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Privacy issues and how they relate to your profile


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I'm not convinced there's a privacy issue at all. Nobody that uses or even looks at this site, except for a small subset of our local geocaching community knows what our real names are, or where we live. Of course, Groundspeak does, and our local Review does. But so what if Mom and Dad of the Furrball cats have cached in Colorado, or Arizona, or Nebraska, or that we have hundreds of cache finds in and around the Black Hills of South Dakota? How is that going to affect us in real life if somebody looks at our profile and knows that? I think I can count 1 or 2 people outside of geocaching that knows what our profile name is, and they are trusted friends.

 

But for any Tom, Dick, or Harry that browses our profile and looks at our finds or hides, or sees some "souvenir badge" so what?

 

Just my 2¢, for whatever that's worth in today's economy. :unsure:

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I don't see a privacy issue. If you log your finds on GC.com then I can know exactly where you were on a certain date. But that's only after the fact. 99.9% of the users use an online alias. Yes if you were determined you could track down a lot of information on their real identity, but that's true of anyone who has ever done anything online. If you're that concerned with your privacy then your best bet is to have a generic email and never log a find.

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Some people have proposed that the new souvenir feature may or may not pose a privacy issue

 

mmm? sorry, I wasn't reading the other thread, maybe something was said there that makes sense of this.

 

There's way LESS information about you in a souvenir, then there is in your finds (or owned caches, if any).

Anything that can be learned from a souvenir (I've cached in Massachusetts for instance) is already available from my found caches. Far less info in the souvenir, as there's no date or coords attached.

 

Though the souvenir page does make that info immediately available (Isonzo Karst found a cache in MA) - the only way to learn that without souvenirs would be to paw through many pages of finds.

 

There's also some misinformation there: my souvenirs show 2 states where, in fact, I've never cached. I'm guessing traveling caches. Maybe locationless (or were they excluded?).

 

I dunno, I'm not seeing really how this is a problem? If someone really WANTS to paw though the info on your profile (finds and dates) they can, but mostly they won't, who cares?

 

For those seeking total privacy, don't log online.

 

There is a cacher in my area, been around longer them me, and has zero online logs. They've emailed me once about a burnt ammo can of mine (from noreply), I see their sig on caches. They showed up once on an audit log.

Edited by Isonzo Karst
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I don't see how souvenirs are in any way as invasive as the actual caches found, or, for that matter, hidden.

 

Currently, souvenirs tell me very limited information:

 

- Whether a person has logged a particular cache (e.g. Tunnel of Light)

- Whether a person attended one of a number of specific events around Seattle

- Whether a person logged a cache, or monkeyed around with a geocaching app on their gee whiz phone (I still use a crappy flip phone, can you tell?), on 10/10/10

- Whether a person has cached in a particular state, currently limited to a handful of the original colonies and some German Bundeslaender (yes, I'm too lazy to go find the umlauted a)

 

Except for 10/10/10 and the event souvenirs, these don't tell me when any of these things happened. And since most of these so far have been retroactive, it has hardly worked in real time.

 

Contrast this very, very nebulous information with a good look at someone's profile. Any time I am curious as to where someone is from, I take a look at two things: where their earlier hides are, and where their earlier finds are. People are creatures of habit, normally they're going to start caching around where they live or work. Easy enough to figure out the general area.

 

Bottom line is, we geocachers play a game that involves going to specified coordinates and sharing information about our visits on the Internet. There's only so much privacy one can really expect in this scenario.

 

If privacy is that much of a concern, one should put one's GPSr away, unplug one's computer, and if one finds it necessary, go hang out in the closet with this guy.

 

catintinfoilhat.jpg

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No privacy issue. If one were that paranoid, they shouldn't be logging caching activity online at all and most definately should avoid posting in the forums. You divulge more about yourself in the forums than you do with any picture.

 

Exactly. I must have been looking for my foil hat picture while you were posting that. Forgot about the forum posts -- derp. You'd think that would have been the first thing that came to mind.

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Bottom line is, we geocachers play a game that involves going to specified coordinates and sharing information about our visits on the Internet. There's only so much privacy one can really expect in this scenario.

 

If privacy is that much of a concern, one should put one's GPSr away, unplug one's computer, and if one finds it necessary, go hang out in the closet with this guy.

