Washington Apple Pi, Ltd., a nonprofit computer user group with an international membership, operates a suite of Internet information servers, including Web servers, mail servers, list servers and associated supporting services. These servers were set up and created for the benefit of members of Washington Apple Pi, for prospective members, and for those individuals and groups that share our passion for personal computing, particularly personal computing involving Apple, Macintosh, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, etc., operating systems. The content of the various servers, pages, and services is the property of Washington Apple Pi and, in the case of member pages, individual members of Washington Apple Pi. This information is not in the public domain.
All Web servers need to collect technical information in order to share their contents with visitors. The technical information (see example below) identifies what part of a Web site a visiting computer wishes to reach, and where to send the requested information once it is found. For site management, this technical information is also used for statistical analysis. Summary statistics are used for such purposes as assessing what information is of most and least interest, identifying usage trends over time, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas. This information cannot be used to identify individual users.
Membership processing is handled by a commercial entity, JoinIt, JoinIt.com. They handle their own privacy and security, independent of Washington Apple Pi. For more on their privacy and security, please see https://joinit.com/privacy and http://support.joinit.com/en/articles/1149025-securing-your-data
Messages posted on the TCS forums are in one of two forms: public or private. Public messages that you post can be read by any Washington Apple Pi member. Private messages that you post can be read by yourself, by the recipient that you name while posting the message, and by a handful of system operators who keep an eye on the boards and make sure they remain civil. For a greater degree of privacy, contact each other via e-mail.
The Washington Apple Pi TCS forums do use session cookies. These cookies disappear from your machine as soon as you quit your browser. Form more information, see our note about cookies on the TCS. Cookies are only used to allow users to keep track of their own interactions; they are not used for marketing, advertising or any other purpose.
Electronic mail sent to addresses listed on the Pi's Web sites, such as those on the Contacts page, is treated no differently than any other electronic mail. All electronic mail transactions are handled by electronic mail servers, and do not pass through the Web sites, nor are they monitored or recorded by the Web sites in any way.
No Internet E-mail system is completely private. Don't ever write anything online that you wouldn't want read back to you at your hearing.
An exception to our rule about recording addresses: if an individual specifically requests that their E-mail address be added to a Washington Apple Pi mailing list, Washington Apple Pi does, indeed, record their E-mail address. Mailing lists are maintained for a variety of purposes, but generally speaking they are used to notify members and interested nonmembers of Washington Apple Pi events.
Many Washington Apple Pi services are available to members only, and require an account and password. The account and password provides access to specific services; aside from the servers involved, nobody else sees (or cares) about such information, and the servers contain no other identifying information.
Note that the online servers do not have access to the Pi's master membership database; they merely hold a list of membership numbers and ZIP codes which are exported from the membership database. Thus in the event of a break-in, no personally identifying information will be found.
For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, the Pi Internet information systems employ hardware and software to monitor network traffic and to identify unauthorized attempts to add or alter information, or otherwise cause damage or interfere with information delivery. Except for checking on ne'er-do-wells, no attempt is made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs may be stored indefinitely for use in statistical analysis or to protect the security and integrity of the computer systems.
Washington Apple Pi does collect great gobs of incredibly boring raw data on our Internet services. Some of this raw data is sliced and diced into aggregate statistics on how our services are used. We use these statistics internally to improve our services. We do not share this information with other organizations or groups, either through sale or barter. Even within Washington Apple Pi, only those members actively assisting in the management of our Internet services ever get to see these monumentally boring statistics, and we usually have to beg them to take a peek.
Unauthorized attempts to add information or alter information on these information services are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and subsequent laws protecting information systems.
If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, please send them to webmaster@wap.org.
Web servers keep a record of their activity in a log file. Every time a visiting computer requests a file from the Web server, a log entry is recorded. A typical log file entry for the Washington Apple Pi Web site looks like this:
10/10/01 13:19:18 OK 200 somemachine.somenetwork.com Mozilla/4.77 (Macintosh; U; PPC) http://othermachine.othernetwork.com/neatsites.html "www.wap.org" :privacy.html 8172
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