A More Private A Picture A Day

After several years of public picture posting, it's to time lock everything down a little.

As of right now, the A Picture A Day collection consist of no less than 2414 pictures. I’ve posted a picture every day since the first of January, 2013. And it’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. In the years since I started posting the pictures, a lot of personal things have happened. The A Picture A Day collection serves as great archive that documents a lot of those things - in addition to the mundane events of everyday life.

Recently, however, I’ve pondered what kind of pictures I’m actually posting. I know that family and friends are regularly checking in to see pictures of our kids, for instance. That makes me post quite a few pictures of them.

But is that OK?

I always ask my kids if it’s all right that I take a picture of them. But they have no idea what that actually means. So to protect their privacy, I’ve now locked down parts of the A Picture A Day section. A selection of pictures have been marked as private, and to view those pictures, you need access.

  • Pictures of my kids, family and friends.
  • Pictures where other, non-public people can be identified.

The private pictures are blurred out, and marked with a padlock. To view them, you have to log in. Simply enter your e-mail address in the box that pops up when you click a private picture. If you’re in the register, an e-mail with a magic link will be sent to you. Click the link, and you’ll get logged in for 5 years on the device you’re using.

If you’re no registered for access, I’ll get an e-mail with your e-mail address, and I might or might not grant you access depending on who you are.

It took me a few nights to get everything up and running, but compared to the features I put in, I finished everything relatively quickly. PHP might have a bad reputation, but it’s a language that allows a developer to get from concept to a production ready MVP in a very short time.

Here Be Gremlins

This whole private picture thing is not perfect, though. There are flaws I know of that can be exploited to bypass the access check. There are probably also flaws I don’t know about. And if you find any of those, I’d be very grateful if you reported them through the contact form on the about page.

If you encounter any bugs - like not receiving the magic link, or never hearing back from me after applying for access - you can also use the contact form to let me know about that.

Even though the are ways to exploit the system and see pictures you’re not supposed to see, the average internet user will not to view picture that are, strictly speaking, not for them. And that was the point of this change.

So if you’re a regular - or irregular - user of the A Picture A Day section of this site, and you’re now locked out, apply for access by entering your e-mail address in the box that pops up when you try to view a private picture.

Maybe you’ll get access to the exclusive club.

Feedback

Do you have any thoughts you want to share? A question, maybe? Or is something in this post just plainly wrong? Then please send an e-mail to vegard at vegard dot net with your input. You can also use any of the other points of contact listed on the About page.
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