Private sections

Aurora

Aurora

New member
The Black Sheep
Hey!

DISCLAIMER: This is my own opinion, and not that of my party!

The forum initiative looks fun, but I have one BIG concern regarding the "private" sections... Are they truly private? Or can any arbitrary administrator access them at will?

I like the forum, and I hope it becomes more active than Discord so we can talk & have fun together, but unless you can guarantee private threads are truly private under all circumstances, I'd suggest removing them and keeping only the public-facing ones, and perhaps the congress/government agencies private sections.
 
I can keep a forum private from users and moderators, but not administrator. This account is not an administrator so I also don't see it, although I could log in as an administrator if I really wanted to.

Certainly if there is something super sneaky then you'd want that on a medium you control
 
At the end of the day, there has to be some trust in someone, there is no free lunch.

And I can 💯% state for a fact that in game messages are not secure either, simply judging from the cracked mass messages I've received periodically that were "read" but not by me.

The closest we could get to a trustless system is having each party contribute a trusted member to a council of archons with unlimited vision, that way everyone knows that there is someone watching.
 
Herr Vootsman said:
I can keep a forum private from users and moderators, but not administrator. This account is not an administrator so I also don't see it, although I could log in as an administrator if I really wanted to.

Certainly if there is something super sneaky then you'd want that on a medium you control
Click to expand...
The thing is, private party conversations should be entirely self-moderated IMO, so I'd rather keep them out of here and use this as a public forum for things that concern everyone. I feel like calling them private if they really aren't is misleading.

I have no reason to doubt your integrity, but consider the following:
  1. Something private is discussed in party A
  2. Rival party B acts as if they read it, but it's by pure chance
  3. Members of party A now think @Herr Vootsman read it, and there's no way to prove it or disprove it
  4. Unnecessary drama unfolds (again)
But instead, if private conversations are kept in a private place, the same events would look like this:
  1. Something private is discussed in party A
  2. Rival party B acts as if they read it, but it's by pure chance
  3. Members of party A don't blame @Herr Vootsman because he couldn't have possibly read the messages
  4. Drama is focused on the topic at hand, rather than whether or not someone read a message

The forum can keep being as-is, just remove the private channels and let each party organize themselves however they want in their own channels! :)
 
It is possible to make sure party mods are of that party and what not.

The way it's configured now, I wont just accidentally read what's in the private section. It's not viewable from this account, nor does it show up when I log into administrator control panel to change settings - it's just that as that administrator is could open if I navigate there, but it wouldn't be on accident.

That said, I really don't think this should be a big concern. If the Feds for example wanted Intel on SFP, they wouldn't ask me to leak info - they'd create a new player and have them join your discord, group pm etc
 
Herr Vootsman said:
The way it's configured now, I wont just accidentally read what's in the private section.
Click to expand...
I already said I have no reason to not trust you, the reason I would like to remove them is to be able to deterministically rule out "admin abuse". There is a HUGE difference between unlikely and impossible; the former gives free way towards endless internet drama, while the latter avoids it altogether.
But that's just my opinion, it's fine, I guess
 
Look this forum is wonderful but it's really not where you should be doing top top secret stuff. It never has been. I don't really play that anymore, but even during the old forum if I wanted to keep something under wraps it was 1 on 1 communication. The Feds have our own space for that and that is our discord. Forums have certain advantages, but there is always going to have to be an admin. I do think that the ability to grant/not grant access for a party section should be up to that party, as there indeed used to be people who would sock puppet spies on private forums (cough pfeiffer).

I think the Feds are happy with our current arrangement here given we haven't been interested in sustaining our off-site forum for a few years so it is either this or nothing. We'll keep any secret machinations (which tbh, when is the last time this game required that?) on discord. If you don't want to use the private section here, then don't? The private Fed forum component is really the only reason I am coming to this forum.
 
Correct - I don't expect them to be used for secret plans (not that anything exists), but rather just to be able to talk socially with some semblance of privacy from other parties.
 
Herr Vootsman said:
It is possible to make sure party mods are of that party and what not.

The way it's configured now, I wont just accidentally read what's in the private section. It's not viewable from this account, nor does it show up when I log into administrator control panel to change settings - it's just that as that administrator is could open if I navigate there, but it wouldn't be on accident.

That said, I really don't think this should be a big concern. If the Feds for example wanted Intel on SFP, they wouldn't ask me to leak info - they'd create a new player and have them join your discord, group pm etc
Click to expand...
I can be bought 😜 jkjk
 
Aurora said:
I already said I have no reason to not trust you, the reason I would like to remove them is to be able to deterministically rule out "admin abuse". There is a HUGE difference between unlikely and impossible; the former gives free way towards endless internet drama, while the latter avoids it altogether.
But that's just my opinion, it's fine, I guess
Click to expand...
Entirely reasonable that any party that doesn't want a private section can have it removed, I think that other parties are probably interested in keeping their private sections though.
 
Maybe, just maybe we could just try to trust each other just a little bit.
Lol,


Who am I kidding.
You are all spies.
Stinking spies
 
Julio Cesar Rome GIF by Luis Ricardo
 
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