Locking down a smugmug site

rwilkes2323

Ever since some pervert made a comment about one of my 10 year old daughters pictures on our site at wilkes.smugmug.com, my wife has been very reluctant to use smugmug, and she also has stopped taking as many pictures (because smugmug was how we shared many of them with friends).

We made all the galleries private, although some are still sitting there password protected; haven't cleaned them all up. But what she really wants is just a simple password: know it, and you get to see everything. Don't know it, and you don't. Share galleries isn't what she wants to do, for some reason.

Can this be done easily with the professional site? Anyone else have any suggestions? My wife is a very private person, and just doesn't want her personal family pictures available--even though she really loves smugmug!

Rick

Allen

Create ShareGroup
Try creating a ShareGroup and put the family galleries/photos in there. Anyone accessing it would need the exact link, even you would need it if not logged on.
AL

rwilkes2323

Allen wrote:

Try creating a ShareGroup and put the family galleries/photos in there. Anyone accessing it would need the exact link, even you would need it if not logged on.
AL

Yes, we're aware of sharegroups. She likes to be able to let selected people see the entire site, including its structure/categories/etc. Sharegroups lose that.

If there is no other solution, she's consented to use the technique of sending the gallery URL and/or sharegroups, in order to keep using Smugmug. The new DVD backup service convinced her that there wasn't a big downside. But she'd prefer it if I could figure out a way to put a login in front of the whole site.

Rick

marlinspike

From what I hear, passwords are pretty easy to crack if somebody knows how to, so don't think that's the way to go. I don't have anything else to offer. Sorry.

ginger_55

rwilkes2323 wrote:

Ever since some pervert made a comment about one of my 10 year old daughters pictures on our site at wilkes.smugmug.com, my wife has been very reluctant to use smugmug, and she also has stopped taking as many pictures (because smugmug was how we shared many of them with friends).

We made all the galleries private, although some are still sitting there password protected; haven't cleaned them all up. But what she really wants is just a simple password: know it, and you get to see everything. Don't know it, and you don't. Share galleries isn't what she wants to do, for some reason.

Can this be done easily with the professional site? Anyone else have any suggestions? My wife is a very private person, and just doesn't want her personal family pictures available--even though she really loves smugmug!

Rick

Yes, give selected people the same password you use. I do. Then again, I have not had anyone browsing and saying scary things.

And, I agree, passwords are pretty easy to crack. Somewhere, maybe dpreview, they make you change passwords frequently. I just keep adding numbers to my original.

But that is what I would do, I would relax and give my password to just very trusted people. And, if I were you, I would not use the same password that you use for credit card places and stuff.

Totally different password, that would just get them into your acct.

It just occurred to me that my acct is, so to speak, public. If it weren't would I need a password to access, or your friend? Could that work?

I have a pro acct. No one can remember my password, I just send them the share links all the time. I don't know about smugmug, but other places, if you can get into one thing, you can get into the rest of the place.

Just some ideas.

ginger again

QuinnPorter

I would make the galleries public, but password protected. If every gallery has the same password, a viewer would only need to enter it once, then all the galleries become available.

Passwords can be broken, but I doubt the perverts out there are going to spend their time trying to break your password. Perverts are more likely to browse the available galleries until they find something they like. To make you password a bit more secure, make it a random string of both letters and numbers and make it as long as smugmug will allow.

tmlphoto

There is a guest password for the pro accounts that allows other users to upload photos and rearrange groups. I'm not certain if this gives access to private galleries, but I would think that it would. Other administrative functions are locked out. I would guess that if you made all of your galleries private and then used the guest password for your friends/relatives to login to your site , this would allow your friends and relatives access to your private galleries. Anyone one else would not see any of your galleries. I think this would work, but I would check it out before commiting to this strategy. An email to smugmug support should get you an answer. help@smugmug.com Good luck!

Another strategy would be to give out your smugmug login password to everyone you trust and make all of your galleries private. The first option would be better if it would work.

ian408

I'm curious. Do passwords prevent the various bots from crawling images?

