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The Internet Classics Archive is committed to preserving the privacy and security of its visitors. Information about visitors will not be sold or provided to any third party. Visitor information is collected only to enhance the experience of the visitor and subsequent visitors. To that end, the following information is collected by the Internet Classics Archive:
- server access log
- For every page, script, and image access, an entry is recorded in the server access log file. The access log is used only for internal purposes, such as identifying malfunctioning parts of the site, streamlining the site to better react to visitor behavior, and determining the frequency of use of various parts of the site. Occasionally, the access log records may be used to identify visitors who abuse the site (especially the commentary area); specifically, the information is used to identify the visitor's host and Internet service provider in order to send a complaint. Each access log entry includes time and date information, the requested and referring URL, the visitor's browser (name, version, and platform), and the visitor's host IP address. For example (the IP address has been x'ed out):
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - - [03/Jun/1998:02:44:53 -0400] "GET /Xenophon/xen.anab.html HTTP/1.0" 200 6993 "http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Xenophon.html" "Mozilla/4.04 (Macintosh; I; PPC)"- server error log
- Every time a visitor encounters an error on the site, an entry is recorded in an error log much like the server access log. The error log is carefully scrutinized to determine any mistakes in the archive. Occasionally, log entries may be correlated with errors reported over e-mail to more fully determine the cause of an error. The error log entry includes time and date information and data about the error, which could include a requested URL and/or the visitor's IP address. For example (the IP address has been x'ed out):
[Wed Jun 3 18:23:16 1998] [error] Directory index forbidden by rule: /var/classics.mit.edu/htdocs/Hesiod/and[Wed Jun 3 18:23:37 1998] [warn] (32)Broken pipe: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx client stopped connection before send mmap completed