Bitcoin Forum

Just saw this feature on another forum. Don't know if it can be done here or not, but it looked interesting.
You can set a lock on your account for "X" days and it cannot post / change password / or do most other features.

It's kind of like setting an away message on your office email.

This way if you know you are going to be offline and not logging in for a while it prevents some account compromises and such.
It also lets other users know that you are not ignoring them. That is probably less important here but possibly good to have.

Just thought I would put it out there for discussion.

-Dave

If what you wanted is totally lock one account for a set-up period, with X = 30 days, ie. And that account's owner can not re-activate the locked account before the 30-days period expires, that will be terrible.

We can not pre-determine exactly when we will come back to use accounts (after holidays, vacations, ie.). There are many reasons that force us to re-activate our accounts before the setup periods.

In contrast, if there is option to re-activate accounts, your suggestion does not makes much sense. Because if hackers have access to email, accounts, then they will easily to re-activate accounts.

It's a nice suggestion, but like most things I doubt anyone is going to spend time implementing it in to SMF. Perhaps suggest it as a feature for the new forum software.

I don't think I would ever use it, though. My plans/schedule/life is never set in stone more than a few days in advance - certainly never long enough to lock down my account for a week or more.

If you wanted to alert people that you are away and not ignoring them, then you can always change your personal text +/- signature +/- avatar to something relevant.

tbct_mt2 raised some good points.

May we know how is the unlocking process in that forum you mentioned?

You set it to x days y hours and after that it auto unlocks.
Or you can preset a pin so you can unlock it early.

It's an motorcycle forum and the issue had become that this time of year people would drop off for months. Then come back to discover their account had been compromised.
So you can now lock it for the winter.

I don't think we need anything as long as that here, but if I know I am not going to be around or posting for a week or two I can just lock it down and forget it.

Even if someone grabs my laptop while traveling, no big deal they still can't get in. Yeah, I have my PW saved if firefox, bad I know but....

-Dave

Being offline for a while shouldn't increase the chances of your account getting hacked. If you're here for 4 years in a row and then gone for a month, what are the odds of your account being compromised in the 2% of the months you're not here? Odds of getting hacked in the other 4 years are much larger.

As for the out of office: use your personal text for it, or put it in your profile.

This could be a good feature, but just for a very small minority of people. But it's just going to bring out problems. Basically more good than bad. Next thing you know we got people creating new accounts to report that they need help unlocking their main accounts after intentionally or unintentionally locking their accounts for x amount of days.

The disadvantage of this feature that you are talking about is that it could be abuse by scammers, I mean, i.e., if two people are going to have a transaction here in this forum, let's say lending bitcoin, and the other one didn't pay it, he could lock his account for X time, therefore the moderators or theymos would not be able to punish him by giving red trust on his account for example or banning him maybe, because his account is locked? (I'm thinking about it works like on Facebook)

correct me if I'm wrong.

Maybe the best solution for this is having a secondary email as a way to re-activate your account, with this option at least even if your primary email is conpromise the only way to re-activate your accound is to your secondary email. This is also a good idea if someone is just trying to make fun of you by locking your account which can be easily avoided if you have a secondary email.

Locked would presumably just mean unable to log in. It shouldn't affect other accounts leaving trust ratings since we can currently still leave trust ratings on other locked accounts (such as Satoshi's), and obviously wouldn't affect banning.

It could be abused in other ways though. A scammer could post a fake offer or scam from a trusted account, and then lock the account so the original owner can't try to reset their password and delete the post. They could even threaten to lock an account and demand a ransom not to.

Good points. I guess I didn't really look at the other side which really is that you are more likely to drop off for weeks / months on a car / bike / boat forum then you are here.

So here if something goes wrong you are going to notice. I probably will not even check the email that is associated with the bike account till the spring.

-Dave

Better yet, write down the suggestion on a small piece of paper, seal it into a bottle and float it out into the nearest ocean with the hopes that Theymos finds it someday. 

That isn't to say that it's not a good idea, because if it could be implemented easily enough I think it should be an option.  I'm pretty sure there are some members who take a planned break from the forum (or a permanent one) who'd like the option of locking their account.  Hell, I might find it useful myself one day.  I just tend to think suggestions like these 1) tend to fall upon deaf ears, and 2) won't ever see the light of day when the new forum software comes rolling out real soon.

I have seen that on an another forum, the members are able to ask a moderator to lock their account for some time. The purpose to do this is to ensure that the member remains away from the forum and is able to control his wish to login on the forum again and again.

Allowing such a feature would mean additional burden on the moderators who already seem to be occupied with various other duties.

I have multiple accounts.

philipma1957------------- original account
Philipma1957cellphone     got this idea from loycev
judypug1956 ------------- wife's account



I fear the main account being compromised So I do not like to take it on the road so to speak.

I could see lock feature in some cases, but multiple accounts and watching for them is better if you do sales.



I only sell with the main account.
I only take coin with the main account.

Dave you do sales on forum and you do purchases. Having 2 accounts and  looking at them every once in a while is most likely best.

I wonder if the staffs are willing to comply with such requests.

Might get the standard, "Why not just log out of Bitcointalk?" kind of replies though.

Not all systems that are in other forums can be applied to the bitcointalk forum.
There must be a lot of research and some adjustments regarding the account locking system.
Such a system is very easy to implement, because bitcointalk has a professional developer staff.

After you set X days Y hours and then in a few days you need to open an account, but you forget the password you entered, this will be a problem again. If you are offline for a few weeks, just stick to the profile if you are offline. Don't be too paranoid.

Of course the moderator will have new tasks that are increasingly piling up, only for one user. Imagine if all users lost access and forgot the password to re-enter during an emergency, it would be very chaotic.

If that account lock feature is ever implemented, we'd have queries like this all year: "Sir help locked the account and forgot the pin can't activate it back". Why would admins/mods want to take the headache of putting all the extra work when people can't secure their own accounts? You're on a technical forum where one of the most complex technology is discussed and you don't know how to protect one account from the hackers? Pathetic.

Hm, the only reason I could see people wanting to do this is to ensure that they don't get hacked during a time where they're not going to be able to be on their computer or they're addicted to the forum. Probably the first one to be honest.

All of this can be solved with using signatures when buying/selling things. You'd be able to ensure that you keep your reputation on the forum.

Also ya know -- safe password -- safe email -- so on and so forth.