Privacy
This page is here as a tribute: a benevolent gesture geared towards the symbolic value of Internet anonymity. It is also here because law requires that it be here and forecast to you the people how we handle matters of publicity and privacy, and most specifically: cookies.
Prelude
CyberD.org collects as little info about you as possible.
All statistical or security-related data is stored safely within server logs inaccessible to strangers, and will never be distributed to any secondary parties. I'll probably never view them either, nor will you, and it really isn't sensitive information anyway unless you're completely lacking a basic computer firewall that by default comes installed with any modern OS, in which case your IP (the only potentially personally identifiable bit stored for such purposes) would be like an open gateway into your holy digital innards, ready to be seeded with viruses and all types of nasty malware.
You should probably be more worried about being tracked by your ISP (though since this site uses SSL at least they shouldn't be able to see which specific pages you visit here - only the main domain).
The bottom line is we're true advocates of privacy, freedom, personal integrity and the right to be anonymous - unlike most of the people who write such policities, so chill, you are in good bandannas. We collect only the most essential information required to keep the site secure and see what users are doing, or whatever you voluntarily provide (like comments).
If this paragraph baffles you more than it lessens your confusion, simply ignore it, and read on below for further more factual information regarding our content and your privacy.
Information We Use
IP
Your IP is recorded for statistical use (number of visits, for example), and to prohibit you from doing bad things like brute-force the login form. Your IP will never be published, nor will it ever be distributed unless we are forced to by court order or similar (though this seems unlikely).
Cookies
Cookies are currently used mainly for comments, to save credentials you use in the comment area if you happen to want to comment again (these are saved for one year). Also possibly by the firewall for security purposes.
If you log in (though registration is private so unless you are me you shouldn't be able to), cookies are used to keep you logged in. These are saved for two days by default, or 14 days if you wish to be remembered, and if you log out they are removed.
Screen options (only available for logged in users) are saved in a separate cookie that lasts a year.
A temporary cookie will also be created when you first log in to check if your browser supports cookies. This one's deleted as soon as you close your browser.
If you don't want cookies to be saved you can use your browser settings to disable them. These can usually be found under the 'Privacy' tab. You can also easily delete cookies for this site by clearing your browser history, or if you use a browser that allows it: right-click on the page, select 'Page Info' (or similar) to view cookies for this specific domain, and delete the ones you don't want. By default there won't be any cookies there.
Comments
If you comment on a post you will need to include your email adress. This is used to display your avatar from Gravatar (if you have one), and to control that you are an actual human being and not a bot.
At this point your IP and browser user agent string will also be logged, and an anonymized string might be created from your email address (also called a hash) for the Gravatar service. You can read more about how Gravatar handles your data here: https://automattic.com/privacy/
The website field is optional (though useful for promotional purposes), as is whatever you choose to write in the comment field.
Note that the website and comment you include will be visible to the public, so do avoid including information you don't want to have out there!
If you did post something you regret posting let us know and we can remove it, or anonymize it by unlinking the comment from your name/email and trimming away any personally identifiable information that may have been included.
Comments are usually available forever, or as long as the post content they're linked to is available. This so we can approve follow-up comments by the same author automatically, and because we like having your comments around. They're often helpful or informative - not to mention inspiring for the post author to read; a good complement to the post.
GDPR requires we justify storing user information like this, but who would really want blog comments deleted after a specific time period? Like the posts they belong to they become a part of history, and a cultural heritage we should honor and wish to preserve. Each comment you write has a hopefully eternal place in the fog of our past.
Contact
Messages sent via the contact form (and any other contact forms on this site) are first processed and checked for spam via mailjol, and then sent on to Gmail. They are stored for thirty days on mailjol, and may be stored indefinitely on Google's servers if useful for future reference/posterity.
Messages are protected in transit by regular TLS encryption. Google are Privacy Shield certified, and the account secured via two-pass authentication, but despite both our and their best intentions and security practices emails can be intercepted. If you're worried about a third party reading information you send via the form chances are you probably shouldn't send that information at all.
If you want to get in touch with me over an encrypted channel (and have a good reason to) feel free to send me an email about that. I can probably set something up for further correspondence (Tutanota?).
Your IP and browser user agent is logged when you contact us too, to prevent abuse or spam. This is also saved for thirty days via mailjol, and is also included in the message sent to Gmail.
