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Personal Geocoin unwanted Tracking


morecake1

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Hi

Someone is tracking my personal geocoin, which tracks my mileage, which is unwanted. I have added a note to indicate that they should make themselves known to me, but have had no response.

Using this method they know where you've been and when, instantly by Email.

A bit strange that someone has taken an interest in us.

So...

1) Can I find out who it is, by asking Groundspeak?

2) Is there a way of disabling unwanted tracking?

3) Any other options?

 

M Cake (a made up name / account)

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Anyone can put a watch on any trackable. I doubt that Groundspeak will tell you who it is. I personally don't care if someone tracks mine and don't find it sinister in any way. They would have no way of knowing where I am at right at that moment anyway because I log at home on my comptuer and many times several days after I found the cache.

 

But Groundspeak would be interested that you have created a sockpuppet account rather than using your own name. What are you hiding?

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If you are speaking of "Watching" when you say "tracking"... the answers are:

 

1] No

2] No

3] No, aside from not using the geocoin, or logging any caches at all.

 

"Watching" a geocoin isn't strange at all. Many do that, Travel Bugs and caches, too.

 

<Had typed much -- but it leaned towards paranoia, so...>

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Anyone can put a watch on any trackable. I doubt that Groundspeak will tell you who it is. I personally don't care if someone tracks mine and don't find it sinister in any way. They would have no way of knowing where I am at right at that moment anyway because I log at home on my comptuer and many times several days after I found the cache.

 

But Groundspeak would be interested that you have created a sockpuppet account rather than using your own name. What are you hiding?

 

Thanks for your comments.

It would be nice to have a coin with a "no track" option but I know how slow Groundspeak are at responding to requests even when lots of people want something done, let alone the few or the one.

 

"sockpuppet account" It may not be obvious to you but if you post something on a forum about things you don't want, you may get more interest in the said coin than you wanted in the first place. Hence the use of a different account. The account has been useful for testing a few options in the past related to Premium member / normal member status. I am sure Groundspeak are too busy fixing things people really want fixed to take notice of someone with two accounts. [;)] Not sure there is a rule against it...

 

It appears the only option is to remove it from the logging to stop the immediate "stalking" of the coin and or us. Shame as it is nice to log it as you go. They, the hidden ones, can obviously look at my profile page, but that takes a bit more effort on their part and thus makes it harder.

A bit of HTML on the profile page may then pick up who it is.

 

Thanks again for your comments.

M Cake

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If you are speaking of "Watching" when you say "tracking"... the answers are:

 

1] No

2] No

3] No, aside from not using the geocoin, or logging any caches at all.

 

"Watching" a geocoin isn't strange at all. Many do that, Travel Bugs and caches, too.

 

<Had typed much -- but it leaned towards paranoia, so...>

Gitchee-Gummee

"Watching" yes that what I should have said. Paranoia it is... on my part.

Not logging it will be.

Then some HTML on the home page.. May be.

Thanks for your comments.

 

M Cake

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If you don't don't want someone seeing something on the internet, don't put the info out there.

 

Even if the was a no track option, they can still see what caches you have been to and everything by looking at your profile. You are using a sock puppet account as well. Well if you are that paranoid, don't put anything on the internet. Groundspeak can still find out who you are even with a fake account, and I'm sure some of the more technologically advanced people on here can find out as well, so you aren't really hiding anything.

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If you don't don't want someone seeing something on the internet, don't put the info out there.

 

Even if the was a no track option, they can still see what caches you have been to and everything by looking at your profile. You are using a sock puppet account as well. Well if you are that paranoid, don't put anything on the internet. Groundspeak can still find out who you are even with a fake account, and I'm sure some of the more technologically advanced people on here can find out as well, so you aren't really hiding anything.

 

I totally agree with you, if you don't want to be seen then don't put it on the internet.

 

If these "technologically advanced people" want to put in that amount of effort, I find that strange, another form of stalking or unwanted tracking. We all have our hobbies, for some people it's stalking others on the internet.