 

catintinfoilhat.jpg

 

I didn't need that tinfoil hat. But my two stalker's sure as hell did. :unsure: Let me tell you a little story, and hopefully I won't bore you. It actually happened a few months before I started Geocaching (Thankfully, which allowed me to choose a different online alias for this website), but say, for the sake of arguement, it happened after I started Geocaching.

 

I somehow acquired, in a usenet newsgroup, two completely whacked-out obsessed cyberstalkers. In a nutshell, they theorized I was messing with them with dozens of sock puppets. None of this was true, and a logical thinking person, when seeing the proof of this via IP addresses, would have dismissed it in a second. Well, whacked-out, obsessed cyberstalkers are not logical thinking person(s).

 

These guys spent every waking hour for months trying to tie any instance of my username on the internet from 1994-2003 to my real name and address, including reading every sentence of everything I ever posted to the web for clues to my identity. They actually *DID* stumble on my real name and address, but discarded it a fake, due to their bizarre conspiracy theory of me being the commander of an Army of internet Sock puppets. One of these two guys was certified rubber room material, and threatened to have me sent to jail for violation of the Ricoh act, among other things.

 

Now how would you like these two guys following you around on Geocaching.com? I certainly would have been using the same username on here that I did all over the internet since 1994. Them knowing the general area you live in from your cache placements? Seeing where you are every time you find a cache? Seeing if you are in another town 150 miles away for a weekend by your cache finds? Most importantly reading every word of every cache log I ever posted? Anyone ever posted a "closest cache to my house, only .45 miles away" log? I know I have.

 

I'm a big boy, and I can take it, but it really does sort of tick me off when I see comments like "stay off the internet if you don't like it". No one wants to be stalked, and more importantly, no one expects to be stalked. Yepper, when I typed that I live in Buffalo, NY in a 300 word post to a college basketball message board in 1997, I really expected an obsessed lunatic to look for it and find it on page 67 of a Google search in 2003.

 

Thanks for reading, anyone who got through that. And by the way, I have no problem with Souvenirs. ;)

Edited by Mr.Yuck
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Yuck - that's craziness! These lunatics are unfortunately out there. Facebook is jumping through hoops right now to try to lock down their security...

 

Yes. Now let's compare:

 

Facebook:

Real Name. Accounts can be deleted if you use a pseudonym

Information submitted:

Education

Workplace

Hometown

Mafiawars score*

Farmville score*

 

* these apps can (potentially) use the Facebook API to mine all kinds of stuff on you, and your friends.

 

Geocaching.com, now with Souveniers

 

Alias. Accounts with real names permitted but not encouraged.

Information submitted:

Date you found a box in the woods and wrote your pseudonym into it

 

I know which one of those systems needs protection. The one with real world information on it. For Geocaching I can make up a name and use a throw away email address.

 

If identity thieves are going to rely on Souvenirs on the Groundspeak site, they shouldn't expect much. Oh look, I found a cache in Pennsylvania once. I also watched PBS once.

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I didn't need that tinfoil hat. But my two stalker's sure as hell did. :unsure: Let me tell you a little story, and hopefully I won't bore you. It actually happened a few months before I started Geocaching (Thankfully, which allowed me to choose a different online alias for this website), but say, for the sake of arguement, it happened after I started Geocaching.

 

I somehow acquired, in a usenet newsgroup, two completely whacked-out obsessed cyberstalkers. In a nutshell, they theorized I was messing with them with dozens of sock puppets. None of this was true, and a logical thinking person, when seeing the proof of this via IP addresses, would have dismissed it in a second. Well, whacked-out, obsessed cyberstalkers are not logical thinking person(s).

 

These guys spent every waking hour for months trying to tie any instance of my username on the internet from 1994-2003 to my real name and address, including reading every sentence of everything I ever posted to the web for clues to my identity. They actually *DID* stumble on my real name and address, but discarded it a fake, due to their bizarre conspiracy theory of me being the commander of an Army of internet Sock puppets. One of these two guys was certified rubber room material, and threatened to have me sent to jail for violation of the Ricoh act, among other things.

 

Now how would you like these two guys following you around on Geocaching.com? I certainly would have been using the same username on here that I did all over the internet since 1994. Them knowing the general area you live in from your cache placements? Seeing where you are every time you find a cache? Seeing if you are in another town 150 miles away for a weekend by your cache finds? Most importantly reading every word of every cache log I ever posted? Anyone ever posted a "closest cache to my house, only .45 miles away" log? I know I have.

