Privacy Policy

Privacy Policies

The webmaster of this site believes firmly in the individual’s right to privacy, and implements this principles within both his private and commercial life.

There are 3 status levels for visitors to pages on this site:

1. General, anonymous, page-views.
2. Individuals registered with the Modem-Help Forums.
3. As above, but also ‘Signed-Up’ as a Modem-Help member.

The info required from site-users increases with their status, as will be made clear below:

Important Assurances:

• Personally-identifiable info is kept private
• Email addresses are kept private
• Cookies only contain anodyne matériel

The Company and Company owner detest spam; none will come to you from this site, nor will we facilitate any others to spam you. We take proactive steps to protect the site, and to protect your personal information on the site. We also realise that we are not perfect, and welcome suggestions for ways to improve.

Applicable to all:

This site uses the Apache web server software, PHP scripting software and MySQL database software to serve up dynamic web pages. Standard Apache Access- and Error-logs are kept of web-accesses, and page-access statistics are kept within database tables. Mass-statistics are obtained from these logs & tables for both 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-party purposes (these latter include such as Advertisers). All such statistics are absent of personal information (they cannot be traced to an individual) with the sole exception of the IP-address used to access this site.

Advertisers + other 3rd Parties:

3rd-party banner + text adverts may be served up from either or all of 3 companies:

• Casale Media, Inc.
• Google Inc.
• ValueClick Media, Inc.

(click on the link to view the relevant Privacy Policy).

Put simply, Modem-Help provides zero-information of a personal nature to 3rd Parties. You need to consider, however, that the technological devices (such as I-Frames) employed by advertisers often render that portion of the web-page filled by their banner as foreign territory to Modem-Help (much as a Consulate is foreign territory to the nation which hosts it). Consider yourself warned, and consider also that Modem-Help provides the means to remove ALL advertising by signing up to this site (link at top-right on every page).

The Forums:

This site uses the phpBB (Bulletin Board) software for it’s Forums.

There are 3 items required for registered users of the Modem-Help forums (the forums may be read anonymously, but those that wish to post a message are required to Register):

1. A unique Username
2. A valid email address
3. A password

(there are a number of other, optional items).

Of these 3 items:

1. Username: this is required only to be unique.
2. email address: this may be marked as ‘Private’ and will not be displayed. If displayed, they are protected from robotic harvesting. They are never divulged to 3rd parties.
3. Password: it is stored with one-way encryption. Nobody can decrypt it, not even the site maintainer.

All items provided at the time of Registration (also any posted messages) are uniquely identifiable to the individual via the IP-address used to connect to the Forum during Registration/posting. This is stored in a computer database on a web-server at a secure Co-Location. The same database stores the entire content of this site, and strong steps are taken to ensure that no unauthorised access can directly be made to the database. The IP-address is kept private from both 2nd- and 3rd-parties.

There is a set of personal details--in addition to the 3 above--which is declared at Registration to be publicly viewable; all of these are optional. Individuals can edit any and all of their own details (the sole exception being the Username) at any time. Steps are taken to prevent robotic harvesting of all kinds. Bulk personal details are never provided to 3rd parties by Modem-Help. The sole exception to providing an identification will be if a legitimate, legal order is presented to Modem-Help Ltd. from appropriate authorities (it is important that you realise that you are legally responsible for the content of the messages that you post into the Forums; if you cannot back up what you write, do not write it.).

Registration is performed in clear text on a non-encrypted connection. The very first password that each Registered user has is auto-generated by the BB software, and is sent to the email address in clear text (few people have access to encrypted email). Whilst all of the above is standard practice, you are strongly advised to make changing your password your very first act after Registration + Activation. In a modification to the standard phpBB software, Modem-Help then makes it possible to login across a ‘https’ (encrypted) connection, using the link at top-right on each page.

Cookies:

Both Forums & webpages attempt to use cookies to maintain a user login throughout any session; this affects all 3 classes of Forum users (anonymous browsers are logged in as an ‘Anonymous’ user) and the last 2 classes of website users. The default level of login uses a ‘session cookie’ (deleted when the browser is closed), although it is possible to opt to use a permanent cookie, which will auto-logon whenever the site is visited. The efficacy of this programming paradigm depends in part on the user’s Browser Privacy settings--please consult your Browser Help info if you are having problems! It is important to note that if the Auto-Logon option is chosen, and someone else is able to login to your (personal, physical) computer as you, they will also be able to auto-login to this site/forums as you and make use of them in your name. The responsibility for this will also be yours.

There are 2 distinct cookies used by the Forums, and one extra cookie used by web-pages:

1. Username + (encrypted) password
2. Session Id
3. Redirect page

None of these items have any privacy implications in themselves (one-way encryption algorithms are used throughout), no permanent trace of their usage is kept on the server, and temporary traces are limited to 30 minutes.

Finally, it is possible to use both Forums and webpages without resort to Cookies (the relevant info is placed into the URL or into POST data) although the available functionality will be slightly less.

Signed-Up Members:

Registered members of the Forums can pay a small sum and gain extra benefits on both the Forums and website. Providing this service requires a few extra bits of information:

1. Location (Country only)
2. Business VAT Number (if applicable)
3. Payment card
4. Payment amount
5. Bandwidth purchased

None of these items are viewable at any time by other parties, and all can be edited by the individual up to the point of making a payment; all 5 can also be amended in any further transactions. (For the record, ‘Bandwidth’ is the mechanism used by this site to measure usage of the site-benefits provided; it cannot be edited by the user--although it may be added to--and the amount remaining is reported to the individual on each page access.)

All 5 items + the Username are used to compose an Invoice, and all these are stored within the same database mentioned earlier. The final 3 items are communicated to a 3rd party (see next section) who enacts the actual financial transaction. The same 3rd party reports back to Modem-Help whether the transaction was successful or cancelled. If successful, 3 further items are added to the Invoice: the 3rd-party reference for the payment, IP-address + transaction code (many more items are reported back--these are checked as part of security procedures, but not stored). Invoices are also kept private to the individual, who may view them at any time.

Money Transfer:

The 3rd Party used by Modem-Help to complete all payments is as follows:

• WorldPay Limited

(click on the link to view the relevant Privacy Policy).

It is perhaps worth stating explicitly--and specifically for the benefit of potential hackers--that NO financial details of any kind are either received or stored on the Modem-Help server. Modem-Help does not ask for any details that could be used to enact a money-transfer, so it cannot store them. ALL financial transactions occur on the servers of 3rd parties, and they are careful not to report any such details back to Modem-Help.

Contact + Feedback:

Contact & support is provided via the Forums. Active support from Modem-Help is limited to Signed-up members only via private Forums, although the Errors or Omissions Forum may also be used by non-members.

Copyright Statement

Compilation, original writings & design Copyright ©2002 - 2013 Modem-Help, Ltd.
All trademarks respected as the property of their respective owners.
Full Copyright + Disclaimer statement