ICMag Security Do's and Don'ts!

The staff of ICMag has assembled a list of security Do's and Don'ts for members of the site. These tips apply to any website.

We suggest you study these and modify your behavior if necessary. Protect yourself by following our sage advice, garnered by over more than a decade of online surfing by our experienced staff.

Many who are new here see everyone else posting up grows and may think this site is completely safe to post anything.

Also many "newbies" coming on are actually older folks who are getting online for perhaps the first time and don't know the ropes.

Most of this is common sense. Then there are ppl who are stupid or just don't give a damn... Nothing we say will change their behavior...

DOs and Don'ts

DO use a proxy service if you are worried about security. (Update: This can now raise a flag with the authorities, so think twice!)
DO use a firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware. This goes for everyone!
DO report anyone trying to buy or sell you something illegal on this site. They could be trying to set you up or rip you and others off. We need to ban such people!
DO delete PMs on a regular basis too, just in case....

DON'T use the same username you use on other websites. Use a unique registration email addy too.
DON'T give anyone your real name or address!!!
DON'T discuss or arrange any illegal activities via ICMag. You will be banned for this.
DON'T post photos of an obviously illegal grow. Keep people and identifying objects out of view.

More Tips:

Always assume LEOs are on this site (they may or may not be, but it's better to act like they are!)

If you use the Auto-Logon feature, be sure to logout when you are done!

If you have a legal grow and are obeying the law you should have no problem with posting your activities, but be aware that revealing your location may encourage rip-offs.

Remember it's not illegal to be on ICmag or to discuss cannabis growing!

UPDATES: ICMag does not link to Facebook or allow Google to monitor traffic to our pages as do other cannabis websites. Websites that link to those services are allowing those third parties to record your activities on those websites and your IP#. Be very careful when visiting other websites or following links to them. They may link to those services without your knowledge.

Also, using proxies may now raise a flag with LEOs, if they are already looking at you. They assume if you're using a proxy you're up to no good...

imo dont give people identifying clues, people who start threads asking personal questions make me wonder (like what do you drive etc...)

Great thread, Skipster. If anyone needs good, free anonymity software, I recommend Tor with Privoxy, which is best used with the Firefox browser. Google it.
Also, remember to strip EXIF data from your pics; EXIF alone probably won't get you busted, but it can be a nail in your coffin.

Don't post pics of plants you showed to your friends that they might recognize its you and that you never really stopped growing like you told them, assume old growing / smoking buddies are on here in addition to LEO

Great advice (and a great confirmation that I'm already doing things right!). Everyone should read this.

Ok, it's been brought to my attention that some pics in the Old Gallery have Exif data in them. The forum albums strip them out. ICMag does not record the exif data in the old gallery, but some is still attached to the images themselves.

The exif data will only contain personal info if it was entered into the camera. So ppl might want to check their images or cameras for any revealing data. Just download the image and check its properties.

If there is info about the camera that took it (like Sony or whatever) then the exif data is there. It will also reveal any personal info if any was entered. So if you have such images up, you might want to remove them and upload them to the forum albums. Of course any links to those images in threads will no longer work, so it could mess up a lot of threads.

But usually ppl don't put personal info on their cameras (unless they worry about losing them).

Hey Skip,
What's your take on using TOR @ icmag?

https://www.torproject.org

kp^ said:

Hey Skip,
What's your take on using TOR @ icmag?

https://www.torproject.org

Click to expand...

yeah id like to know to. I downloaded tor and then I got all paranoid cuz I feel like I stick out more rather than less with it. plus it doesnt protect info at the end, so Idk maybe its a false sense of security.

ICmag, you guys better not get nailed cuz if leo gets your servers were all fucked! haha god bless you all

Nice one Skip, i've made a fast translation for the italian forum:

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=140240

Peace

=K

turbolaser4528 said:

yeah id like to know to. I downloaded tor and then I got all paranoid cuz I feel like I stick out more rather than less with it. plus it doesnt protect info at the end, so Idk maybe its a false sense of security.

ICmag, you guys better not get nailed cuz if leo gets your servers were all fucked! haha god bless you all

Click to expand...

I'm no Skip, but I feel safe enough with TOR/Privoxy running over a secure connection (i.e. SSL connection, https://www.icmag.com/ic). Patience is required...

Hopefully Skip and the servers don't mind a little SSL load on their servers.