 

I'm a big boy, and I can take it, but it really does sort of tick me off when I see comments like "stay off the internet if you don't like it". No one wants to be stalked, and more importantly, no one expects to be stalked. Yepper, when I typed that I live in Buffalo, NY in a 300 word post to a college basketball message board in 1997, I really expected an obsessed lunatic to look for it and find it on page 67 of a Google search in 2003.

 

Thanks for reading, anyone who got through that. And by the way, I have no problem with Souvenirs. ;)

 

+1

 

Also, on a more minor scale, but still an issue for some cachers, example - DayV meets cacher SZQZ at an event and they go out caching together a couple of times. Suzy then follows Dave's activities and gets all hurt and pouty because Dave went caching last weekend and didn't invite her along.

 

I expect someone will chime in suggesting that rather then allowing DavV the option to limit who can look at his detailed profile, DavV should:

  • buck up and tell SZQZ to take a hike (without him)
  • stop logging finds if it bothers him that SZQZ can track his whereabouts
  • go caching with SZQZ from now on

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That contain the same amount of information that anybody can aquire upon meeting you at an event. Actually less.

 

Next.

 

Although there are people here that due to geographic separation would not necessarily be at an event that's local to me, so I would not meet them.

Also there are people that might well be at the same event because they are also local, but that I would avoid meeting.

 

edited to shorten the quotes

Edited by John in Valley Forge
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That contain the same amount of information that anybody can aquire upon meeting you at an event. Actually less.

 

Next.

 

Although there are people here that due to geographic separation would not necessarily be at an event that's local to me, so I would not meet them.

Also there are people that might well be at the same event because they are also local, but that I would avoid meeting.

 

edited to shorten the quotes

 

And seeing your image on a photograph gives exactly what to people that will never meet you due to geographic separation...?

 

Do you walk around at events with a bag over your head? Do you protest when somebody takes a group picture or snaps a shot of you that you didn't authorize?

Edited by Castle Mischief
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Some people feel that their geocaching.com profile should have controls in place similar to sites like Facebook.

 

Some people have proposed that the new souvenir feature may or may not pose a privacy issue.

 

Discuss...

 

I think it's funny that the souvenir profile feature is what prompted this debate. :unsure:;);)

 

You can geostalk me back to early 2003. :D

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And seeing your image on a photograph gives exactly what to people that will never meet you due to geographic separation...?

 

Do you walk around at events with a bag over your head? Do you protest when somebody takes a group picture or snaps a shot of you that you didn't authorize?

I just like having some control over my photos is all.

 

As far as walking around with a bag over my head, no, I don't do that. But I do prefer for people not to take photos of my kids without asking me first. It's happened a couple of times at parks and it bums me out a little.

 

Sometimes I just like to share a photo, without giving someone easy one-click access to every pic I've taken over the course of months and years.

Edited by addisonbr
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I think it's funny that the souvenir profile feature is what prompted this debate. :unsure:;);)

It is kind of interesting / funny. I'm more in the "it would be nice if there were some controls" camp, but souvenirs in particular don't give me any issues. I'm more likely to brag about the states I've visited than to hide them from view.

 

My gut is that Groundspeak's move into souvenirs, insomuch as it is mimicking functionality on social networking sites like FourSquare, is telegraphing to people that geocaching.com plans to ramp up social networking functionality moving forward, and it's getting people thinking about some of those implications - possibly for the first time.

 

I agree that it's kind of funny that souvenirs in particular are what sparked the conversation here.

Edited by addisonbr
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First of all, states are pretty big... How would someone find me in the entirety of Pennsylvania. Secondly, even if they determined my city by looking at recent caches how would they find MY house. Neighborhoods have lots of houses. Third of all, even if they knew my exact address, what are they gonna do? Rob my house? Couldn't someone pick my house randomly anyway?

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Sometimes I just like to share a photo, without giving someone easy one-click access to every pic I've taken over the course of months and years.

Then join a site like flickr which allow you to mark your photos private. Then you can give out passes to allow others to see them.

 

Why do we need to duplicate that functionality here?

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Sometimes I just like to share a photo, without giving someone easy one-click access to every pic I've taken over the course of months and years.

Then join a site like flickr which allow you to mark your photos private. Then you can give out passes to allow others to see them.

 

Why do we need to duplicate that functionality here?

I like the idea of uploading photos to cache pages - the COs and other finders seem to enjoy them.

Edited by addisonbr
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I'd also like to know once it becomes mandatory to upload photos.

