With the activity of SS and others who are "guests" here and read all the posts maybe its time to have only registered members only on these forums?

The scams are getting old......


If "guests" want to read then they should register.

leave the info, news, etc crap open to anyone.

oh, 57 guests online when I posted this

what difference does it make? seriously ...

if you really WANT TO scam someone, what's holding you back from getting a free yahoo email and sign up?

i really don't see the advantage here ...

btw. guests can't post/pm/email, just read ...
Andy

I like it. 356Club does it.. 912 does it.. Rennlist does it...

It will be a hard sell, but I'm all for it.



B

*think*

I dunno about how you can "see" who the guests are, Andy.

Just a way to make it alittle safer if atleast posters,readers have atleast a email/ip addy?..

just a effin thought to toss out cuz I am amazed at the number of "guests".


Guests, who are you? just at work and don't can't log in???

I think that before many of us were members we lurked as guests. Like the new kid in town on the first day of school - all quiet like and just observing...

-pt

That would be me too. Kinda like dipping your toe in the water before jumping in.

There are 86 guests online now. I feel violated!

I understand and agree that may be the case, but I also think its time to protect our own...
Require full disclosure of name, address and phone # as well in order to be a registered user...
I know its police like, but things are beginning to get out of hand...

I have to agree as we are such a small group of people and gullible too.

This is what I was thinking Andy:



You dont invite everyone into your house to walk around and take a look at things before you ask them their name?

Even you pointed out how easy it is to get an email address from Yahoo.. what stops them from signing up?


B

Sounds like George Orwell (1984) has just been made an Admin.

I used to work for a very successful photographer that when the first time
anyone came to his studio, he took a polaroid picture of them, and made a copy of their driver license -
A little extreme, but he was never broken into or robbed...

It is a tough call.

The more I think about it, the more I come up with other sites that are "semi" locked down this way.


B

I don't like it. I think it would turn a lot of potential members off. I know what whenever I go to a site that requires me to become a member before even looking around, I just leave instead.

Besides, what if something cool is posted here (imagine that). And someone thinks its cool enough to post a link to it on another site (a 911 site or something). Requiring membership would prevent most of those people from taking a look, possibly finding out how cool (or dumb) 914 owners are, etc.

If you want to expand the membership, it would be a very bad thing. If you want to have a private place for just us to play in, then it would be good.

In years past there has been mention and even advertisements for 914club placed in magazines, etc. Stuff like that would be mostly ineffective as most people would be turned off and leave at the prospect of having to become a member just to see what 914club is all about.

Besides, most of those 86 guests are probably really members - just using a different computer and didn't bother to log in until they have something to post.

yeah, but......should we invite everyone in to steal from us? Thats what seems to be going on.

The other forums I am on, if you do anything it seems like your posts are deleted or edited. Here we are free to discuss nearly anything.

I agree with andy in the sense that asking people to register won't have any effect on security and most likely decrease site visibility.

Most online newspapers now force you to register and being a person who reads many major papers for the sports articles, it gets very old and sometimes I just say to hell with it.

Lurking is especially useful for this site because of the complex social fabric that exists here. Many of you guys and gals have been friends for years at this point, so integrating into the mix takes a little bit of tact if you want to be heard and respected.


.02

The medical internet forum I run allows guest to view the topic titles, but not the contents of the post.

I require real name, phone number, fax number, city and state before admitting.

I realize it's easy to fake this, but so far no issues.

Just viewing the topics makes them intrigued enough to sign up.

Karl

Very perceptive and well stated!

This is serious. "Eugene" has literally brought me out of the wood work. At this rate I'm going to double my several year post count in a week.

I appreciate this sentiment and understand where it is coming from. I also believe the community has the obligation to protect itself, so here are my thoughts:

My vote, unless Sir Andy the Uber Admin (IMHO) sees some great benefit otherwise is to leave it open to guests. And he has already spoken out against closing the forum to guests. Closing the forum to guests might make us feel more secure, but I think Sir Andy is saying it should not.

This assault on "non-club members" has put the club into perhaps its darkest days. But this latest, and worst, scam that I know of was perpetuated through a compromised account. People who have been scammed have been targeted because they want to sell something. Contact with others is a requirement for that. I really can not think of other scams that were perpetuated so exclusively through the club, and I am afraid we will find that this is not the case here either.

