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free forums

Postby EXTREMEoverclocker » Sat Apr 04, 2009 4:39 am

I was just talking to a buddy the other day and he was saying he would not sign up to my guilds forum because anyone who knows anything about internet could hack the forum site and get their IPs off it.

the forum we are using is, http://www.forumotion.com/
and we are using the invision boards ... are they pretty safe?
or should we switch to phpbb2/3? or is there really any reason to worry?
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Re: free forums

Postby JabbaPapa » Sat Apr 04, 2009 7:41 am

The question is --- WHY on Earth would anyone want to hack the forum and get hold of **his** IP -- always assuming this was a static IP not a volatile one ?

I mean, I know that there can be some real eedjeets in an online gaming environment, and that some extremely immature ones are perfectly happy to try and screw around with anyone they may decide they don't like in some game-related nonsense or other -- and that the only way to protect yourself from some malicious online scum is to avoid going on to their websites --- but come on, a Guild forum ??!!

Does this mean that he distrusts his fellow guildies ???

It's hard to understand his motivations, without having any idea what he's actually scared of -- I mean if someone wants his IP then they are going to get hold of it one way or another, because it is not any kind whatsoever of secret information :roleeyes

If this guildy of yours is some kind of youngling, which is kinda how he sounds, then I think his fears are likely to be completely ungrounded as regards your forum, no matter what engine it uses -- simply because the chances of some malicious outsider even WANTING to hack various personal details out of your forum are very very low in my opinion.

I would assume for instance that your forum does not require that anyone enter their credit card details for example LOL
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Re: free forums

Postby imnuts » Sat Apr 04, 2009 1:05 pm

I would think that it would be less easy to hack a system like that than one installed by someone on a webhost by themselves. The reason being is that sites such as that would want to take a few extra precautions to ensure the security of their servers and what is running on them than someone may do if they are doing this by themselves. The other thing is that people that are running that site should hopefully know a little more about securing the webapps they are using than an individual likely would. Even so, it doesn't matter if the forum is hosted for free or installed by someone individually, if people really want the IP addresses of the people on the forum, they are going to get them, and nothing short of completely deleting the site and database will stop them until they succeed.
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Re: free forums

Postby augie » Sat Apr 04, 2009 2:09 pm

LOL, the guy's IP is already recorded all over the 'net and if he's that paranoid, he should just cancel his connection. :roleeyes :confused
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Re: free forums

Postby EXTREMEoverclocker » Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:57 pm

well i have pretty much told him everything you have told me. says he makes websites for a living and that free stuff is just to un-secure for him.
not sure what his deal is but oh well. just making sure i wasnt missing something :)
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Re: free forums

Postby imnuts » Sun Apr 05, 2009 12:42 am

Short of having total control of the system your website is hosted on, as well as the hardware connecting it to the internet, there is always going to be a chance that someone could breach the security of the site that you're hosting, and even if you do have total control, it could still happen. Yes, there are things people can do to make sites more secure and mods available for the forum software and tons of things that people can do to make sites more secure, but there is an inherent risk that everyone takes when going online. If your friend is really worried about his security, tell him to buy a proxy or vpn service that can make his web actions more anonymous, or have him pay for hosting somewhere and setup a secure site. As long as the base forum software, operating system, and database software on the hosts machines are kept up to date, your site is going to be just as secure as 90% of the other websites out there.
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Re: free forums

Postby gries818 » Wed Apr 08, 2009 2:40 am

augie wrote:LOL, the guy's IP is already recorded all over the 'net and if he's that paranoid, he should just cancel his connection. :roleeyes :confused


Ironically, then he wouldn't have an IP.
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