Oh, it's not. But I would upload more photos if I had some control over them.

You want to upload photos that others can't see? :unsure:

No, I'm perfectly happy for them to see the photos at the cache or event level. I really like the idea of finding a great cache and uploading a photo of the view or etc. for other visitors to the cache page to enjoy. I think it's a nice thing to do, and I like it when people upload photos to my own caches.

 

I'd just prefer not to grant one-click organizational ease for every photo I've ever taken stretching back months or years.

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I'd just prefer not to grant one-click organizational ease for every photo I've ever taken stretching back months or years.

 

Dirt simple.

 

1) Take photos at event

2) Upload photos to top secret lair, or service like Flickr - but not the unsecure geocaching site that tells potential stalkers what hemisphere you were in last week.

3) Log event, and include in your log:

 

Photos of the event are available for some of you at http://www.flickr.com/photos/addisonbr

 

4) Carry, on safely knowing that your photos are only viewable by the people who have a guest pass login for those photos. You can enable guest passes on a per album level at Flickr.

5) The rest of us carry on happily knowing that a photo is not required to geocache, and an identifying photo is even less required.

 

Let me know where I can get a driver's licence with my forum avatar and an event photo in the name of "northernpenguin". That would be great at parties.

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Dirt simple.

 

1) Take photos at event

2) Upload photos to top secret lair, or service like Flickr - but not the unsecure geocaching site that tells potential stalkers what hemisphere you were in last week.

3) Log event, and include in your log:

4) Carry, on safely knowing that your photos are only viewable by the people who have a guest pass login for those photos. You can enable guest passes on a per album level at Flickr.

5) The rest of us carry on happily knowing that a photo is not required to geocache, and [i]an identifying photo[/i] is even less required.

I can see that working for some, but it seems like it would be easier for people to see the photos on the cache page if I could upload them directly there. I probably wouldn't bother to click through to someone's flickr page, but paging through a gallery on the cache page is fun to do.

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I can see that working for some, but it seems like it would be easier for people to see the photos on the cache page if I could upload them directly there. I probably wouldn't bother to click through to someone's flickr page, but paging through a gallery on the cache page is fun to do.

 

Do you want ease of use as a priority, or security as a priority?

 

I'd say the context of the current photo app works just fine for geocaching. You have options if you need greater privacy controls - this will come at the cost of usability.

 

Before you mention Facebook - that has an entire infrastructure where you have to approve each person who wants to view your photos, in advance (or set a blanket exemption for them/everyone). I sure wouldn't want to post a photo to Geowoodstock then sit down and approve friend requests from 1100 attendees for that one photo. Facebook needs that because of the nature of their site - you provide real world, identifyable information there

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I like the idea of uploading photos to cache pages - the COs and other finders seem to enjoy them.

You're not really making a convincing argument here. You have no issue with people enjoying your photos, only with how they got to your photos. :unsure:

 

I'd just prefer not to grant one-click organizational ease for every photo I've ever taken stretching back months or years.

This has nothing to do with privacy. You just want an oddball form of DRM.

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Do you want ease of use as a priority, or security as a priority?

 

I'd say the context of the current photo app works just fine for geocaching. You have options if you need greater privacy controls - this will come at the cost of usability.

 

Before you mention Facebook - that has an entire infrastructure where you have to approve each person who wants to view your photos, in advance (or set a blanket exemption for them/everyone). I sure wouldn't want to post a photo to Geowoodstock then sit down and approve friend requests from 1100 attendees for that one photo. Facebook needs that because of the nature of their site - you provide real world, identifyable information there

I think both (easy of use and security) can be pretty easily accomplished.

 

As it stands, all photos posted to a cache page are viewable by everyone who visits that cache page. I wouldn't want to change that. I don't envision a scenario where everyone who wants to see a photo I posted to the GW8 page needs to send a friend request to do so.

 

But if Groundspeak linked its existing Friends code and infrastructure to permissions to view tabs on people's galleries, people could maintain some control over their Gallery - as it's organized at the cacher / owner level. The Friends infrastructure already exists, with approval processes and etc. People could still see everything posted to a cache page. The only real change for the typical user would be that if someone wanted to see, organized in one tab, every one of the hundreds or thousands of photos that I've posted, they'd be asked to send me a Friend request first, through the existing Groundspeak infrastructure.

