Communications with servers - and your privacy ============================================== The Special Circumstances YPP PCTB client talks to two different servers for different purposes. (The information below is true if you invoke the system using the main `ypp-commodities' program. If you want to know the relationships between it and its various helper programs, and the specific behaviours of the helpers, you'll have to read the source. Sorry.) 1. PCTB server ============== This records everyone's uploads of commodity prices and allows you to conveniently search for good trade routes using the PCTB website. We upload to the PCTB server if you select the --upload option, and not otherwise. We also query the PCTB server to determine possible island names, if we don't recognise the island and want to ask you about it. It is not currently possible to disable this behaviour, but if you don't select an operating mode (like --upload) which needs to know your island, it won't happen. 2. YPP SC PCTB client dictionary server ======================================= This server maintains the master database of character and island name images, which is used for the commodity screen OCR and also for determining your island name. By default, we ask the server for an updated set of dictionaries every time we run; this is done with the rsync protocol (indeed, by invoking rsync). You can disable this with --dict-local-only. If we find a screen display we don't understand, we will ask you about it by popping up a window which allows you to select the island (or provide character set information - see README.charset). Your answers to these questions are recorded locally and will be used by your client in future. By default, these dictionary updates are also submitted to my server. That allows me to check them; if they are correct, I will include them in the master database so that everyone gets the benefit of them. If there are any incorrect submissions, I can contradict them in the master database so that your client will automatically behave correctly anyway. So, thanks for your help! Dictionary submissions (uploads) include your pirate name by default -------------------------------------------------------------------- These dictionary submissions are reported to me along with the ocean name and your pirate name. I will only use this to talk to you about your dictionary submissions (for example, to let you know if you have made a mistake, or to thank you for your contributions). However, if you prefer to be anonymous, you can tell your PCTB client not to mention your pirate name (in the GUI, or with the --dict-anon option). In this case I won't see your ocean or your pirate name, although of course the actual images in your submissions may reveal your island and thus your ocean. User interface for privacy -------------------------- The dictionary submission feature, and whether to quote your pirate identity, is exposed in and controllable from the dictionary update GUI, for maximum visibility. The settings in the GUI are not recorded anywhere from one run to the next. If you want to consistently increase your privacy setting, use the --dict-* privacy options. See the table of options in the README for details. Having said all that, please do not upload data to the PCTB server without also participating in dictionary sharing. If you don't update your dictionary, your parses may be wrong and thus the data you upload to PCTB may be wrong. If you don't submit your dictionary entries, any mistakes you make will remain uncorrected. Records kept ------------ I keep a permanent log of all the submissions, including date, time, submitting pirate or IP address, and YPP SC PCTB client version. This is so that I have enough information to go back and fix the dictionary if anything goes badly wrong (for example, if a particular client is broken). My rsync server (file server) also records your IP address when your client fetches new master dictionaries; those logs are used only for debugging the rsync server (which also serves many other files), and they are routinely expired, currently after about two months. The information about the source of a submissions doesn't appear in the dictionaries as available for download, so other people won't know you're using my program. I don't know what records the actual PCTB server keeps, but the upload process tells the server your ocean and island name, and your PCTB upload client version number (including the fact that it's this Linux client). The PCTB server is not told your pirate name.