Do you suspect your stars and flags being logged?

Hi just have recently begun to sense that each post I choose to star or flag is being monitored by some outside source as if discovering what my real intentions, thoughts and actions are or could be.

Now I realize that it sounds preposterous and just a bit paranoid, and perhaps it is, yet I have managed to get to where I am now by staying alert to the unseen yet felt more times than I can count.

It matters very little to me who would be cataloging or keeping track of what my moods, trends and opinions may or may not be here on this forum or anywhere I travel in cyber.

Perhaps it is like a profile on each CTer or something? That would be a big waste of time if you ask me because people are not always who they pretend to be on this and other forums, and in fact can be the opposite in real life.

I will admit with all the outlandish things the Governments of the NWO are trying to put out and pass upon us the people, I have suspicions of them also monitoring who in fact would be a thorn in their side when it goes down. I really appreciate the members who put up a tough front but wonder now about staring those outspoken patriots, after all the best weapon would be the unknown right?

Face it, just by being on a CT forum as long as I have my name is most likely in some form or another been checked out, so whats different? I don't know but I can sense it.

An interesting point that you raise, and not entirely unfounded.
Many alphabet agencies use profiling, general police investigators use profiling.

What better way to know how someone thinks than to track what they say and see how they feel on a subject.
Very possible with some aspects of our life but with the ATS forums?
I think unlikely due to the fact the way the PHP system works.

For an outsider, like an alphabet agency, there is no way for them to know who starred who without having access to the backend of the site.
Then the backend of this site needs to record those statistics themselves... I.E. A section of the administration panel that shows what users someone has starred and flagged.
Sure it is possible but not likely when you take into consideration the amount of users registered and the amount of stars that you see on the overage profile.
That is a lot of database storage just to keep track of this.

As I said... Not impossible, just very unlikely.
With that said though, any one of the main Admins of this site should be able to tell us if such a tracker is in place.

reply to post by antar


Hi antar, how you doing?

I don't think your stars and flags were being logged before you made this post, but maybe now you are on a watchlist and the boys in black suits are climbing into their big black humvee en-route to you as you read this



DON'T WORRY, carry on as normal, or be a victim of big brother without them having to do anything.

reply to post by antar


Well stars and flags equate to your character and your beliefs.

If will honestly create a profile of you, if it is truly recorded in every thread, and that profile can be sent to many governmental agencies, to see whether you are a threat or not.

That being said, I find it all to be bogus, hence one person can create 100 profiles from the same IP address, and flag himself to death, to bring his freakin thread to the front page.

I want ATS to block flagging from the same IP addresses, even if it is different accounts.

I just can't believe ATS have allowed this.

It is clearly a sham, to easily manipulate which threads should end up in the front page

I have the same thought every time I star or flag a post/thread.

I have never thought of that, but yes you could profile someone by their star and flags.

Just in case, I will never s/f again...seems silly anyway.

Edit: actually, it seems sillier to stop, what am I scared of?? haha...I will continue s/f

I will s/f this one!

I've wondered too. maybe we're just being paranoid.

Originally posted by Night Star
I've wondered too.

maybe we're just being paranoid.

Well, this site is a paranoiacs dream come true. Hey!...wait a minute....

In my opinion there is no risk of being personally profiled by such behaviors as starring and flagging posts. A unique, or at least highly specialized computer algorithm or profile would have to be utilized for each thread and then each post, based upon keywords, concepts, etc. And that doesn't even begin to factor in the human aspects... such as people starring posts based upon friendship, humor, sarcasm, obnoxiousness, agreement, disagreement, etc. Logistically this is all highly improbable.

Where I think there is a real "risk" for profiling is less in what we reward and more geared towards what types of threads we access in general. Google analytics, and a myriad of other cookies and trackers already follow us and make "decisions" about us, as individuals, based upon these criteria.

Even the ads that show up on your ATS pages are tailored to you based upon your browsing habits, the time of day that you browse, how long and often you browse, and your location - via your IP.

A site like ATS can provide some very interesting information when we are looked at as a hole - and not as individuals. The trends of threads, in regard to number of threads posted, tone of those threads, and amount of activity on those threads (views, replies, stars, flags) can most definitely be utilized for statistical analysis and a study of trends within the "collective".

Imagine it like watching an ant hill. Something we've all done at one point or another. Mostly we just tend to pay attention to the general behavior of the ants... Which way they are all going in their little line, how they go about passing one another, how they overcome "obstacles"... We only tend to notice individual ants when they really stand out - the ones that venture away from the "line" or the ones that carry things ten times their own size... That kind of thing. Overall, however, we just develop understanding based upon the behavior of the whole.

Basically speaking... Flag a thread that says "Impeach the President" and you are just an ant in a line. Flag a thread entitled "The President Must Die" and you're probably way out of the line and opening yourself for attention.

BTW... starred and flagged because I just love living on the edge!

~Heff

I love the irony in having a conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory website, posted for discussion on said website.

It's a good theory in my opinion as I have wondered about whether they are logged as well.

But the irony....

They are watching you!







By the way S&F for your post!

If you are that paranoid there is a simple solution, just stop starring and flagging.

Sovaka

An interesting point that you raise, and not entirely unfounded.
Many alphabet agencies use profiling, general police investigators use profiling.

