Moderation reports

[Cerebus]

Even if I got a police request or court order for some reason, I'd probably just hand over the raw database and say "here, you do the work to find it".

Although I know you're just saying that to illustrate your "I'm not touching that with yours" attitude to the technology in question I'm still going to say "That's never a good idea".

As the man who used to have to deal with all the official requests for data for an ISP/telco I can tell you from experience that if you give them an inch they'll take a mile if you let them.

I'd get a request over the phone and my response would be "OK, I'll make sure the evidence is going to be preserved but I'm gonna have to have the official paperwork before I can release it". Nine times out of ten I find that when the paperwork (court order, whatever) arrives I find that what was asked for and what they have official permission to take are two very different things, and they never asked for less than they were actually permitted to take.

The police (and similar bodies) have a very cavalier attitude towards complying with the law when it's them that have to do the complying. Give 'em half a chance (like a complete open database) and they'll go on a fishing trip looking for something they can prosecute someone for completely unrelated to the matter at hand. Should that happen, be discovered and someone decide that "someone must take the blame for this" you know which out of a 'official' and oneself is going to be left carrying the can (which is another way of saying there are serious liability issues at stake). Always, always vet 'official' requests/demands for data and never give them direct uncontrolled access to data stores.

[EEVblog]

Always, always vet 'official' requests/demands for data and never give them direct uncontrolled access to data stores.

Chill out, I know what I'm doing, I was just being hyperbolic.

[Cerebus]

Always, always vet 'official' requests/demands for data and never give them direct uncontrolled access to data stores.

Chill out, I know what I'm doing, I was just being hyperbolic.

Er yeah, I got that. That's exactly why I prefaced all of what I said with:

Although I know you're just saying that to illustrate your "I'm not touching that with yours" attitude to the technology in question I'm still going to say "That's never a good idea".

[AaronB]

Hi, I was trying to attach an innocuous picture to a post in a thread, but it was rejected for security reasons? How do I know what the problem is, message said to contact the moderators.

[tautech]

Hi, I was trying to attach an innocuous picture to a post in a thread, but it was rejected for security reasons? How do I know what the problem is, message said to contact the moderators.

What exactly is the file type ? (suffix)

In the Attachments drop down is this:
Allowed file types: doc, gif, jpg, jpeg, pdf, png, txt, zip, tar, c, h, hex, bas, xls, odt, asm, wav, aiff, wma, mp3, flac, asc, ods, xlsx, py, 7z

[AaronB]

It was just a picture taken on my phone, and transferred to my computer by Google Drive, something I've been able to do before. File type is basic JPG, size 3,814,870 bytes:

$ file ~/Downloads/2235_fixed_PSU.jpg
/home/cosmo/Downloads/2235_fixed_PSU.jpg: JPEG image data, Exif standard: [TIFF image data, big-endian, direntries=13, manufacturer=OnePlus, height=0, orientation=upper-left, datetime=2020:10:31 21:37:31, GPS-Data, yresolution=198, xresolution=206, model=ONEPLUS A5000, software=OnePlus5-user 9 PKQ1.180716.001 2002242003 release-keys, resolutionunit=2, width=0], baseline, precision 8, 4608x2592, components 3

[helius]

A 4608x2592 image is approximately what you would use to make a 9"x17" fine art print.
I really wish users would appraise whether their image is worth printing out at such a size, and if not, refrain from trying to upload it to a forum where it will take up storage space and use hundreds of times that much bandwidth.
I don't think I have seen one single image on this (or any) forum that was worth more than 100kb.

[tggzzz]

In addition to the size and hence download time, a many-pixel image will slow down rendering (and eat battery power). That annoys every person that looks at the picture.

Why? Because the browser will have to allocate memory for the full image, and then downscale it so it fits in the browser window. That will not only bust processor caches but also is inherently computationally intensive.

It is rarely beneficial to have more than a 1000 pixel wide image. It is polite for authors to scale their image to that size before inserting it in a post.

[AaronB]

If size was the problem then maybe you want to revise your attachment limit: "maximum individual size 5000KB" it says on the the Attachments and other options section. And if size was the problem (Mrs AaronB has not registered a complaint), then a better error message would be one about the size, not a security warning. So what is the issue? Size? security? what?

[tggzzz]

It sounds like you are going to continue to choose to post unnecessarily large images that irritation readers.

Shame.

[EEVblog]

If size was the problem then maybe you want to revise your attachment limit: "maximum individual size 5000KB" it says on the the Attachments and other options section. And if size was the problem (Mrs AaronB has not registered a complaint), then a better error message would be one about the size, not a security warning. So what is the issue? Size? security? what?

The limits are set to 5MB per image and 5MB total maximum for all images.
Just try reducing your file size and see what happens.
I don't have control over what error message is displayed.
As others have said, there is almost no need to upload a 3.5MB image.

[Bud]

By uploading large oh high res pictures you reduce your viewing audience, 'cause people like me look at the size/resolution and will not bother opening your attachments.