Regarding GDPR: I like to keep emails indefinitely as they're good reference of prior conversations with any reoccurring senders, and facilitate future conversions for both of us.
Information received via the contact form is not used for - or stored to ever be used for - any form of profiling or direct marketing.
For mutual business-related correspondence with EU clients I ask the sender if they wish to have correspondence removed after said business opportunity is fulfilled, otherwise we both agree to retain correspondence at our leisure for future opportunities.
Analytics
We collect some information about you for statistical use, such as browser agent, country, etc. We log which pages are visited, when, and how often. None of this should be personally identifiable in any way, and it is directly tied to server-based analytics software. We don't use any third-party services such as Google Analytics.
Polls
We used to collect some information via polls, but this feature isn't active anymore. The archives don't hold any personally identifiable information, just collective opinions via whatever options were provided.
Information Sharing/Storage
We don't share any of the above information with anyone unless we are forced to by law, and will let the user know we have shared their info if we do unless we are forced not to by ditto (so far this has never happened).
All information mentioned above is hosted on secure servers in the US and UK, or via email protected by two-factor authentication.
Local backups are handled with care and continually deleted as newer ones are made. Local systems are both actively scanned and routinely checked for malware and other harmful presence.
Your Informational Rights
You have the right to request an exported file with all the personal information you have with us. If you've ever posted a comment, or contacted us, then all personally identifiable information you have with us is basically your name and email adress - though comments and other contact messages will be included in the export too.
Please don't request an export unless you really need it as this is a manual process and will probably eat quite a bit of our time. We will ask that you first confirm your identity before providing an export too so it doesn't come into the wrong hands.
You also have the right to ask to have any and all personally identifiable information removed (unless we need it for administrative, legal, or security purposes), or corrected if it's wrong (again we will need to confirm your identity for this).
Finally you have the right to be notified in case of a data breach that affects your personal information. We might not always be available or aware in the event of a breach (this is a one-man organization after all), but will do our best to reach out as soon as we know about it if it does happen.
You also have the right to be informed whenever personally identifiable information is collected. We've attempted to put out notices on the site wherever it's relevant, but please let us know if we've missed something.
External Content
We are not responsible for the content of any external websites we may link to. If we ever start using third-party ads we are not responsible for their content and behavior either, but so far we pride ourselves in having none of those! Third-parties should not be able to track you while you are here - at least not via this site. Be wary of browser plugins and software with shady privacy policies. And embedded videos (keep reading).
Social Media
There are no direct connections to any social media platforms here. Unless you intentionally share a piece of content via a FB bookmarklet or similar - or bring their cookies with you, then they shouldn't be able to track you here. Regarding Vimeo and Youtube however, keep reading...
Embedded Media
Some posts and pages here do include embedded content from other sites, and as such the websites we've embedded from may collect data about you too. They may use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking and monitor your interaction with that embedded content; especially if you are also logged in to that particular website.
Most image or audio files are stored on our own servers, but there are plenty of embedded videos from YouTube and Vimeo specifically; possibly others. Feel free to contact them for more information regarding what they might collect (you have a right to request an export of all the data they have about you too - there's probably way more there).
We are not responsible for the data use of these external services.
Mature Content
This site DOES NOT MEET the Online Privacy Protection Act guideline.
I mean we like to speak our minds, and our minds may not always be places suitable for all ages. Proceed and read with caution.
There's no straight-up adult content though. Usually.
General Advice
This isn't applicable to this site, but might be good to know anyway:
- If you upload images to a website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on said website.
- Take note of what browser plugins you use, and the browser itself, if you're worried about certain services tracking your activity across multiple sites. Consider using plugins like HTTPS Everywhere and one that blocks third-party tracking (like Ghostery) for better security.
- Unless an external link you follow uses the rel="nofollow" attribute the site you get to can actually see which site you came from - and even inject malicious code into the site you came from if you still have it open (if you open the external site in a new tab or window). We use rel="nofollow" by default on most external links, but always be wary of strange places.
- The human factor is the most vulnerable one. Be aware of what you share and do online. Use strong passwords and additional layers of protection when it really matters. Don't visit shady places unless you're sandboxed.
Take care!
Postscript
I hope that answers all your wonders regarding what we do with the information we get from you, though it isn't much compared to others.
Questions? Problems? Feedback? You can reach us here.