Hey guys, I would like to participate a bit more on these forums and continue to post pics and such but I'm worried that if someone people that don't want me growing are trolling these forums and track my ip they'll be able to bust my ass, send me to jail, and ruin my life for growing a plant. should I be worried?
Well, not to get you too paranoid yet, but you already gave up a limited amount of information when you created your account. I'd try and cover those tracks first if you haven't already. Personally, I'd love to see these entire forums wrapped around some nice 256-bit SSL encryption at a minimum. With regards to your IP address concerns, if you're really concerned about it, you could use onion routing. Not sure if it's still running or not, but Torpark was a nice self-standing Firefox browser with a tor client built in that would randomly pop you out on the Internet usually via another country. You'll know it's working well when you hit googles main page, because if you're using a IP from a German network, you'll be redirected to google.de instead of google.com. Only downside is since you're hopping through multiple hops to get out another random tor router, it does add some delay to your browsing. Also, when posting pics, take pictures of your pics. Literally. Pictures from digital cameras have meta information embedded in them that can identify a digital camera right down to the serial number. Shrink your pics to a reasonable size to post, and then take a screenshot of them and edit in MS paint or something. You can minimize or eliminate meta data that way.
everyone is way to paranoid no ones gonna bust your 2-4 plant grow now maybe if you posted something like look at my giant forest of 2000 plants that wouldnt be smart
thanks alot man.... i dont think ive posted anything horrible yet. ill take the advice and most likely make a new account in a safer way
You have nothing to worry about. First, marijuana busts are local affairs, so what you have to worry about is whether your local city or county police could get a subpoena for the IP addresses. Fishing expeditions are rarely approved by judges, and even if they were then your local police would need to sift through all of that data for everyone in your jurisdiction trying to match to a specific website hit (such as GC) out of hundreds if not thousands of websites related to MJ, plus those related to other illicit activities. Basically, it's not gonna happen. GC's servers are in the Netherlands, so good luck to any municipal or county police agency in the USA getting a subpoena for records served on GC. Even if somehow someone could trace something back to you, all you have done is typed keys on your keyboard and clicked your mouse. GC is an information exchange, nothing illegal with that and not the basis for a search warrant. Take me for example, I post on here all the time but in reality I'm a 90 year old grandmother who knits doilies and has never actually seen a MJ plant...
Also, don't forget that growing some places is actually legal. Like MMJ users in several states now. So before they even start trying to get any information to track people down, they'd have to determine who is and who isn't breaking the law. The cops are just too busy with other things to hunt down everybody, and there are SO many people posting here, there are a lot of easier ways to find local growers. Like getting people arrested for possession and getting them to snitch on their dealer, and then getting the petty dealer to snitch on their supplier who probably grows or traffics WAY more than a closet full of plants. So their time is better served doing something like that than busting people growing a couple of plants for personal use.