HACKING AND YOU
We should've addressed this earlier, we know, but lately it's come to our attention that not everyone is aware of hacking mechanics, or just how hard it's going to be to access certain things. That's why we decided to write up this handy post covering most of the details on hacking. If there's still any questions, ask them here, please!
One difference with this setting is that entries that would otherwise be non-viewable can only be hacked by characters that are skilled with difference engines. This is in our posting format rules, and it's an important point. The journals have only been around for about three years, and for most people they're still a completely foreign medium. The journals have only become affordable, and common, in the last year or so.
That being said, what exactly do the different security settings mean? Many people do label their posts with a general security level, but others don't. To clarify, here's what the general, non-labeled settings should mean:
[PRIVATE TO SELF] - Hard to hack. The way private entries work is like writing it in Notepad on a modern computer IRL - it's not automatically hooked up to the network, and it would take a hacker getting in there and giving it network access to see it. Obviously, entries like this that are marked as being off-journal entirely can't be hacked at all.
[PRIVATE TO/FILTERED TO] - Medium difficulty to hack. The way you'd hack these entries would involve either tricking the system into thinking your journal is the one these posts are open to, or hacking into the other person's journal itself to see the entry.
[CREW OF A SHIP ONLY] - Medium-hard difficulty to hack. Each ship has its own security protocols that're rotated every two weeks. If you're currently on the ship, you'll of course know your own ship's security code. If not, have fun hacking it. IF YOU ARE NOT ON THE SHIP, YOU CANNOT FILTER TO THE ENTIRE SHIP IN THIS MANNER.
While each of these are the default security settings for these types of posts, it is entirely possible to add additional security, which should be noted somewhere.
Now, as for specifics about how hacking into journals itself would work, read on!
The journals work in a format that's similar to Livejournal, except without icons (yes, icons in all posts are technically OOC, as specified in our glossary) or a fancy layout or anything like that. What it'd probably look more like are the old-style forum threads that took a form like this:
Thread topic goes here
lol guys so how about those peace talks
Re: Thread Topic
ur kiddin me man, they're stupid
Re: Re: Thread Topic
NO U
Each entry posted has default security settings you can choose, or an option for an override, where you can put in better (or worse) encryption protocols than what the journal system defaults can do.
Here's some other important guidelines:
- Everyone that uses a journal has a specific ID, consisting of numbers and letters. Yes, these are essentially the IC account number of each journal. These IDs don't show up publicly; instead, what does show up is whatever the journal user has entered as their name. (This could be an alias or something nonsensical, depending on the character, so please don't consider this grounds for automatically knowing a character's real name.) These IDs are what you need to know to filter entries to a specific person.
- Entries that are private or filtered do not still show up on the network. To know that they're there at all, you'd have to have to access the hacked journal of either the poster or whoever the entry's addressed to. For the purposes of hacking, getting into a person's journal in the first place is at an easy difficulty - but hacking the posts themselves are harder, since each post has its own additional security.
- The above also means that, if two people are having a conversation in a private/filtered post, their IDs/names are not viewable unless it's hacked. There is no indication that the conversation is there at all without being hacked into.
- On entries containing a section that is private/filtered, that section is completely invisible unless hacked.
We realize that this might be a lot to remember, but these guidelines are meant to show just how difficult hacking can be. Please do ask us any questions you might have! This will help us clear up any unclear parts on the system we've established.
One difference with this setting is that entries that would otherwise be non-viewable can only be hacked by characters that are skilled with difference engines. This is in our posting format rules, and it's an important point. The journals have only been around for about three years, and for most people they're still a completely foreign medium. The journals have only become affordable, and common, in the last year or so.
That being said, what exactly do the different security settings mean? Many people do label their posts with a general security level, but others don't. To clarify, here's what the general, non-labeled settings should mean:
[PRIVATE TO SELF] - Hard to hack. The way private entries work is like writing it in Notepad on a modern computer IRL - it's not automatically hooked up to the network, and it would take a hacker getting in there and giving it network access to see it. Obviously, entries like this that are marked as being off-journal entirely can't be hacked at all.
[PRIVATE TO/FILTERED TO] - Medium difficulty to hack. The way you'd hack these entries would involve either tricking the system into thinking your journal is the one these posts are open to, or hacking into the other person's journal itself to see the entry.
[CREW OF A SHIP ONLY] - Medium-hard difficulty to hack. Each ship has its own security protocols that're rotated every two weeks. If you're currently on the ship, you'll of course know your own ship's security code. If not, have fun hacking it. IF YOU ARE NOT ON THE SHIP, YOU CANNOT FILTER TO THE ENTIRE SHIP IN THIS MANNER.
While each of these are the default security settings for these types of posts, it is entirely possible to add additional security, which should be noted somewhere.
Now, as for specifics about how hacking into journals itself would work, read on!
The journals work in a format that's similar to Livejournal, except without icons (yes, icons in all posts are technically OOC, as specified in our glossary) or a fancy layout or anything like that. What it'd probably look more like are the old-style forum threads that took a form like this:
Thread topic goes here
lol guys so how about those peace talks
Re: Thread Topic
ur kiddin me man, they're stupid
Re: Re: Thread Topic
NO U
Each entry posted has default security settings you can choose, or an option for an override, where you can put in better (or worse) encryption protocols than what the journal system defaults can do.
Here's some other important guidelines:
- Everyone that uses a journal has a specific ID, consisting of numbers and letters. Yes, these are essentially the IC account number of each journal. These IDs don't show up publicly; instead, what does show up is whatever the journal user has entered as their name. (This could be an alias or something nonsensical, depending on the character, so please don't consider this grounds for automatically knowing a character's real name.) These IDs are what you need to know to filter entries to a specific person.
- Entries that are private or filtered do not still show up on the network. To know that they're there at all, you'd have to have to access the hacked journal of either the poster or whoever the entry's addressed to. For the purposes of hacking, getting into a person's journal in the first place is at an easy difficulty - but hacking the posts themselves are harder, since each post has its own additional security.
- The above also means that, if two people are having a conversation in a private/filtered post, their IDs/names are not viewable unless it's hacked. There is no indication that the conversation is there at all without being hacked into.
- On entries containing a section that is private/filtered, that section is completely invisible unless hacked.
We realize that this might be a lot to remember, but these guidelines are meant to show just how difficult hacking can be. Please do ask us any questions you might have! This will help us clear up any unclear parts on the system we've established.