 

Yes I don't like stalkers. Strange people who want to track your every move and find out your pattern of behaviour. What days do you go out on and therefore not at home, have you considered that someone may want to know that for some reason which may not be nice?

 

I have spoken to friend who is concerned that their ex-partner is stalking them using this means, a sad person. It may be them watching us also ... hence the different account, my sons, who is not quite old enough to use it yet, which I have used for testing.

 

It is the speed that the coin tracking affords that puts me off, I have covered this in an earlier reply.

 

All that is needed is an option to stop tracking coins if required by the user.

I don't think it is ever going to happen, so we will stop logging it.

 

If no one has got a constructive way of stopping watching of a coin then I will leave it at that. Enough said...

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If you use the "visit" option instead of the "drop" and "retrieve" options no emails should be generated. It doesn't keep the watcher from following the coin, but they don't get an automatic email.

 

(Unless someone knows of an option to turn on that sort of notification...)

 

Thank you for your constructive comment, I didn't know that.

 

I just tried it ... by posting a note and got a immediate Email on my friends account who set up a watch. So I think they are generated.

Edited by morecake1
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If you use the "visit" option instead of the "drop" and "retrieve" options no emails should be generated. It doesn't keep the watcher from following the coin, but they don't get an automatic email.

 

 

Any log other than a "Visit" log will generate a e-mail. As Six Little Spookies said here, the watcher is not being notified via e-mail notification if you are using the visited log.

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If you use the "visit" option instead of the "drop" and "retrieve" options no emails should be generated. It doesn't keep the watcher from following the coin, but they don't get an automatic email.

 

 

Any log other than a "Visit" log will generate a e-mail. As Six Little Spookies said here, the watcher is not being notified via e-mail notification if you are using the visited log.

 

Thanks, I have just visited the coin and checked that is the case. I feel slightly better about that. I guess it is just a quicker way of someone looking at your coin visits without checking your profile page.

 

Thank you for your input.

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If you use the "visit" option instead of the "drop" and "retrieve" options no emails should be generated. It doesn't keep the watcher from following the coin, but they don't get an automatic email.

 

(Unless someone knows of an option to turn on that sort of notification...)

 

Thank you for your constructive comment, I didn't know that.

 

I just tried it ... by posting a note and got a immediate Email on my friends account who set up a watch. So I think they are generated.

 

A "note" will generate an email.

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Even a 'visit log' is useless to prevent others to know where you were, when someone knows the TB-code of your trackable. They just click a bookmark (or the link in a watchlist) and look up what was visited and when. The only advantage: they don't get a mail with a "took it to"-entry.

If you drop your trackable coin - as mentioned before - people can still use your history of finds in your profile. The only help would be: Don't log any cache!

 

Some ideas that might be more or less helpful:

1) To prevent interest you could generally start logging with a delay of several days/weeks/months (use the correct dates, but who really cares where you were one month ago?)

 

2) Whenever you have a reason to post a note to a cache that you didn't visit that day, you may drop your trackable, retrieve it before you log anything else, and delete both logs on your trackable's page. This way "your watchlist" gets a wrong information by email, but the cache owners don't know about the trackable. "Your watchlist" has to visit your trackable's page to see that the logs were deleted, because deletion doesn't generate a mail. And in the end, deleted logs don't put mileage on your coin, if I understand it right.

But do not(!) log notes to random caches just for this purpose, because these notes might annoy the cache owners (they get a mail about your note) and they might find out who you are, if they know this thread).

 

3) Log your caches without logging the trackable. One or two days later you log the same caches with a note (saying something like "mileage coin drop and retrieve - sorry I forgot when I logged this cache - will delete this note right away") with the changed date (!!). If you do this in the same order, your mileage would still be right, but one or two days off. (Annoyance and discovery who you are may follow in this case, too - by cache owners or by people who have those caches on their watchlists)

 

4) start a new trackable and sum up the results (or relog all found caches with notes like "I'm setting up a mileage TB. Visited... Sorry..." - stop using the old one - but the new one may be found as well and end on a watch list. I don't know whether it helps to adopt the mileage trackable to your sock puppet and adopt it back just for the time while you want to generate logs...

