unforum

[Nighthawk]

Address disclosure and sharing

[Rogi Ocnorb]

NOS HARING!

Lots of folks are blissfully unaware of how easy it is to find their contact information.

People are just a lot more predictable, than they'd like to think.

[notgordian]

I would assume there are two ways people get "surprise" packages of this sort in a non-creepy manner.

1) Website registration information: a lot of users have their websites linked in their UF profile. I'd assume running a whois on a few of those domains would yield addresses for interested parties. Checking the UF Facebook group could also probably net a few addresses, if people have their preferences open enough. (So, what Rogi said)

2) Players gave information to a bunch of PMs, so they don't know exactly which one sent the mail.

Generally, people have very good reasons to be concerned with their private information being shared without their permission. I sincerely hope PMs entrusted with that information for a limited use restrict themselves appropriately.

[rowan]

While I know that my contact information is fairly easily obtained, I also know that I would have a hard time giving it directly out to games if I knew that it could be shared with other groups. I'm usually pretty picky about what games I give information out to, and I don't think I would be too happy knowing that someone was using my contact information willy nilly because it just happened to be on some list. When I get anything now, I know it's because of something I'd done in the past - either playing a specific PM's game previously, or because someone knows who I am and specifically sought me out. Add in the fact that my real contact information is different than the information I give out in games, I can usually tell the general direction of where I got stuff from (and thus maybe why I'm getting anything in the first place).

[Jas0n]

I'm right there with you nighthawk... nobody else needs to know the information that's been shared with us with the assumption that we will keep it to ourselves. It goes back to the Player/PM trust issue.

[imbri]

[Rogi Ocnorb]

[wackychimp]

While this kind of "surprise trailhead" may add to the whole TINAG experience, I agree that sharing of such info is not cool.

Yes it's publicly available, but maybe I don't want to play games that I don't initiate.

Just my $0.02.

[Gbutton]

Well is there any viable way to create an address pool for puppetmasters? Where anyone could register their address, e-mail, possibly phone numbers; for use by puppetmasters on later games.

The biggest problem I see with this is the risk of it falling into the wrong hands, aka spammers.

Maybe some sort of PM registration process, in which you have to give proof of you intentions and your game, would quell the tide of spam. Or maybe more spammers would start to make games.

[Rogi Ocnorb]

I've done some research into this as a secondary aspect of setting up a package escrow service for games (Being a trusted PM-to-Player and Player-to-Player package and mail forwarding entity.).

Basically, my idea is to create a registry where players can define what modes of communication they are comfortable with and how they would like to share those bits with PMs (Or not). I started creating a database of all the possible communication methods and it got really big, really fast when you consider all the possible "primary"/"secondary"/"tertiary" options and preferences, including Usernames/Communities, etc.).

For trialheads, I was thinking that a PM could provide a list of usernames from a certain community or other list of identities included somewhere in the database and be provided with (initially) a report of how many of those are "reachable", by method. It might even include the members IDs if the option to share that was set by the member. Or, they could just opt to have the service perform their trailhead activities. Phishing for information would not be condoned. Like trying to find someone's username on one forum when you know it on another.

I kinda got stuck when trying to come up with some way to keep the service from being used as a way to conduct illegal commerce or as a tool of malice. I could never be absolutely sure what a sender's intent is for an item. The member agreement is all that would serve as a protection, there. How would a situation where a recipient got something that disturbed them be handled?

And there are also a lot of legal concerns where international commerce is concerned. I'm not too worried about taxation issues, but tariffs, drugs, etc. are a lot more problematic.

Security is another issue that I had concerns over. I'd do my best to protect private information, but the risks are always there for shenanigans. Account sign-up and management would have to be really well-protected and some folks would probably prefer to not even have their information be part of any "online" repository.

As for trust. I have only my reputation to go on. So, it might take a while to grow the service. And with my propensity to alienate PMs. that could be an issue.

[Jas0n]

simple answer is that there is no secure + viable way to have an address pool for PMs. If you maintained it, you would be required to trust people you've never talked to to be new PMs. It's not feasible, find ways to build it up - besides there's not always a need to send physical items to players to launch a game, there are ways to build an address gathering system into a game for sending physical items during the game - the PM just has to be imaginative.

[faeryqueen21]

^ Or you could also plant packages at locations close to players and give them clues to find it. Make them come to the package instead.

[Nighthawk]

[konamouse]

Having a team in various places is valuable if you want deaddrops.
I like what 42 did (contact bakeries and bowling alleys) but that would cost a lot of money

You start with your known contacts from previous games. As you develop your ARG PM skills, more players come to you and in various guises you collect addresses.

Collective Detective (now defunk) tried to create a PM resource with contact information - and advertised that this would be available to aspiring PMs.

The other alternative is the Contact thread in uF. But most people wisely don't include their snail mail address. That is dangerous.

[faeryqueen21]

Yes, sorry, I did mean that packages left in various location would be for PM teams. We're not all as crazy and skilled as you Nighthawk. How you did LGL by yourself if beyond me. You're amazing. And yeah. the various locations of ARGers is definitely a problem as well.