The modern web is a privacy nightmare, so I'll keep this simple; this site is not tracking you. There are no cookies, no ads, no Javascript, and no other tracking "features" on this website.
Contact Me
You can contact me with any questions, comments, feedback about this site's privacy stance at privacy@rileychase.net.
Logging
To ensure the site is functioning correctly for all users we do collect server side usage logs. The hosting provider (AWS CloudFront) provides this logging functionality that records the following kinds of personal information about your usage of this site:
- The date & time of your access and what content you accessed.
- Which edge location you connected to.
- The IP address of your connection.
- Your
User-Agentstring. - Additional, non-personally identifying information such as the HTTP version your browser is using.
For a more detailed explanations of all the fields CloudWatch provides please see the AWS CloudFront Documentation on this topic.
For your elucidation, I have included some additional details on what some of the terminology used above means.
Edge Locations
An edge location is one of many servers operated by AWS, spread all across the world, and they each contain a copy of this website. By connecting to an edge location physically closer to you, this website loads faster.
By knowing which edge location you connect to, it is possible to approximate your physical location. However, this approximation is only accurate to the nearest big city or national region. Because you are just one in millions of people within range of the same edge location, it is impossible to identify your location from this information alone.
IP Addresses
Your IP address is you location (or address) on the internet, and your browser provides this address to websites when you connect so they know where to send the content you requested. Despite the fact an IP address identifies your connection, it does not usually identify you personally. Your ISP is likely grouping your requests with many others under the same IP address. Additionally, it does not identify which device on your network actually made the request.
User-Agent Strings
A User-Agent string is a description of the device & program you are using to access the internet. This information is used by your browser and the site you are visiting to work out how transfer the site's contents to you.