I should highlight though especially to new members, your already not hidden from me. I see all your personal information, your ISP, I can trace you anywhere, i can see if you use any manipulative techniques, etc.... so whilst you do have anonymity from members and the public, you don't really do so from myself. You would be quite shocked what I can see and what digital footprint you leave behind in coming to this forum, any forum, surfing the Internet period.

End of the day though, all members will still have the choice of either participating publicly in all those existing forums, or providing what set security standards are employed to gain access to private areas. You are not forced to provide such details, you simply will never have access to a private area here to hide your information from the public eye. People cannot have it all ways... in that I just cannot guarantee I have done everything possibe to protect the private data in private areas without the implementation of strict security measures.

Trauma Members diary is an example, being it is hidden from the public and search engines, but all you need to do is register to view the content. That is not secure, it just isn't as public, but still available by registering as a member. The private groups require manual authenticated access to view the forum and information, hence no registered member can see it unless they have gone through the same security measures. Currently those measures are my ability to view a persons information for legitimacy.... then make a decision based on my life experience. It would still be at play that way with extra security measures, have no doubt, but further verification IMHO is required.

I upgraded to a dedicated server with higher security... so hardware is more secure than most hosted sites already. A professional hacker though could get through it without much pain.... but those people are few in the world and have better things to do than hack Internet forums.