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I probably wouldn't bother to click through to someone's flickr page, but paging through a gallery on the cache page is fun to do.

And looking through a cacher's photo gallery is not fun to do?

 

So as long as it meets your definition of fun it should be allowed? Everything else shouldn't?

 

I'm just trying to understand your logic here.

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Sometimes I just like to share a photo, without giving someone easy one-click access to every pic I've taken over the course of months and years.

Then join a site like flickr which allow you to mark your photos private. Then you can give out passes to allow others to see them.

 

Why do we need to duplicate that functionality here?

 

Regarding photos - I'd like to upload photos of cache containers to my log entries but make them private.

 

I usually take a photo of the cache with my cell phone camera. It came in handy recently when another cacher wanted info about a cache that was apparently missing, one that I had visited a couple of months ago. He wanted to know what the cache looked like and how it was hidden - I just emailed him the photo. I had to wait until I got home to email it to him because the photo is in my laptop's C: drive.

 

Putting those cache photos in my gallery but marking them private would be handy for me. I like the idea of a Flickr account but it's a few steps removed from the cache page. It would be nice to go to see the cache photo via my log entry, in terms of organization and easy access, without actually posting it publicly since it would be an unnecessary spoiler.

 

I can see why GS wouldn't want to allow private photo galleries though, too many photos might overload the server.

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You're not really making a convincing argument here. You have no issue with people enjoying your photos, only with how they got to your photos. :unsure:
Right. I like posting photos for people to enjoy - especially to a cache page. I think it's a nice gesture towards a CO to add a nice photo to their cache page, for them and their visitors to enjoy. I just don't necessarily like letting people see every photo I've ever taken all at once, without asking me first.

 

I'd just prefer not to grant one-click organizational ease for every photo I've ever taken stretching back months or years.

This has nothing to do with privacy. You just want an oddball form of DRM.
I don't know what DRM means. But I think of it like I think of it in other social networking contexts. If I post something to someone else's wall or event page, I'm doing it so that people will enjoy the photo. And I know that I've relinquished some control over the image. But I still like having some control over easy access to my entire gallery of every photo I've ever taken, all at once.
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But if Groundspeak linked its existing Friends code and infrastructure to permissions to view tabs on people's galleries, people could maintain some control over their Gallery - as it's organized at the cacher / owner level. The Friends infrastructure already exists, with approval processes and etc. People could still see everything posted to a cache page. The only real change for the typical user would be that if someone wanted to see, organized in one tab, every one of the hundreds or thousands of photos that I've posted, they'd be asked to send me a Friend request first, through the existing Groundspeak infrastructure.

 

Or, alternatively the few that are concerned with privacy due to photos can modify THEIR ways (use of a third party photo host) vs modifying the entire site to please them.

 

This is starting to wander off topic so I will stop my input here on that subject.

 

On topic, there is no perceivable way that a feature like Souvenirs can provide a privacy issue for a virtual identity. The combination of the Souvenirs with other real world, identifiable information (that you volunteered to share with the GC community) maybe but even then it's a real stretch.

 

You always have the option of not logging caches which will halt the souvenir collection process.

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I probably wouldn't bother to click through to someone's flickr page, but paging through a gallery on the cache page is fun to do.

And looking through a cacher's photo gallery is not fun to do?

 

So as long as it meets your definition of fun it should be allowed? Everything else shouldn't?

 

I'm just trying to understand your logic here.

No, I'm certainly not saying that everything I think is fun should be allowed. I apologize for giving you that impression. What I was implying above was that seeing photos on a cache page is fun and easy, compared with the extra steps involved in going to a separate web site.

 

Just so that there is no further confusion - and again, I apologize for this - I don't think that everything I think is fun should be allowed.

 

What I'm saying is that I like the idea of information being available at the cache level, and to the extent that people enjoy seeing photos on a cache page, I'd enjoy adding some.

 

If folks are interested in seeing every photo that I've taken, all at once in an easy gallery, that may be fun for them as well - but I'd prefer it if they had to send me a Friend request through geocaching.com's system first.

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I think both (easy of use and security) can be pretty easily accomplished.

Security? Nothing to do with security. If you allow someone to look at the photo in one place and not in another, it's not security (or privacy).

 

Security/privacy controls is when you block access to a person or group everywhere on the site.

 

The Friends infrastructure already exists, with approval processes and etc. People could still see everything posted to a cache page. The only real change for the typical user would be that if someone wanted to see, organized in one tab, every one of the hundreds or thousands of photos that I've posted, they'd be asked to send me a Friend request first, through the existing Groundspeak infrastructure.

