J. Hugh Sullivan wrote: > I wouldn't want the password - the more viewers the better. I would like that too - however, it was not an option for me. My problem is this: The database includes a large number of living individuals. Now, nobody has a problem with allowing people to view data on themselves or their close relatives. The assumption is that they know it all anyhow, and may even be able to add to the data - provide bits of information that I might be missing, such as marriage dates. However, allowing people to view the information I have on unrelated (or very distantly related) individuals is somewhat problematic - in particular as those individuals may not have provided that information, or even be aware that it is in the database - they might not be happy with strangers being able to view the information on the Internet. For this reason the database was set up so that you could view anything before a certain date (when privacy issues are not a concern), but after that you could only view your own relatives. In order to implement those access restrictions, I need to know who the user is, and well... that is why I needed the password. People go to the web site, state who they are and request a password which is then mailed to their "official" address, according to the national registry -- or, in the case of children requesting access, the password is mailed to their parent(s). This means quite a bit of postage expenses, but it was the only way we could find which would keep the genealogists and privacy advocates reasonably happy at the same time. Another reason why only those who are in the database are allowed to access it is that the database has a limited scope, and it already includes every living individual who fits the criteria. In other words, we are not looking for "outside" connections to the database - only improved connections within it, and additional bits of data on the individuals already included. This may be irritating to people "outside" the community who might have an interest in one or more individuals in the database, but allowing them access would have created a number of problems. Now - if you don't publish information on living individuals, most of those problems disappear - but as I said, that's not so in my own case. > I like the "view but not accessible" except by me. "not easily accessible", that is. If somebody was really, really patient, he could extract much information with an OCR application and a custom-written "spider", which crawled through the accessible part of the database. I'm not really worried about that, though - the cost would be too high for the potential gain. > Is that a function of .jpg? That's one part of it, yes. [email protected]