Privacy Policy

Who we are

The website address is: https://phoenixsec.us. The website administrator's nation of origin is The United States of America, and its purpose is connecting like-minded security professionals to drive innovation in a critical industry.

Introduction

PhoenixSec (referred to in this policy as "we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard the information you provide when using our website. By accessing or using our site, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Information we collect

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service to prevent bot interactions.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

When you register for the site, you may be asked to provide certain personal data for display on your profile. The "Name" field is required as well as public, and user profiles are visible to any site visitor. Other profile information may be required or optional, as configured by the site administrator.

User information provided during account registration can be modified or removed on the Profile > Edit panel. In most cases, users also have control over who is able to view a particular piece of profile content, limiting visibility on a field-by-field basis to friends, logged-in users, or administrators only. Site administrators can read and edit all profile data for all users.

This site records certain user actions, in the form of "activity" data. Activity includes updates and comments posted directly to activity streams, as well as descriptions of other actions performed while using the site, such as new friendships, newly joined groups, and profile updates.

The content of activity items obey the same privacy rules as the contexts in which the activity items are created. For example, activity updates created in a user's profile is publicly visible, while activity items generated in a private group are visible only to members of that group. Site administrators can view all activity items, regardless of context.

Activity items may be deleted at any time by users who created them. Site administrators can edit all activity items.

The content of private messages is visible only to the sender and the recipients of the message. With the exception of site administrators, who can read all private messages, private message content is invisible to other users or site visitors. Site administrators may delete the content of any message. True methods of secure contact do not occur on this format, look into more secure means of communication (e.g., SSH) if you want information to remain confidential.

We use a cookie to show success and failure messages to logged-in users, in response to certain actions, like joining a group. These cookies contain no personal data, and are deleted immediately after the next page load.

We use cookies on group, member, and activity directories to keep track of a user's browsing preferences. These preferences include the last-selected values of the sort and filter dropdowns, as well as pagination information. These cookies contain no personal data, and are deleted after 24 hours.

When a logged-in user creates a new group, we use a number of cookies to keep track of the group creation process. These cookies contain no personal data, and are deleted either upon the successful creation of the group or after 24 hours.

If you edit or publish an article on our site, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behave in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. 

You are permitted limited access to upload articles on the site after being a verified contributor participant for some time, with your account being associated with human-inspired activity (all uploads are reviewed).

Who we share your data with

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email. We will not go into detail here, but efforts should be made to ensure that only you, the intended recipient of our email(s) has access to your email inbox. (e.g., using Activity History feature in email security settings.

This site requires absolutely no personally identifiable information (PII) be shared. All instances of voluntary submission of that information to the site is exactly that, voluntary.

This site utilizes caching in order to facilitate a faster response time and better user experience. Caching potentially stores a duplicate copy of every web page that is on display on this site. All cache files are temporary, and are never accessed by any third party, except as necessary to obtain technical support from the cache plugin vendor. Cache files expire on a schedule set by the site administrator, but may easily be purged by the admin before their natural expiration, if necessary.

We do not share your information with third parties for marketing or advertising purposes.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments more effectively instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username, so be aware of this when creating an account). Website administrators can also see and edit this information. To reemphasize, no personally identifying information is required to join phoenixsec.us; however, unethical participants will be swiftly blocked from participating. 

Your God given rights are our first priority and we will take appropriate measures to protect information supplied. That being said, if you are okay with linking your name so that your profile links to your identity in that way and looks good to your future employers go right ahead.

Your freedom of speech will not be suppressed in any way, but attempts to organize unethical activities (e.g., any unauthorized hacking, any sharing of private/privileged information obtained through illicit means, unsolicited advertisements). 

What rights you have over your data

We respect your right to use a pseudonym or alias. You are not required to provide any identifying information. Your identity remains confidential unless you choose to disclose it.

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any potentially identifying data that we hold about you at any time.

- Access the information you've provided
- Request correction of any inaccurate information (frequently possible through profile settings)
- Request deletion of your information at any time

Only exception: If you directly undermine this policy, and upload information that would otherwise be unobtainable outside of committing a crime (e.g. unauthorized hacking), we will retain this information indefinitely until the appropriate authorities have a copy.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us by emailing us at privacy@phoenixsec.us or by shooting us a direct message @the_admin.