 

5) use a different way to calculate your mileage (like GSAK and/or some statistics generators...)

 

Don't try ways that are against the guidelines or annoy other cachers!! As said: your found history of logged caches still tells people where you were.

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Even a 'visit log' is useless to prevent others to know where you were, when someone knows the TB-code of your trackable. They just click a bookmark (or the link in a watchlist) and look up what was visited and when. The only advantage: they don't get a mail with a "took it to"-entry.

If you drop your trackable coin - as mentioned before - people can still use your history of finds in your profile. The only help would be: Don't log any cache!

 

Some ideas that might be more or less helpful:

1) To prevent interest you could generally start logging with a delay of several days/weeks/months (use the correct dates, but who really cares where you were one month ago?)

 

2) Whenever you have a reason to post a note to a cache that you didn't visit that day, you may drop your trackable, retrieve it before you log anything else, and delete both logs on your trackable's page. This way "your watchlist" gets a wrong information by email, but the cache owners don't know about the trackable. "Your watchlist" has to visit your trackable's page to see that the logs were deleted, because deletion doesn't generate a mail. And in the end, deleted logs don't put mileage on your coin, if I understand it right.

But do not(!) log notes to random caches just for this purpose, because these notes might annoy the cache owners (they get a mail about your note) and they might find out who you are, if they know this thread).

 

3) Log your caches without logging the trackable. One or two days later you log the same caches with a note (saying something like "mileage coin drop and retrieve - sorry I forgot when I logged this cache - will delete this note right away") with the changed date (!!). If you do this in the same order, your mileage would still be right, but one or two days off. (Annoyance and discovery who you are may follow in this case, too - by cache owners or by people who have those caches on their watchlists)

 

4) start a new trackable and sum up the results (or relog all found caches with notes like "I'm setting up a mileage TB. Visited... Sorry..." - stop using the old one - but the new one may be found as well and end on a watch list. I don't know whether it helps to adopt the mileage trackable to your sock puppet and adopt it back just for the time while you want to generate logs...

 

5) use a different way to calculate your mileage (like GSAK and/or some statistics generators...)

 

Don't try ways that are against the guidelines or annoy other cachers!! As said: your found history of logged caches still tells people where you were.

 

JoergWausW,

Thanks for your constructive ideas and efforts in writing the post.

I am kind of happier that the visit does not generate Emails and understand that Notes do.

I may adopt some the delays in logging which I already have to some extent as I use GSAK to log anyway. Sometimes I add a few days, left it over a week once. But some times I just want to get the logs out there.

 

I have noticed others doing the same logging later and thought it was because they are busy, may be that is not the reason. One of them has the unwanted watcher attached to their personal TB.

 

Oh well if you want to play the game you have to come to terms with the pains of this world.

 

Thanks again.

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I forgot to mention another way:

Log with a wrong date <- will show in emails

 

After that: edit your log-date to the correct one within a couple minutes <- no new email, and if you don't wait too long: no "was edited by user" under your log. To keep your history clean you may want to change the log date at the cache listing (you should do that, because there may be cache owners who delete logs when virtual date and date in the logbook are not the same...), plus the log date at your trackables listing (where only you (should) care what to do and what not to do).

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We have a couple of trackables on our watchlist. There's no reason for paranoia or panic.

 

We came across these trackables, moved them on, and have them on a watchlist so that we can enjoy other people discovering and moving them.

 

It seems so long ago that a big part of geocaching was enjoying other people's adventures through their logs. That's one of the reasons why we have particular caches on a watchlist, too.

 

It's odd to me that people get so stressed out over something like this.

 

 

B.

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It's probably less sinister than you'd imagine. A lot of us have a watch setting on the very first trackable we discovered or just one that had an unusual mission. We like to see where they end up and the logs of their travel just as much as the owner. I have a watchlist on the very first TB I ever moved as it's mission was to get to the southpole. 7 years later, I'm still watching just out of curiosity to know if I was part of the successful mission with such an incredible journey. :) People set watches on these trackables for all kinds of reasons, but I understand the concern, too. I agree with just logging it after a few days.

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