Sir pointed out guests can now as always, only read, not post. I assume they can not get member information either. No one has ever been able to scam a member through the club without registering. And with my anonymous screen name I feel confident that without registering they couldn’t track me down outside of the club. (OK I may ask an admin to change my screen name because of all this.)

Come on guys one of the greatest things about this club is it’s lack of exclusivity.

Also guys remember, if registered users want to post something that non-registered users shouldn’t see there is always the Sandbox. I would suggest moving the “Eugene” thread there but I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts he has another account.

“Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security”- Benjamin Franklin

OK, members wouldn’t appear to have their liberty restricted but I think it still applies.

I think we might find that most of the guests are just members that are browsing and haven't logged on yet. Maybe from the work computer or someone elses. Maybe...

I think all the female guests should be stripped searched.

Demick pointed out who "we" are. We have always welcomed people with open arms.

He also pointed out something I personally HATE.. when people post links in another forum (or this one) that you cant get to because you are not a member of the forum being linked to.

We have full control over what the guests can and cannot do.

Are the guests really the problem though?



B

Who is this guy?? LOL



B

Leave it open.

And create another Group - call it Verified members - to belong to this group you have to be verified - by some means that the admins develope. I know a bit of work - but may evolve the club to yet another level.

just my .02

M

between Jeff's post whoring thread and this Eugene business its been an interesting week for the club....we're dealing with a lot of empirical questions

another option that is less invasive would be to look at collecting/auditing guest info (which I am pretty sure you guys already do) in terms of keeping a closer eye on IPs and such for use with the occasional occurance of foul play.

well, if you had membership fee you would have a sort of verification right?

You'll probably see more "guests" as the new microsoft explorer deletes cookies as part of it's clear browsing history function. I sometimes don't log in until I have something to post. More importantly, I was a guest for a few months until I was sure that the site was not a way to sell me stuff through my email account. I think "new membership" would drop if registration was required.

(I don't know about the "Eugene" scam though.)

my .02

Dan

Yes, but if the club has access to all that schtuff for various club members, what protects us when we get hacked again?

Jen

But some have gotten by with nothing but a set of brass ones. Britt what do you think?

Man, I do love this place.

Does anyone else see how closely this discussion parallel's the USA's immigration policy debate?

Guests......

If this thread moves one or several of you to register, please post your thoughts here. It would be totally appropiate.




No, I don't see it at all. I didn't say anything because then it would be POLITICAL. I am not smart enough to come up with a quote of BF without some sort of context.

I looked here for many months for a car before I finaly registered and gave you full access to all my insane thoughts. Why would I want to join if I am not sure I even want a 914. Also like everyone keeps saying those that are out to rip people off are more then likely registered. Is that really a deterent?

I do have a friend who doesn't allow people to register with certain email addresses. I can't register with my hotmail account, but I also only use my hotmail account so I just don't register. Maybe that might be something you guys want to do here and since I am already registered what do I care.

I drop in from work, which means I do so from various computers and locations. Sometimes I log in, sometimes I don't. Some companys track employee computer usage and log ins.

Making people log in to read would what's going on is restrictive of another freedom (yes I know this place is a private entity).

What happened to welcome to my garage, come in and have a beverage and see what I'm working on concept?

Locking the doors now does no good and in fact hurts a newby by lessening their chances that they would not be able to read about what happened and fall prey to whom ever is responceable for the identity theft and the theft of the items sent and stollen.

It seems like most of the real problems that caused this whole thing are related to the buying and selling of goods. There have been problems in the past with people posting bad stuff, but that seems to be well under control. The issue of verifying identity for the purposes of commerce is a valid concern. At this point you pretty much have to assume a risk when buying or selling things here. You have to assume that risk everywhere, but the risk here seems fairly high since security is so lax.

First of all, compromised passwords can be helped by having new rules about the types/complexity of passwords and how frequently they need to be changed.

Second, as Mark pointed out, having a seperate 'verified member' status would be a good way to improve trust and reduce the risk of dealing with a scammer.

The good part about having a verified member status is that it doesn't have to apply to everyone. If you sell something here you can choose to sell to only verified members or take the added risk and sell to everyone. How exactly the verified member status is achieved will determine the level of security, etc. Of course a high level of verification would be time consuming and costly for the club, but maybe a fee could be charged?

Given the number of times that the board has been infiltrated by hackers, it might be better to have a seperate system alltogether for this verification. Privacy and security of personal information is really important to the success of the verification system.