I don't know much about how bots work but the result can be found in the
images section of www.google.com. I believe the matches are based on
photo file names.

Ian

gmtan

Sharegroups
I would have loved making all my galleries private and just send out sharegroup links to friends and family, but I have some issues on the following:

1) sharegroup albums are not categorized. In my case, I would like my family (at another country) to be able to see all my albums in smugmug as this is our major channel of keeping up with each other. This means that not categorizing the albums would be very messy. Question: Is there a way of presenting the albums in a sharegroup the same way as it was structured or categorized in my actual smugmug home page? However, I should still be able to pick and choose by album what I want to include in the sharegroup.

2) the sharegroup URL is hard to remember as it is composed of random letters and numbers. Is there a possibility for users determining their own sharegroup url?

3) sharegroup album navigation. Navigation is a little bit confusing for albums in a sharegroup.

Andy

marlinspike wrote:

From what I hear, passwords are pretty easy to crack if somebody knows how to, so don't think that's the way to go. I don't have anything else to offer. Sorry.

what's your basis for making this statement, re: smugmug? i mean, if i made a password, X32bt93Yh992mmqR2749bk and only you and i had the pw, and neither of us told anyone lese, how is any one going to crack it???

Andy

gmtan wrote:

I would have loved making all my galleries private and just send out sharegroup links to friends and family, but I have some issues on the following:

1) sharegroup albums are not categorized. In my case, I would like my family (at another country) to be able to see all my albums in smugmug as this is our major channel of keeping up with each other. This means that not categorizing the albums would be very messy. Question: Is there a way of presenting the albums in a sharegroup the same way as it was structured or categorized in my actual smugmug home page? However, I should still be able to pick and choose by album what I want to include in the sharegroup.

2) the sharegroup URL is hard to remember as it is composed of random letters and numbers. Is there a possibility for users determining their own sharegroup url?

3) sharegroup album navigation. Navigation is a little bit confusing for albums in a sharegroup.

i've been using sharegroups for two years now, for 1500 images in my family archives collection, shared among 75 family members worldwide... not once has anyone reported difficulty in navigating..

the url of course is hard to remember but they have it in an email, or the bookmark it... so i don't understand the big deal there? exacly how is navigation difficult, please elaborate becuase i'm not seeing that...

oh and here's a pic:

Maki

Since I didn't see a reply to this effect, I'll chime in.


I just sent a sharegroup link to someone and they blamed themselves for being unable to navigate within the group: "give me the Dufus award for navigating the web site. I am seriously mechanically and technologically challenged"
I think the issue, and maybe it's already been discussed, is that once you go into a gallary within the Sharegroup, there is no way to get back to the sharegroup. Well, not intuitively, that is. My biggest complaint is that once you enter the gallary, the hierarchy is exposed, which I think causes the confusion.

In a sharegroup, the hierarchy should not be visible, and should be replaced by the current sharegroup link only.

Since there is no way to go back (other than hitting the BACK button), the user is compelled to click on one of the hierarchy links, which shows them WAY too much information and they get overwelmed. There is that little sharegroup blurb that helps you get back, but it's so insignificant in size compared to all the other gallaries that it gets overlooked.

Could we please have an option to show the sharegroup link only, instead of the whole hierarchy?

System

Hi,

Will smugmug take action against documented abusive ip's if it more than just a passing occurrence? I have no intention of keeping my galleries anything but public. I have not been abused at smugmug but have seen many others abused at other sites.



-don

onethumb

Maki wrote:

Since I didn't see a reply to this effect, I'll chime in.


I just sent a sharegroup link to someone and they blamed themselves for being unable to navigate within the group: "give me the Dufus award for navigating the web site. I am seriously mechanically and technologically challenged"
I think the issue, and maybe it's already been discussed, is that once you go into a gallary within the Sharegroup, there is no way to get back to the sharegroup. Well, not intuitively, that is. My biggest complaint is that once you enter the gallary, the hierarchy is exposed, which I think causes the confusion.