[AaronB]

There is no warning on uploading a large image that will break the size of all images in the thread, so how was I to know? A security warning when you then break that limit is also not very helpful. But thanks to you all for berating me for trying to add information in the simple form of a picture to the thread I had started. It really makes me feel welcome as a new poster - I guess there isn't a :sarcasm: icon either.

[tautech]

There is no warning on uploading a large image that will break the size of all images in the thread, so how was I to know? A security warning when you then break that limit is also not very helpful.

I agree it's not very helpful that the forums warning messages don't properly indicate what your 'security' problem was. Like others mention it may have to do with the images size and maybe there are clues in the SMF forum specs as to what limit you exceeded.

[rsjsouza]

In these discussions of image size, I always wonder what is acceptable over time, with ever more powerful mobile platforms and broadband access.

The size limits used to be more stringent - 1MB per file IIRC. I agree that having a security error is less than ideal and the limits shouldn't be that high if it causes an aggravation with a large number of users. Question is: how representative is the number of posters in this thread? Is it really a majority that cares for for the extra computational effort? Or is such limitation perceived as too stringent and hinders the adoption of this forum by new members?

I sure went through the extra effort to reduce images when the previous limits were in force and try to keep doing this even now - unless the subject of the discussion begs for image quality (the microscope discussion, for example).

Regarding storage space, this is much better than those posts with image servers that go down and the image context is completely lost. So, in a way, we have it much better now, large file or not.

[EEVblog]

There is no warning on uploading a large image that will break the size of all images in the thread, so how was I to know? A security warning when you then break that limit is also not very helpful. But thanks to you all for berating me for trying to add information in the simple form of a picture to the thread I had started. It really makes me feel welcome as a new poster - I guess there isn't a :sarcasm: icon either.

The problem is that some people need to upload large images. e.g. large high res teardown photos. But most people do not need that high for ordinary posts, but the setting has to be made to allow for those few that need it. I can't edit the message that gets displayed that's embedded in the forum. Well, I probably could edit it, but I'd have the go into the forum code to do it.
The easiest way is to use imgur and paste the embed code rather than upload the image directly here.

[EEVblog]

There is no warning on uploading a large image that will break the size of all images in the thread, so how was I to know? A security warning when you then break that limit is also not very helpful.

I agree it's not very helpful that the forums warning messages don't properly indicate what your 'security' problem was. Like others mention it may have to do with the images size and maybe there are clues in the SMF forum specs as to what limit you exceeded.

It may be because the individual image size is set the same and the title size and it's getting confused or something. I'll change it.

[tautech]

There is no warning on uploading a large image that will break the size of all images in the thread, so how was I to know? A security warning when you then break that limit is also not very helpful.

I agree it's not very helpful that the forums warning messages don't properly indicate what your 'security' problem was. Like others mention it may have to do with the images size and maybe there are clues in the SMF forum specs as to what limit you exceeded.

It may be because the individual image size is set the same and the title size and it's getting confused or something. I'll change it.

Be interesting to know what you find.

If it had happened to me I would've tried to post it some other way as 3.5 MB is well within forum limits.
Never had issues with pics straight off an iPhone or camera which I then shrink down to a few hundy KB using MS picture manager but here I store everything locally.
Maybe it's a Google drive bug ? 

[EEVblog]

FYI, there is no security check on file uploads, that feature is disabled.

[Cerebus]

I've just had the "Your attachment has failed security checks and cannot be uploaded. Please consult the forum administrator." error that has been bothering some others.

It was a single 386kB JPEG photo, freshly taken on my phone, cropped with my usual tools, all things I do regularly on here with no problems, and it wasn't accepted. Took a new photo and uploaded un-cropped at 747kB and it went through. Definitely something screwy going on here.

The final, successful post is here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/cleaning-glue-residue-from-screen/msg3316856/#msg3316856 if anyone wants to dig in log files proximal to that posting.

[drussell]

MarkMLl mentioned in a thread yesterday that he got the "Your attachment has failed security checks and cannot be uploaded. Please consult the forum administrator." error trying to add a second photo to a post.  Apparently the first one was fine but the second refused multiple attempts.

So, yeah... something screwy seems to be going on with image attachments, even with inline attachments disabled to band-aid that images-overwriting-previous-images issue that cropped up back in June or so after the SMF update.

[EEVblog]

MarkMLl mentioned in a thread yesterday that he got the "Your attachment has failed security checks and cannot be uploaded. Please consult the forum administrator." error trying to add a second photo to a post.  Apparently the first one was fine but the second refused multiple attempts.
So, yeah... something screwy seems to be going on with image attachments, even with inline attachments disabled to band-aid that images-overwriting-previous-images issue that cropped up back in June or so after the SMF update.

Yep, no idea what's causing that. 

[Muttley Snickers]

    

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/calling-admin/msg3317060/?topicseen#msg3317060

[EEVblog]

Test

[tautech]

   

Good to see you back Muttley as was scared that CV shit had caught up with you after not posting for a good while before today.