How Does Ares Handle Data

[Tez]

@Faraday, I am actually curious about it, and as you asked it to be spun off into a different thread–

Would you mind addressing the question from the Witcher thread? How DOES Ares handle data sent to it with the out of the box Ares code?

[Pavel]

Please use very elementary language. I am very curious but I am also stupid.

[Faraday]

Ares was designed with privacy and safety in mind. The full privacy policy is at https://aresmush.com/game_privacy.html but I’ll summarize here.

It’s important to draw a distinction between logged and stored data.

Logs are plain-text files, accessible by any admin to track and troubleshoot what happens on the game. Certain commands are not logged for privacy reasons: connect/create (due to passwords), mails, pages/pms, poses, oocs, channel chat, and others.

2023-01-30 17:31:36 INFO - Character Connected: Faraday 127.0.0.1 localhost 
2023-01-30 17:31:37 DEBUG - AresMUSH::Jobs::JobsFilterCmd: ID=1 Enactor=Faraday Cmd=job/filter mine 
2023-01-30 17:31:38 DEBUG - AresMUSH::Who::WhoCmd: ID=1 Enactor=Faraday Cmd=who 

Stored data (in the database) is for the purpose of game features. This enables things like the web portal play screen, channel recall, sharing scenes on the wiki, etc. All built-in commands limit stored data to people who should have access to it. Game admin do not have ready access to everything. Not even headwiz.

• Pages/PMs can only be viewed by the people chatting.
• Private scene poses/ooc chat can only be viewed by the participants.
• Mail messages can only be viewed by the recipients.
• etc.

Pages, scenes, channels and mail all have built-in commands/buttons for a participating player to report offensive behavior with a verified, unalterable record attached.

Now it’s worth noting that even though Ares doesn’t give admins snooping commands–with ANY online service, ANY data transmitted to the server and/or stored in the database is ultimately accessible to the game owner and anyone they choose to share it with. Game owners/coders could install custom loggers or custom commands, or crack open the database manually. Sensitive information is best kept off-game, Ares or otherwise.

[Tez]

@Faraday VERY SINCERELY, thank you. Much appreciate it and the distinction you draw between logged and stored data.

[Testament]

@Faraday Love all of this. Thank you. I had been curious myself regarding this topic.

…or I could’ve just read the page. I am not a smart man.

[Faraday]

Btw, if anyone does feel inclined to read the whole privacy article, I’d love to know if there were any lingering questions, any bits that didn’t sound quite right, if you think it’s too verbose and prefer the tl;dr; summary version above, etc. This is important to me, so I want to make sure it’s clear. Discuss here, in PM, on the Ares forum, carrier pigeon, whatever.