Thread: Intro section - Ratioproof editing

I still fail to see why you need to cover up the time in the taskbar. Surely the time doesn't reveal anything? All I can think of is that it reveals what time zone you're in, but that is already available information from your location.

Originally Posted by Aphid

I still fail to see why you need to cover up the time in the taskbar. Surely the time doesn't reveal anything? All I can think of is that it reveals what time zone you're in, but that is already available information from your location.

If you've ever been an administrator of any web based service, time is actually a huge factor. Think about it this way, if an admin sees a ratio proof and they want to backtrack it to the user, the first thing I would use is the time. Then I would go look up who was browsing the home page at that time in the server logs. Next we can usually gather under 50 users(depending on the size of the tracker) within this time frame that were browsing the home page. Now we can compare all the active users at this time with the first digit of their ratio proof that is exposed in the screenshot and I'd say there is a good chance of pinpointing you and banning you.

Aha, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. I'd think most ratio proofs are made within a few minutes of being posted, though, so each post gives an estimate for a time. I'd guess that several proofs combined (the same tracker on different threads) might also allow a tracker to pinpoint you. Maybe it's a good idea to load a page, do something else for a bit, and then come back and make the proof if you're paranoid about this sort of thing.