Files for Download are Now Available to $\require{cancel} \xcancel{\text{Non-}}$logged-in Users

MATHalino’s philosophy, I may say, is that our content must be accessible to all. Whether you are logged in or not, you can still access all our materials without any constraint. We already implemented this last year for our Courses and Exams, and this year, we are extending it to downloads.
 

Why Would You Care?

No, you don’t need to — but because you’re a good person and you appreciate the effort put in by your fellow human being, you will .

You don’t need to register or log in to access downloadable files, take our exams, attend our courses, or participate in discussions. Previously, files for download were available to verified users only. Not anymore.

The files that are already in the system will remain as they are, but only for a short while. I will re-upload them so that anyone can download the files without the need for registration. All future uploads will then be open to everyone.

As of the writing of this post, all files for the Basic Algebra Review Course are already available for download. You can find them at the bottom of the course outline.

If you are only interested in downloads, you may stop reading at this point. Those who wish to gain some insight into how this site works and how we manage it may continue reading.

To Being More Open

No, not personally. I am talking about this site — again.

Opening site features as much as possible is great, but it does not come without difficulties. In fact, the technical challenges are enormous compared to locked websites.

I manage another website where only site administrators can register users. On that site, I have very little difficulty implementing security features to make it operate the way it should.

When it comes to registration, MATHalino is a self-service site, which means users voluntarily register and verify themselves to join us. Sounds great from the administrator’s perspective, right? It’s on auto-pilot!

Actually, no. Until now, registration forms remain the favorite entry points for bots. I remember back in 2008, when MATHalino was hosted on Yahoo Geocities, I opened the site to accept registrations. After one month, I ended up with thousands upon thousands of users — not real users, of course — and thousands upon thousands of spam posts.

That was my first lesson.

In 2014, I opened the Forum and comment sections to non-registered users, hoping to make the community more active. It did — but only for a while.

The anti-spam technology we used back then was considered sophisticated at the time. It fought spambots aggressively, and very few were able to penetrate the system. Unfortunately, the company that provided the service was overwhelmed by the resources required to sustain it. To stay in business, they shifted to enterprise-level services only — yet they still lost the battle and eventually shut down.

This gives a glimpse of how expensive it is to mitigate malicious bots online.

For this site, attacks came faster than I could cope with. MATHalino suffered severe strain and eventually required database truncation to remove unwanted content. Some of you may remember how we lost more than three months of posts and updates, both from administrators and users. In fact, we were even confronted by an active contributor in Engineering Economy.

The Forum section was severely affected. Due to bloated MySQL records, it became nearly impossible to distinguish legitimate posts from spam. That is how sophisticated spambots were — and they are far more advanced today.

Hardening Is a Must

With experience gained along the way, we are now in partnership with a technology provider that does not easily bow even to intentional backend attacks. I understand the limits of my own knowledge, and the only way for this site to thrive is to invest in solid protection.

At the system level, our Linux kernel is hardened using the best technology we can afford. Automated offshore backups are also in place to protect us in worst-case scenarios. Both are expensive, but entirely worth it.

On the front end — where you interact with the site — spambots and malicious crawlers are constantly scanning for vulnerable forms as entry points. Some of these bots carry advanced instructions capable of penetrating backend systems.

Fortunately, Google takes spam prevention seriously. Their reCAPTCHA technology is user-friendly yet unforgiving to malicious crawlers. With Google’s “I’m not a robot” protection in place, we are able to open more features while keeping the site secure.

Coexisting with Giants

Although this site reaches more than a million visits per month at its peak, the community section — the Forum — never fully took off the way I had hoped. I later realized that this had more to do with my reserved personality than with the technology or platform itself.

I came to this realization when I tried to establish a social presence for the MATHalino brand on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.
 

I am not without hope, of course. Occasional posts from real users are, for me, a good indicator that there is no need to shut down the Forum section. With so many active groups on Facebook today, I am happy that from time to time, someone still initiates a conversation here.

If you have read this post up to this point, I invite you to log in and share your thoughts and expertise in the Forum section or in the comment areas throughout the site.