Support #20962
closedIP address on Forum replies
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Description
A Brooklyn College professor and colleague reached out to ask me why we display the IP address of anyone responding to a Forum post. Apparently a couple of their more tech-inclined students have expressed concerns about this on privacy grounds, even though this is a private group for a class so the info is only visible to their classmates and professor.
I had never noticed this before myself. It raises a few questions:
- Why do we display the IP information? Is it just a default, or is there an underpinning reason?
- Are the students' concerns valid? I don't know much about what knowing someone's IP would allow someone with ill intent (and presumably tech savvy) to do.
- Is it possible to hide the IP addresses, depending on the first two answers?
Updated by Raymond Hoh 14 days ago
bbPress displays the IP address to group admins and moderators. If a regular group member can view the IP address in the forum, let me know because this should not happen.
The IP address can pinpoint a user's location, which could be a privacy concern. The rationale for displaying the IP address is probably for spam-related reasons as spammers usually post from weird IP addresses / locations. A group admin or moderator cannot really do anything with the IP address with bbPress or WordPress admin tools though so it probably makes sense to remove the IP address from display.
If we do not want to display the IP address info to group admins and moderators, then I can just limit the IP address info to super administrators only.
Updated by Laurie Hurson 13 days ago
The IP address can pinpoint a user's location, which could be a privacy concern.
I think this is a legitimate concern and provides unnecessary info to group admins.
The rationale for displaying the IP address is probably for spam-related reasons as spammers usually post from weird IP addresses / locations. A group admin or moderator cannot really do anything with the IP address with bbPress or WordPress admin tools though so it probably makes sense to remove the IP address from display
I agree, I dont think any of our group admins would really know what to do with an IP anyway, but still, there is no need to show it.
If we do not want to display the IP address info to group admins and moderators, then I can just limit the IP address info to super administrators only.
Limiting to super admin makes sense to me.
Updated by Raymond Hoh 13 days ago
- Category name set to Group Forums
- Status changed from New to Staged for Production Release
- Target version set to 2.4.7
I've limited the IP address display to super administrators in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/fd49620eb7aaa2be5aef0be46f4e68f7b5b08015. If we'd like to push this to production before the next maintenance release, let me know.
Updated by Boone Gorges 2 days ago
- Status changed from Staged for Production Release to Resolved