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Preston Forum Probus Club
Access to “Members Only” Pages
SITE SECURITY
We realise that whilst some of our members are expert on their computers, we know that some are not. We try to design this site so that those who are not Tekkies can still use the site with ease. We put in plenty of links to pages and little help boxes where appropriate.
HOWEVER ...we know that some are concerned about site security, getting their details stolen, getting loads of Spam Mail, catching a virus etc. We are not going to tell you here the detail of how we protect this site from such things, that would be stupid, but believe me we do. We can however let you have some of the background to our security infrastructure.
The public site (the pages with the BLUE navigation bar at the top like this one), is constructed in a secure environment and offline. This ensures that it is completely clean. It is built in exactly the same way as an on-line shop would be built. It is tested on a secure web server before it is put out on the web. We then load it on to the Preston Probus Internet host server - One.com. Their servers are also protected with spam filters, virus filters etc.
We now have a secure section, (Private Site), built in as an extension to the Public Site. The main advantage of having a secure section in the site is that it can hold information like email addresses without any chance of spammers getting to them and it can hold information that members don’t want to make public except to other members.
The private site, (pages with both a BLUE and a RED navigation bar), are built in the same way but at a higher level. This higher level of security is designed for the payment pages of an Internet shop. To achieve this we use the security of holding information on yet another set of servers that are set up for the level of security that is required for Internet payments. Enough said about these, they are really secure, they handle Credit Card payments and the like, but a simple explanation of how it works may be reassuring.
A lot of the information you put in, like when you Log On, is not stored on our web site on the web. It is stored in an unreadable format on very secure servers elsewhere. If you see messages from “Serif” its one of the secure servers. So when you submit your Log On details they are sent off - different bits in different directions, then checked and eventually our site is told it’s OK to let you in.
Spammers don’t sit at a computer looking for email addresses, they send off little programs that collect the addresses. These programs can’t Log In - they have to get in by the back door. The email collecting programs can’ only read plain text.The stuff we have on the secure pages are not text, they are something else that looks like text, but they can’t be stolen - except by one of our members who is logged on and already has a copy anyway!
There are problems with all this security in place. Lots of secure servers have to talk to each other so things like Logging On for the first time can be a bit slow. Also, when you are Logged On and secure, you will notice that you can flip to the public site just by using the Blue Navigation Bar and then straight back into the secure Red Navigation Bar area. You are moving between a secure and a very secure environment and don’t know it , but things may get just a little slower.
So, your more secure on the Probus site than on a lot of sites that you visit. We don’t have any bugs do we?
