_long)

Is there a browser setting that needs changed to allow longer keys or something?

What's the point without SSL?

Originally posted by Symbiote
Can we get some https in the house?

No... sorry.

First of all, adding a secure socket to the web services would degrade the performance of the website for all users.

Secondly, it would end up harming our search engine performance, and the ability for the rest of the world to see what our members post.

Thirdly, as stated before on this subject, the "web transaction" involved with ATS contains no data that needs to be securely transmitted... so it would be overkill.


We have investigated the possibilities of a fourth, non-clustered server in our web-server rack that could provide dedicated SSL access under a specific subdomain, isolated from the primary servers... but so far, testing has shown a twenty-fold increase in page load times. SSL is designed for low-bandwidth pages... most of our pages, such as thread pages with 20 replies, avatars, graphics, etc. are of a total kilobyte size as to make an SSL connection almost completely unusable.

Think about it... the entire transmitted content needs to be encrypted to send to you (without the benefit of the GZIP compression we use now) then unencrypted to be displayed. Total file size plays a huge role in the overall performance.