In a sharegroup, the hierarchy should not be visible, and should be replaced by the current sharegroup link only.

Since there is no way to go back (other than hitting the BACK button), the user is compelled to click on one of the hierarchy links, which shows them WAY too much information and they get overwelmed. There is that little sharegroup blurb that helps you get back, but it's so insignificant in size compared to all the other gallaries that it gets overlooked.

Could we please have an option to show the sharegroup link only, instead of the whole hierarchy?

Well, the thing is, the sharegroup galleries are added to the heirarchy once you've "unlocked" it. So when browsing back through the hierarchy, those sharegroup'd galleries appear just fine.

So there's really not a big need to go back to the sharegroup. Or am I missing something?

Don

gmtan

Sharegroup
Ok, I can live with the sharegroup navigation but I haven't seen any replies to my first and second issues? Thanks!!!

Maki

onethumb wrote:

Well, the thing is, the sharegroup galleries are added to the heirarchy once you've "unlocked" it. So when browsing back through the hierarchy, those sharegroup'd galleries appear just fine.

So there's really not a big need to go back to the sharegroup. Or am I missing something?

Don

Well, yeah. I thought the whole idea of the sharegroup was to allow someone access to a specific group of gallaries? They enter the sharegroup, and everything is brilliant, until you want to view the next gallary in the lineup. It's particularly a problem when there are gallaries that span different categories/subcategories for the intended audience.

I'm not sure what you mean by unlocked though...

gmtan

Hi! How about providing one password for the whole smugmug site (private and public) without the administrative functionalities, and one password just for the public galleries?

Please let me know if this is doable ...

mpmcleod

gmtan wrote:

Hi! How about providing one password for the whole smugmug site (private and public) without the administrative functionalities, and one password just for the public galleries?

Please let me know if this is doable ...

Not currently.

I too would like a single password to enter the site and then its open unless I add an additional password for a separate gallery. Just one of many suggestions to increase security.

I want to share with family and friends AND keep my photos secure and hidden from the rest of the world. There are just too many creeps out there and sites like Google will cache my images forever if they ever find them.

ivar

gmtan wrote:

Hi! How about providing one password for the whole smugmug site (private and public) without the administrative functionalities, and one password just for the public galleries?

Please let me know if this is doable ...

That won't work the way you are describing it. What you could do is make the entire site passworded. People entering the site could only view the non-password protected galleries.

The, if you make all of your galleries have the same password, people only need to type in the password once, and can still switch between the passworded galleries.

The only negative thing about it, is that the people who are allowed to view both protected and non-protected galleries have to type in 2 passwords. Other than that it will be as close as you can get to what you are describing i think.

ivar

mpmcleod wrote:

I too would like a single password to enter the site and then its open unless I add an additional password for a separate gallery. Just one of many suggestions to increase security.

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but there is an option to create a site-wide password, aswell as make gallery specific passwords currently available.

mpmcleod

ivar wrote:

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but there is an option to create a site-wide password, aswell as make gallery specific passwords currently available.

Looks like I need to read more ...

Didn't even know that existed.

Thanks!!!

gmtan

I don't like protecting individual galleries with passwords. For one, I want to be subtle in telling my friends that there are galleries that are off-limits to them - not announce it to their face :-( A more graceful approach would be to use passwords ...

What I want to be able to do is for my family to have one password that will allow them to view both public and private galleries (I don't want to send them sharegroup links because categorization will be lost).

Then, I would also like to have another password for friends that will allow them to view only public galleries (I think the viewing password currently in place meets this requirement).

Hope smugmug will take some action on this wish list in the near future ...

Suggestions from other dgrinners would also be very welcome ...

jchin

Here is a thought ... create a category for that Share Group and put all the shared galleries in that category? That way when they navigate to a gallery within that Share Group, they can then click "Home" and see the Share Group category and go back to those galleries. Will that work?

NOTE: I have not tried this yet (just a thought right now).