SlayerCafe aims to provide Vampire Slayers, Watchers, and talented demon hunters with a safe and friendly place to share advice and information. Ideally, SlayerCafe should be free of demonic spies, evil-doers, and trolls (of the Internet kind, not the mythical one).
One sad fact about the Internet is that hackers often target web sites "just because they are there". SlayerCafe faces danger on two fronts. Firstly, vampires may hire technomages to attack the site because they see it as a threat. And secondly, simply having a server connected to the Internet is an invitation to hackers who are looking for easy targets.
Our goal in this chapter is to protect the site from spies, spammers, and hackers. We want to make sure that only the people who belong on SlayerCafe can join, that the site is kept free of spam, and that the personal information of our members is well protected.
This chapter will also look at ways to make the site easier to administer—from...