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LEGAL ISSUES

• What is your privacy policy?
• Who retains copyright and ownership?
• What are Kuro5hin.org's rights?
• Who is Mrs. Edna Graustein, of Kansas City, MO, and why does she own all the comments?
• What do you do to the bad guys?
• Will you remove something I posted?

What is your privacy policy? (Top)

We do not ever give out or sell your email address to anyone, ever.

You get one "confirm" request when you set up your account, a confirmation email if you ever change your password on your account, and notices if an article of yours posts or dumps. There are also digests you may turn on. Basically, accounts here are for your convenience. We strongly recommend getting one, as it will never cause you grief. You also cannot post, submit articles, or vote without one! Please read the full privacy policy for more info.

Who retains copyright and ownership? (Top)

We have no desire to own your comments. So, when you post a comment here, we take that to grant Kuro5hin.org and Mrs. Edna Graustein, of Kansas City, Mo., the right to display your comment on the page on which you posted it. It may also be displayed on other pages within the site, or reachable through searches or other means, but it will always and only be here on Kuro5hin.org, and we have no intention of ever reusing, reprinting, or recreating your comment anywhere else. By posting here, you also grant us the right to remove your comment if we choose not to want it here. We do not edit comments, except in extreme cases of comments which include html or other characters that damage the usability of the site. We do remove comments that are inappropriate or offensive to the administrators (although we may post replies mocking you ;)).

You lose no copyright control over your words, and are not beholden to us in any way shape or form. Kuro5hin.org claims no liability for the accuracy of user's comments, and reserves no ownership of them whatsoever.

What are Kuro5hin.org's rights? (Top)

Unless we have explicitly agreed otherwise, contributing a story here means that you grant Kuro5hin.org non-exclusive serial rights to publish it online, at Kuro5hin.org, and syndicate the title through our RDF backend (see May I syndicate from this site?). You also grant us the right to edit or remove your story as necessary, though we will take great pains to ensure the meaning remains intact.

You also, by submitting a story here, warrant that it is your original writing, and not plagiarized from any other published source. Kuro5hin.org is not responsible for checking the accuracy or originality of any submission, nor will we be liable for plagiarism or the truth or lack thereof of any submission.

Who is Mrs. Edna Graustein, of Kansas City, MO, and why does she own all the comments? (Top)

We have no idea. We do hope she enjoys them though. (Rusty is funny that way -- too much wall candy as a kid.)

What do you do to the bad guys? (Top)

If (and when) we get attacked, there are all of the obvious immediate responses: denying access by IP addresses, correcting security holes in Scoop, and other general running around in circles. We also contact the administrators of the machines used in the attacks and forward all information collected to the relevant ISPs and to the FBI. We do not particularly wait around for manna to fall for heaven. We go after it with an axe. For information on our largest DoS attack, read the article posted by Rusty. This is a FREE service for anyone to use. We still cannot figure out why people like to attack free sites. Try to refrain from proving your '1337 ability to hack; instead, sign on and write an article about what you could have done, so that we can figure out a solution to the hole and make the site better for everyone involved.

Will you remove something I posted? (Top)

If you posted personally identifiable information about yourself, or someone else posted personal information about you, which is not already widely and easily publically available, email help@kuro5hin.org and let us know and we'll usually remove it.

We will not remove content for the great majority of other reasons people come up with to ask that it be removed. Reasons such as:

• I wish to leave the site in a snit and remove everything I ever posted!
• Someone linked to my website. Please remove the link.
• I am unhappy about the way someone described my website / company / product / hometown... etc.
• I did an ad campaign several years ago and your story about it causes me personal inconvenience.

All of those are drawn from actual requests, and the answer to all of them is "no." The administrators have the sole right to determine what stays and what goes. We don't want to cause you personal hardship, by any means, and will do our best to help prevent that. But commentary on public facts is our stock in trade here. We're not going to remove something just because you're unhappy about it.

This policy applies regardless of who requests that something be removed. Being the person who posted it doesn't give you any special say over whether it will be removed or not.