Quote Originally Posted by Lee Roberts View Post
No, that is just one way it could* be done, given (as you know) that the location from an IP trace is vague what would be the point in doing it this way?, i live in Wigan but my IP trace's back to the exchange in Leigh i believe, so would it not be better to allow members to input what they want people to know as their location?

Cant see anything on a google search for the version of the forum that we use here

.Me

Perhaps this is me misreading the anecdote about members on another site being broken into because of auto mapping software, I wasn't trying to disparage this site so apologies if anything I've typed has come across like that.

I was trying to point out:

That you can't get a real address from auto mapping software.
If someone is asking a whole group of people to put their full address into a site for no good reason, just don't do it. If you have done that sort of thing before then I have a friend who is a Nigerian prince and he has an investment opportunity you might be interested in...

It would be useful to know vague locations, so that we could say have a Birmingham area meetup perhaps and things of that ilk, personally I like the automated IP systems precisely because it is vague and obfuscated, as soon as you deal with human input you have to manage stupid users (like people that will put a map pin right on top of their house on a photo sharing site while advertising how much expensive photography equipment they have at home in their sig and also providing a helpful link to their twitter feed so you know when they are 24 hours a day).

PS, there are certainly exploitable holes in this version of the forum software, there always are. something to ponder, if hackers can take over North Korea's twttier and flickr sites, companies like google can't secure gmail and 'cloud storage' is getting killed in the enterprise because the wonderful cloud keeps on leaking all your data like it's monsoon season just how secure do you really think a teeny tiny forum is?

Given that multi billion dollar companies with more money than the catholic church and more post docs on payroll than the Manhattan project can't do it?