What better way to know how someone thinks than to track what they say and see how they feel on a subject.
Very possible with some aspects of our life but with the ATS forums?
I think unlikely due to the fact the way the PHP system works.

I sure hope you are right, I LOVE to star and flag threads and posts!!!

Nerbot:

Hi to you too,

DON'T WORRY, carry on as normal, or be a victim of big brother without them having to do anything.

Man you would not believe the amount of paranoia I used to have about those agencies, now I have simply accepted that they exist and yet ATS has in so many ways, the members anyway, have taught me to relax, and just live my life without fear of those types of unknowns, very big for me as I really was paranoid of them before finding my way through the dark. Now they exist as spooks more than monsters...


oozyism

Well stars and flags equate to your character and your beliefs.

Not really, at least not all the time, have you remained the same over the years or have your views changed? I would not like to be held accountable for some of my posts made in anger or even rage on a subject which later I had a change of heart about, bad example but I think you get what I am trying to say here.


this_is_who_we_are

I have the same thought every time I star or flag a post/thread.

Always or just since the new system went into place? I did not tune into it strongly until recently...

Text

I love the S@F system, so often I am not in the mood or the space to make comments but want to either support the OP or a members posts, that is what makes this discussion board stand out to me.

Night StarNight Star

Maybe, but not so long ago even to admit paranoia made me paranoid...

HefficideHefficideHefficide

Excellent post...


JonInMichiganJonInMichigan

ironic, but it had to be asked don't you agree?

Sanjaya

To serve man yes to serve the abc's NO!!! *LOved that one*

SheSellsSeaShellsSheSellsSeaShells

Are you joking? I am a big proponent of the S@F system, just feel like something has changed in that system and think it may have made it easier to be tracked as potential bad guys or whatevers... I wont stop. But I will be more cautious about the ones I do hit from now on... Unless I truly resonate or feel no threat by agreeing... I would rather be private about my , um well some things are better left private even though after years on the same forum with great trust in many members, it is hard to not make bold and often rebellious statements or even easier to S@F those who have the tenacity to make those brazen and bold statements even if I don't.

I flag threads and star posts if they are well thought out and when there are good points presented in them. I don't always agree with them. If a post or thread gets me thinking it deserves a flag or star from me.
So they could profile me with my stars and flags, but it would not be very accurate.

reply to post by antar
Can anyone explain those letters and numbers in the little box below our avatar area? I was assuming that the "F" stood for number of flags we gave, and the "S" for the number of stars, with the "P" for the number of posts.

What's the point of being paranoid if you don't use it?

reply to post by antar


Yes I do sometimes feel like this site is monitoring our thought processes and belief systems. On how we deal with nonfiction related topics in relation to E.T. and UFO, advanced technology. I think that what you star and flag does help build up a E-profile of yourself aswell. Sometimes I think ATS is a GOV. site I am almost sure it is due to the 90% intentional bs to distract and 10% real sensitive information.. I dont know the entire reason this is done but I think they may even learn from this site.

Good point S&F

I was thinking the same thing as the OP recently, just a thought that crossed my mind. I made a thread about internet lurkers and was thinking even if lurkers don't post, by starring and flagging things they're basically speaking through proxy. No one is safe!!

Personally, it wouldn't bother me if someone was logging my stars and flags. I'm no one of any consequence. The world does not hinge on what I think or feel, nor do I have the power or influence to change anything. Data miners might be interested in larger trends but not the individual.. unless you're some lunatic on a watch list.

IRM

I'm almost completely certain they're being logged, though probably not specifically for the intention of profiling people but rather for debugging purposes.

Web servers typically log all traffic, although the basic logging is just HTTP stuff like which page the browser requested and any data entered in a form. Starring and flagging is done on this site via the query string (notice what the URL looks like on the star links or the flag links), which would be logged when logging the page requested by the browser.

From this alone it would be possible to determine which users starred and/or flagged which posts, though they'd probably have to write a script to parse the logs if they were getting serious about digging this up for large numbers of users.

In addition, it's also quite probable that a layer above the web server itself, in the web code, user actions are logged for debugging purposes. And this would be considerably easier to dig up, since you're no longer parsing HTTP logs and trying to figure out which user the IP address goes to, but can directly query the database for what posts User X starred.

Now that I've stoked the paranoia, I'll offer the bright side: I wouldn't worry about it. I doubt ATS admins care what you star and flag, and if the government is subpoenaing them for that information, even that feels like "grasping for straws" if that's the best evidence they can get for whatever they're investigating.

reply to post by antar


Hi antar!

Funny! I was thinking exactly the same the other day.

BTW! One time my computer slowed down to very slow because I had too many windows open & and stuff up and things working in the background on the computer - and I could see some strange id numbers showing up in the adress field when I actually starred a post!

But that was with the old layout of ATS one year ago, and at first I didn't know if that meant something, but it surley made me wonder and think about what the heck it was for?

You said:

just have recently begun to sense that each post I choose to star or flag is being monitored by some outside source

And:

just feel like something has changed in that system and think it may have made it easier to be tracked as potential bad guys or whatevers...

What did you exactly mean by this "monitored by some outside source" ?

Do you mean that you can sense this on an emotional level, that it just feels like this? - or do you actually see some real suspicious I/O traffic on your computer which is coming from another place than ATS when you star or flag a post?

Sorry for being curious and hope you don't mind me asking?