Several issues with this:

 

1. People would have to wait days or weeks to be able to do something that currently only takes seconds

 

2. Each friend on the list slows down that page and places more load on the servers to retrieve the cachers info

 

3. It would clutter up the friends list and make finding your real friends harder

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Or, alternatively the few that are concerned with privacy due to photos can modify THEIR ways (use of a third party photo host) vs modifying the entire site to please them.

I think if Groundspeak hadn't implemented the Friends functionality a couple of years ago already I never even would have thought of this as an option; the bulk of the code appears to already exist.

 

My working theory is that with additional controls, more photos will be uploaded to the site for cachers and cache owners to enjoy, which I think would be a great benefit. I do acknowledge that many folks would happily keep their profiles open, which I think is great.

 

On topic, there is no perceivable way that a feature like Souvenirs can provide a privacy issue for a virtual identity.

I'm inclined to agree with this.

 

You always have the option of not logging caches which will halt the souvenir collection process.

Definitely true. It would be nice if another solution could be figured out that didn't require dropping off the grid entirely.

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I just don't necessarily like letting people see every photo I've ever taken all at once, without asking me first.

Are you ever going to say "no"?

 

[quote name='addisonbr' But I still like having some control over easy access to my entire gallery of every photo I've ever taken, all at once.

How does it harm you if someone can see all your public photos at once?

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Security? Nothing to do with security. If you allow someone to look at the photo in one place and not in another, it's not security (or privacy).

 

Security/privacy controls is when you block access to a person or group everywhere on the site.

I don't necessarily know what the appropriate semantic term would be, if it's "security" or "controls" or what. I guess it would be whatever makes it possible to see a photo in one context, but not necessarily see every photo posted by a person all at once. I'm not sure what other social networking sites call it - but, whatever it is, "that".

 

Several issues with this:

 

1. People would have to wait days or weeks to be able to do something that currently only takes seconds

 

2. Each friend on the list slows down that page and places more load on the servers to retrieve the cachers info

 

3. It would clutter up the friends list and make finding your real friends harder

I can see that it would make things a little less convenient for people who'd like to view the Gallery tab on my profile. But, in a way, that's the point. If I want to keep my profile completely open, there are no issues and no delays. If I'd like to grant Friend requests before giving people easy access to all of my photos, I know I'm accepting something less than immediate gratification (at least initially; after that it would be the same).

 

I don't know as much about the server issues, or if adding a friend would tax the server a lot more than finding another cache or logging another trackable would. That's outside my area of expertise.

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Regarding photos - I'd like to upload photos of cache containers to my log entries but make them private.

 

I usually take a photo of the cache with my cell phone camera. It came in handy recently when another cacher wanted info about a cache that was apparently missing, one that I had visited a couple of months ago. He wanted to know what the cache looked like and how it was hidden - I just emailed him the photo. I had to wait until I got home to email it to him because the photo is in my laptop's C: drive.

 

Putting those cache photos in my gallery but marking them private would be handy for me. I like the idea of a Flickr account but it's a few steps removed from the cache page. It would be nice to go to see the cache photo via my log entry, in terms of organization and easy access, without actually posting it publicly since it would be an unnecessary spoiler.

 

I can see why GS wouldn't want to allow private photo galleries though, too many photos might overload the server.

 

Yeah, I'd use Flickr for something like this myself. Just upload the photo to a non-public gallery and tag it with the GC code. I use the Flickr app on my iPhone for this and it automatically geotags the photo too, which makes searching by map easy enough as well.

 

In this case I say, yup great idea but frankly Flickr/Yahoo have a heck of a bigger budget/staff to implement so I say let the pros handle that and GC can handle the geocache logs. Anyone else remember the days the blasted image upload server was down more than it was up at GC.com .....

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My working theory is that with additional controls, more photos will be uploaded to the site for cachers and cache owners to enjoy, which I think would be a great benefit. I do acknowledge that many folks would happily keep their profiles open, which I think is great.

I've seen sites with these kind of controls in place. They end up with very little publicly viewable content.

 

So I'd rather have fewer photos that everyone can see, anytime, anywhere.

 

How do you know that many would keep their profiles open? So many people are scared of identity theft that I'd bet they'll pick every option to hide things in a false belief it gives them privacy/security/protection.

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