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LuigiSoft

LuigiSoft

Joined
Jan 9, 2020
Messages
386
Points
238

Location
Bad Homburg, near Frankfurt am Main
Good day to you all,
The flag at the bottom of the members details denotes the country in which each member lives. I noticed while on holiday in Sweden that the flag changes to the country in which one finds him/herself at the time, so instead of the German flag the Swedish flag appeared below my details. As this seems to be a form of (unintenional) tracking, is this in-keeping with data protection, I wonder?
Could the admin please clarify. Many thanks.
Trevor.
 
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Hello Trevor, The 'Flag' software add-on is making decisions about what country flag to display based on the IP address you are using on the computer. It is a bit technical, but each country of the world has a set of public IP addresses. When you log to SOS in Germany, it will read one IP address, when you login into Sweden it will read that country's IP address.

SOS is a public forum, any data you post in a build log or other threads is publicly seen by other members and guests. However, any Private Message between you and other party\s is private to other members and public viewers.
 
Yes,
Jim is very correct in this. I wish that we (SOS) could find an "add-on program" so that the flag is permanent, but we have not found any. Jim is also very correct that all "Conversations" or "Private Messages" between members is 100% private and secure and no one else can read those or have access. As an additional note, all passwords are encrypted and no one has access to passwords even all Admin and myself can not decipher passwords.
 
So, is everyone supposed to have a flag? I am also curious about the naval enlisted ranks. Are these just for the administrators and what does the difference in rank denote? Thanks.
 
Bobc622 said:
So, is everyone supposed to have a flag? I am also curious about the naval enlisted ranks. Are these just for the administrators and what does the difference in rank denote? Thanks.
Click to expand...
The ranks are also by the forum software and calculated by the ammount of post you made on the forum,means the more active you are the rank goes up ,but in general it has no relevant meaning just for fun
 
Bobc622 said:
So, is everyone supposed to have a flag? I am also curious about the naval enlisted ranks. Are these just for the administrators and what does the difference in rank denote? Thanks.
Click to expand...
I do not think we can remove the flags individually for member ,not possible to turn it off ,if remove the add on the flags will be removed for every member.
 
Jimsky said:
Hello Trevor, The 'Flag' software add-on is making decisions about what country flag to display based on the IP address you are using on the computer. It is a bit technical, but each country of the world has a set of public IP addresses. When you log to SOS in Germany, it will read one IP address, when you login into Sweden it will read that country's IP address.

SOS is a public forum, any data you post in a build log or other threads is publicly seen by other members and guests. However, any Private Message between you and other party\s is private to other members and public viewers.
Click to expand...
Hi Jim,
Many thanks for your explaination. It seems I've caused a bit of a stir here.
My issue concerning data protection is not with the messages and posts on this site, but with the flag itself.
In itself the flag is useful in that it shows in which country each member resides. Apart from that what purpose does it serve?
Trevor
 
LuigiSoft said:
Hi Jim,
Many thanks for your explaination. It seems I've caused a bit of a stir here.
My issue concerning data protection is not with the messages and posts on this site, but with the flag itself.
In itself the flag is useful in that it shows in which country each member resides. Apart from that what purpose does it serve?
Trevor
Click to expand...
Hi Trevor ,there is no other purpose it just shows from where the member from
 
Is that flag related to where your computer is connected to? For fun I turned on my VPN and set it to the US and my flag changed from Canada to US.
 
Jack Sparrow said:
Is that flag related to where your computer is connected to? For fun I turned on my VPN and set it to the US and my flag changed from Canada to US.
Click to expand...
Hi Jack. Yes, exactly. It is based on what country your computer is located in. The VPN (Virtual Private Network) is the perfect example of how you can 'spoof' your Country IP (Internet Address).
 
Hmmm....I was in Thailand from April 1 to June 29 and the flag was from Singapore. I changed my location in my Profile and the Thai flag showed up. Now I'm back in Las Vegas and it still shows Thailand. It's all good...I hope to return to Thailand in 4-6 weeks.
 
tommyg said:
Hmmm....I was in Thailand from April 1 to June 29 and the flag was from Singapore. I changed my location in my Profile and the Thai flag showed up. Now I'm back in Las Vegas and it still shows Thailand. It's all good...I hope to return to Thailand in 4-6 weeks.
Click to expand...
Hi Tom, Unlike a flag add-on, which is based on your geographical location and IP address of your PC located, 'Location' settings is part of the forum program and 'hard coded' by users. You mentioned, that you have changed location to Thailand, therefore it is still Thailand but...the flag shows now the USA.
Both settings are independent of each other, 'Flag' is variable and will pick up the location where you are using a computer, while the 'location' setting is hardcoded and can be changed by you manually. Hope this will help.

BTW, we have no problem you will return to Thailand in 4~6 weeks! :D
 
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