Playing it safe

Playing it safe

Nowaday with home securtiy available for a 20$ a month fee with free equipment installation from some companys I would suggest a home alarm . Also Health Canada told me that when My licence to grow comes in I should inform my local police show them my cards offer to provide them with duplicates of the records i will send to HC on request in this way the police see you are following the letter of the regulations and Its also quite possible to ask them to have any cruisers who are passing thru this neighbourhood to come down your street and park outfront for a few minutes and if possible do this daily . Also I would suggest spending 400$ on biometric deadbolt lock wich actually just reads your thumb print to unlock is actually very decent investment . As for myself every entrance door to the house has 2 dead bolts one middle the other one 2 feet below. After that I placed 2 deadbolts on the front and rear exits from my apt as well as 1 deadbolt on my grow room and 2 tungsten padlocks and 2 chains which are bolted to the doors to allow much more reinforcemtn. Also If its legal put your Licence number on your jars inside an out as well as use your printer to label the bud as MEdicinal marijuana not to be consumed by persons who this prescription was not intended for as the effects may be far more intense than average weed and around my area the people who sell will actually pay 5$ per govt packaging from medicinal marijuana this way they are able to mark the price up from $200 per ounce to $350 per ounce or higher and usually will just leave it in the jars which will make it easier for the police to identify as I have seen alot of dealers when they get ahold of medical grade they try to sell it at massive Prices and are likely to leave it in the jars it was found in.

You serious? So i have to surf this site through Tor and Privoxy or some variation of just to feel safe in this environment? Those are so slow and limit the functionality and ease of use of this site!

any workarounds that anybody have found that work a little quicker? I'm a big privacy advocate if you can't tell lol...

Im sorry if I've missed this but I have a question. If you use a proxy does that make you untraceable? I know all the packets received at icmag are going to come from that proxy but is that enough to make you untraceable. Is there still a way to pull up your subnet and/or your ip?

Is there a proxy that anyone knows of or settings that will enable a user to still use the text editor settings ie bold, italic, underline, quotes, smiley's etc.? because when i use my proxy I can't use any of that stuff and it sucks...

intlplayr said:

You serious? So i have to surf this site through Tor and Privoxy or some variation of just to feel safe in this environment? Those are so slow and limit the functionality and ease of use of this site!

any workarounds that anybody have found that work a little quicker? I'm a big privacy advocate if you can't tell lol...

Click to expand...

well its your choice i think ... BUT to be as safe as you can be .. i also recommend SSL + TOR/PRIVOXY

in most countries you are looking at lots of trouble if your internet connection is monitored by LEO .. and you post nice stuff here (pics !?!)

dogscot said:

Im sorry if I've missed this but I have a question. If you use a proxy does that make you untraceable? I know all the packets received at icmag are going to come from that proxy but is that enough to make you untraceable. Is there still a way to pull up your subnet and/or your ip?

Click to expand...

no it doesnt make you untraceable .. there is no such thing as 100% untraceability imho ... but you can reach a 99,9% if you're good

reasons:
- proxy might log IP's / destination websites
- your internet connection might be monitored and logged
- prolly more, but these are the most important that come to my mind

intlplayr said:

Is there a proxy that anyone knows of or settings that will enable a user to still use the text editor settings ie bold, italic, underline, quotes, smiley's etc.? because when i use my proxy I can't use any of that stuff and it sucks...

Click to expand...

if you use firefox .. there is an extension called: FOXYPROXY (allows to define different proxies for different websites and much more ..), when i use that all works fine ..

or use tor/privoxy .. portabletor package + torbutton in firefox .. easy install

Thanks for the info growcodile. I appreciate it, these are all - sort of non-technical - things that I just didn't consider but should have been obvious.

That having been said does anyone know what sort of monitoring policies ISPs use for this kind of thing if any? I know they monitor the type of traffic so they can manage the network by bandwidth throttling or whatever, but does this extend to what sort of webpages youre visiting (ie icmag) or is it simply the type of traffic (underlying protocol) that they monitor? Thank you.

well imho it depends on the ISP you use, but there is technology to inspect all kind of types of traffic, also the URLS you are blazing etc .. in many cases nobody will look at your traffic, but if they do you better use anything you can to raise security

dogscot said:

Thanks for the info growcodile. I appreciate it, these are all - sort of non-technical - things that I just didn't consider but should have been obvious.

That having been said does anyone know what sort of monitoring policies ISPs use for this kind of thing if any? I know they monitor the type of traffic so they can manage the network by bandwidth throttling or whatever, but does this extend to what sort of webpages youre visiting (ie icmag) or is it simply the type of traffic (underlying protocol) that they monitor? Thank you.

Click to expand...

I've never heard of an ISP reporting anyone to LEO. ISP's don't have time or motive to spy on their subscribers as far as I know, unless they are forced by law to do so.

LEO surveillance of ISP subscribers supposedly requires a wiretap warrant, but the Patriot Act and the FBI's DCS1000 sniffer (formerly known as Carnivore) cloud the water, if federal agents and local LEO cooperate to surreptitiously spy on people. Local LEO I'm certain do as much hacking and online stalking of suspects as they can manage, but I don't think it's worth worring about unless they're already on your ass for something major. Generally speaking it's best to avoid incriminating yourself online. I might post about getting high on a Canna site, but there's no way I'd upload a grow, even a legal med grow. I just don't want them fvcking with me.