It looks like other users are able to login and logout, but not me.  I have not been able to logout of this forum for over a week.  When I click the “logout” link, I see a web page that says I am logged out, but then the next web page shows that I’m still logged in.  Is there any fix for this, please?

Doug or the Web Gurus may be able to help.  However, once I logged on I never logged off since I became Occam with a period.  In fact, something happened after a couple of years of being logged on as Occam (without a period), and I was logged off.  Then there was no way I could log back on as that screen name, and no one could help.  So, maybe you should be happy that you can’t log off, JITP. 

Occam

True, it is better to be logged on than to be logged out.    But I’m worried that the problem might get worse.  If I can log in, then a can talk to the moderators without creating a new user.  Oh, well.  Thank you.

I had the very same trouble you’re having JITP, but mine somehow fixed itself after I had my PC shut down for about 24 hours. This was 2 weeks ago.

jump_in_the_pit - 12 December 2011 09:59 PM

It looks like other users are able to login and logout, but not me.  I have not been able to logout of this forum for over a week.  When I click the “logout” link, I see a web page that says I am logged out, but then the next web page shows that I’m still logged in.  Is there any fix for this, please?

I’ve had the same problem, FWIW. As Occam notes, be sure you can recall your username and password before logging out, so you can log back in again.

I’ll send this along, but meanwhile a failsafe way to log out is to delete the centerforinquiry.net cookies from your browser.

Apparently this was fixed a few weeks ago. If you delete your cookies manually then the problem should not recur from that point on. (I.e. the new cookies work better than the old ones).

If after deleting cookies you are still having problems logging out, post in this thread and I’ll let them know.

Hey, I like my stale cookies. 

Occam

After tossing my CFI-forum cookies… I could logout right away for the first time in over a week.  Good thinking Doug.

jump_in_the_pit - 13 December 2011 09:57 PM

Good thinking Doug.

Well don’t thank me, thank our web gurus. I barely know what the heck is going on here beneath the hood!

Because of privacy reasons (regards from Amazon, Google & Co) I have set my browser’s settings that it deletes all cookies after stopping the browser. Of course this means I have to login every time I go into the forum, but the advantage of this is that at some moment even old fudds do not forget their password anymore. So even if you PC breaks down, and you do not make regular backups, you can login from anywhere, also from your new PC.

If you tend to forget passwords:

- if you are not a security freak, write them down
- have only a few different passwords for all your accounts (I use only 2: for my email account and Pay-Pal I have a good password, for fora and other that cannot be really severely misused another one)
- if you are a security freak, use a password safe (several good free programs around; you only have to remember one password, that of the safe, the rest is encrypted in your safe: but then you must make backups of the safe! I personally like ‘Keepass portable’ (yes I know, that’s Windows…), you can keep the program and the safe on a memory stick, copy it to the PC, use it on other PCs etc)

GdB - 15 December 2011 02:18 AM

- if you are not a security freak, write them down

But then guard the paper! There are many tales of people in offices putting passwords on post-it notes on their computers. Makes it very easy for anyone walking past the cubicle to crack their accounts ...

GdB - 15 December 2011 02:18 AM

- have only a few different passwords for all your accounts (I use only 2: for my email account and Pay-Pal I have a good password, for fora and other that cannot be really severely misused another one)

Dangerous recommendation. If a bad guy gets hold of one of your passwords, they can use it other places. There are so many tales of websites losing control of username/password combinations that this is not an idle problem. It’s best if websites store them as hashes, so they can’t effectively be stolen, but many websites don’t do this. (I believe CFI’s system actually *does* do this, which is why we can’t recover a lost password!)

IF you’re going to use a small password set, re-use passwords for low-security logons like fora. Problem is, many of us may use higher security sites more often, e.g. banks, PayPal, stores that have our credit card info on file, credit card companies, etc. That’s a lot of passwords to remember.

GdB - 15 December 2011 02:18 AM

- if you are a security freak, use a password safe (several good free programs around; you only have to remember one password, that of the safe, the rest is encrypted in your safe: but then you must make backups of the safe! I personally like ‘Keepass portable’ (yes I know, that’s Windows…), you can keep the program and the safe on a memory stick, copy it to the PC, use it on other PCs etc)

This is the solution I’m most in favor of, but you will need to pick a long, strong master password to keep everything safe. I’m a big fan of Lastpass for keeping passwords. Works like a charm, stores everything as hashes.

dougsmith - 15 December 2011 05:07 AM

Dangerous recommendation.

I had an ‘IF’ too. And I do not have internet banking, therefore I know too much about IT…

dougsmith - 15 December 2011 05:07 AM

GdB - 15 December 2011 02:18 AM

- if you are not a security freak, write them down

But then guard the paper! There are many tales of people in offices putting passwords on post-it notes on their computers. Makes it very easy for anyone walking past the cubicle to crack their accounts ...

Oh, BTW. I once worked in a post office (student’s job), and we forgot to put something in the evening safe. So my colleague called the man in charge, so he could open the safe with a code. When this man came, he opened one by one the drawers of his desk (no key needed for it!), murmering ‘where did I put the paper with the code?’... There were sure a few million Dutch guilder in it! (USD 1 about NLG 2.5)

GdB - 15 December 2011 06:00 AM

Oh, BTW. I once worked in a post office (student’s job), and we forgot to put something in the evening safe. So my colleague called the man in charge, so he could open the safe with a code. When this man came, he opened one by one the drawers of his desk (no key needed for it!), murmering ‘where did I put the paper with the code?’... There were sure a few million Dutch guilder in it! (USD 1 about NLG 2.5)

This is why so many hacker techniques involve so-called “social engineering” attacks. The human is often the weak link.