Downtime

Things seem to be working. I am still seeing some quirks relating to the SSL (https) as it goes back and forth between secure and not secure, but maybe that will work itself out. Perhaps it's a cache thing. I don't know.

 

He threw in the SSL for free, by the way.

 

I still don't have my server login information, but he said he set it up. So once I get that, I can see what else I might have to do. I'll upgrade the forum software once I'm assured that things are working again. At the moment, I am getting some SSL fluctuations (secure, not secure) and I think it went down once for a moment after I logged back in. That could also be a cache problem. I just want to make sure we're stable before upgrading the software.

 

First off, Congratulations!!! And Thank You.

Regarding the SSL issues: What kind of issues? Is it anything we would notice?

 

Here's what's happening, I think. When I click into another page of the forum, sometimes, it switches from https to http and logs me out. It's only done that a few times so far. I think that's a cache problem. It should work itself out before long. Meanwhile, I'll clear my browser cache. I don't ordinarily clear my browser cache so I have to figure out how to do that. It used to be easy.

 

I have Firefox set to clear my cache (with some exceptions) every time I close the browser, and I close it before I go to bed every night. SOC is one of the exceptions, so I guess I should manually clear it. Or maybe the exceptions are only for cookies...

 

I haven't had any trouble for the past few hours. I think we're good. Once I get a login to my account, I can start looking at upgrading the forum software.

 

Anyone concerned about their email address should use a throwaway one or one that differs from the one they use for sensitive things.

 

Are you still connecting to the HTTP version of the site rather than the HTTPS version?

There are two reasons this problem occurs:

1. People who had the web address saved in their browser before the SSL certificate was added will still automatically load up the old URL.
2. Any backlink you have on your website (for example in blogs or on your webpages) is using the old HTTP:// URL and will send people to the old URL, as well.

Eventually, I will figure out how to redirect the HTTP version of the URL to the HTTPS version. I've done that with other sites, but the process differs from one host to another. It involves editing the .htaccess file at the root, and I'll figure it out eventually.

Meanwhile, if the site is bookmarked or otherwise saved, make sure you've changed the URL to HTTPS (capitalization is unnecessary). Sometimes, your browser caches pages, so they might revert to HTTP when you click into another page, and it might then log you out because you're logged into the HTTPS version. Just ensure you're connected to HTTPS, clear your cache, and it will soon work out.

 

It's somewhat ironic that now that we've finally added the SSL certificate (https versus http), which really wasn't necessary for a site like this one, where we don't collect any sensitive information, but now that I have access to do so, I did that because some of you have asked about it, now I'm hearing that some of you are worried about security. Why now?

You're not required to give your real name, and we don't collect any financial information, so the only thing that we ask of you that's real is an email address, and you can change that any time you like. Your account isn't going to quit working if your email address doesn't work. You won't get notifications, and you won't be able to use the "forgot password" thing, but you could hit me up via email or Facebook for that if you'd like.

That said, it doesn't make sense to worry about that either. No one else can see your email address. We've been here since 2015, and no one has hacked the forum. It wouldn't make much sense to do that, as hackers want sites that collect names, addresses, credit card information, Social Security numbers, and so on. An email address that doesn't connect to anything else wouldn't be worth a whole lot except spam, and most of us get that anyhow. My real name, my street address, email address, and telephone number are posted publicly on this site, and I haven't had a problem, other than maybe it contributes to my email spam, but that's only because my email address is posted publicly; your's are not. You don't need to give us any of that information, and I'm not looking for it.

Nothing on the Internet is 100% secure, but we've been secure for nine years now, and, with SSL, we're more secure than we were before, not less; and even if we weren't, there's nothing here for anyone to take.

We might get hit with DDOS attacks from time to time, but these aren't even targeted at our site specifically, and they don't threaten anyone's information (they're just annoying). No one is going to waste their time hacking the Seniors Only Club forum when they could be hacking into government sites - like the Social Security site that was hacked into recently - or any of the thousands of online retail sites that store all of your financial information.

Unless you're using your real name here, as I do, there is nothing here that anyone can see that connects to you. Your email address isn't visible, and my only point in mentioning email addresses earlier was to tell you that if you're concerned about that, although it's unreasonable, feel free to change it.

Frankly, you should be more concerned about your Amazon account or any other site where you do online shopping, any government site that has your information, like Medicare, Social Security, or the VA, or the large social media sites that collect your information. I don't want your information; we don't collect it here. Even if you use our donation button to donate to the site, that goes through PayPal - it's not collected or stored here.

If you're ever concerned about something, please ask me directly. I've never lied to you about anything.