Requiring everyone to adhere to a new set of rules would really change the open atmosphere of this club. Having a verification process would help reduce the chance of scams. Nothing will ever eliminate it, but a good thorough (maybe require seeing the person and d/l or ID??) verification system will help to reduce it dramatically.

-Tony

If and I say a big "IF" that it is true that Stromberg is behind the scam, he would be doing it as several of us non-club non-members totally destroyed his credibility. This destruction was totally justified by his business practices. His personal website is his business.

I didn't think he was smart enough to concieve a plan such as this, but.....

Secondly, he targeted people who had nothing to do with his demise here or on The Samba or Pelican Parts or etc, but I guess that would be getting back at the non-club in his eyes.

We have spoken in the admin area about doing this exact "thing"

Basically having a "members only" area that is not viewable by guests.

We wont be able to stop it all no matter what we come up with.



B

a cone of silence?

Thanks Maxwell .....

uhm, are you volunteering to check up on the 2-5 new members we get EVERY DAY ???

besides the fact that i don't like the idea in general, i certainly don't have the spare time to follow up with 6000+ people to make sure they are who they claim they are ...

Andy

Up until a few days ago, I was one of those GUESTS.

I assure you I am not here to exploit anyone!

I registered so I could use the Search function, and ultimately join the community.

I agree that I may have felt a bit turned off to registration if I had felt scrutinized or had to fill out a ton of forms. That's just one opinion, and may not be representative of anyone else!

In any case, this is great forum and resource of information.

that is excatly my point ....
Andy

New huh? Let me see your papers! (with my best German accent)

Thats the real problem here. Security costs money or time. But if you make the verification procedure a distributed system, it wouldn't be so bad. For instance, at one of Joe's BBQs, if one person was verified, that person could then verify the identities of 30 people at the BBQ by checking a driver's license, writing down the person's address, phone number etc. and then submitting it to the verification server, etc.
So it wouldn't need to be one person's responsibility. Security works best when its everyone's responsibility.

Granted not everyone goes to Joe's BBQs, and there are other ways identity could be checked etc. And not everyone needs to be verified really. 6000 people don't all need verification. Participating in the 914club doesn't require that you be trusted by everyone. However its a big added benefit to be able to trust someone you are selling something to or buying from.

-Tony

ANSCHLAG!! PAPERS PLEASE!!! SHO ME YOUR PAPERS!!

No seriously, I'm against registering. What's with all this spook stuff? NSA got your phone line? Hajabs give you the heebee jeebees? 914 owner wannabes gonna carry your car away right off the jack stands? Sheesh... kooky.

Personally I really admire the european traditions of free and open information. Like Switzerland- even though they have the patten offices- they don't have patten laws in their country. They innovate by sharing information- it sparks creativity.

This whole debate reminds me of a video this Swedish guy (or Dutch?) made. I can't find the link right now. But basically he was doing a complete resto on an old Nissan Z. He filmed his whole process with cool point of view camera techniques, time lapse photography and set the film to an awsome musical soundtrack. It was one of the most informative internet films I've ever seen- taught me how to do my restoration. And all throughout you can see his shop, the car, the tools he has, how he uses them, name of the business, ect. He DID NOT require registration to view this helpful info. And he has not gotten 'ripped off' by someone U-hauling his shop away. If I had to register to see his films, I would never have seen them. Thank you Swedish guy for openly sharing with me your restoration skills- it's saving my teeners life.

If someone is intent on scamming the people of this club... they will, there is no way to stop them.

The no guests, verified only thing only works so well... personal passwords WILL get compromised (seems to be an active topic right now) and all the verification in the world goes out the window.

Had that password been an Admins, even more trouble would have (theoretically) occured.

Buying and selling there is a risk. There always is.

BJH

Wowsers, neighborhood watch guy huh? Neighbors spying on neighbors. Yeah, that's gone over really well in the past 100 years of history. Well, I guess it works for CHINA.

I'm not saying that the whole site needs to be a lockdown area, but that an added verification of identity would allow people buying and selling things to choose who to sell or buy with.



Absolutely. Like anything, you can only reduce risk. But there are some measures which could really reduce risk, and not interfere with the open nature of this board. Thats why keeping the board open, but having an added level of verification would be a good solution.

Password policy can be changed to reduce risk. Most places who care about security require password changes routinely and have specific passowrd lengths, require numbers or other characters, random stuff only, etc. Then there are more extreme ways such as those keyfob devices that give you a new passcode number every hour or whatever.

-Tony