Your book is yours. Stored so only its link can open it.

House Books

There are no accounts and no email addresses. A House Book opens from a private link that ends in a 20-character code. The site stores only a fingerprint (a SHA-256 hash) of that code, never the code itself. Everything you write in the book (the house card, each timeline entry, each person) is encrypted with a key made from its private link and the server’s own key, so the database, its backups and the logs together still cannot open a book without its link. While a book is open, your browser sends its code to the site with each book page so the page can be read; the code is used for that request and is not written to any table or log. That also means whoever runs the server could, in principle, change the site to keep codes, so we say what the site does rather than promise it is impossible. Stored in the clear are only whether a row is an entry or a person, its row number, and when rows were written or the book last opened.

The code is never part of a page address: a book link looks like /b#…, and browsers do not send the part after # to any server. The page posts the code once in a form, and the site then keeps the book open in your browser with a private cookie (__Host-gb_book) for 30 days. Closing the book removes the cookie.

A book that nobody opens for two years (730 days) is deleted, with everything in it. Delete it yourself at any time from the book page. This site’s own nightly database copies are kept for 14 days, so a deleted book is gone from them within 14 days; they hold the same encrypted text.

Cookies

Pages with a form that saves something (the home page’s start form, a Census Window result, the book pages) set a security cookie (__Host-gb_csrf) that stops other sites from submitting forms in your name. Pages without such a form, like this one, set no cookie. The book cookie is described above. There is no analytics, advertising or tracking cookie, and pages load nothing from other sites.

Limits on misuse

To stop abuse, the site counts how many books and saves come from each connection. It keeps only a salted hash of the address (IPv6 by its /64 network) with a count per hour or day, and those counters are deleted within three days.

Server logs and backups

Like every web server, the host keeps access logs (address, time, page, browser) for operating and securing the server; book codes are never in them. WeldonPC also backs up the whole server, which can include this site’s encrypted database.

Payments

Payments are not switched on (preview). When they are, PayPal will handle them; this site will never see card numbers.

Contact

Gablebook is run by WeldonPC. Questions: weldonpc.com/contact.