Information presented on this website is considered public information
and may be distributed or copied unless otherwise indicated. Use
of appropriate byline/photo/image credit is requested.
For site management, information is collected
for statistical purposes. This government computer system uses
software programs to create summary statistics, which are used
for such purposes as assessing what information is of most and
least interest, determining technical design specifications, and
identifying system performance or problem areas.
For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains
available to all users, this government computer system employs
software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized
attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.
Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other
attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage
habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes than those
stated in this notice.
Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information
on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable
under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1987 and the National
Information Infrastructure Protection Act.
If you have any questions or comments about the information
presented here, please contact us.
To protect your privacy, this site does not use persistent "cookies."
Information Collected for Statistical Purposes
Below is an example of the information collected based on a
standard request for a World Wide Web document:
xxx.yyy.com (or 123.123.23.12)-- this is the host name (or IP
address) associated with the requester (you as the visitor). In
this case, (.com) the requester is coming from a commercial address.
Depending on the requester's method of network connection, the
host name (or IP address) may or may not identify a specific computer.
Connections via many Internet Service Providers assign different
IP addresses for each session, so the host name identifies only
the ISP. The host name (or IP address) will identify a specific
computer if that computer has a fixed IP address.
[28/Jan/1997:00:00:01 -0500] -- this is the date and time of
the request
"GET /news/nr012797.html HTTP/1.0" -- this is the location of
the requested file on the web server 200 -- this is the status
code - 200 is OK - the request was filled
16704 -- this is the size of the requested file in bytes
Mozilla 3.0 -- this identifies the type of browser software
used to access the page, which indicates what design parameters
to use in constructing the pages
www.altavista.digital.com - this indicates the last site the
person visited, which indicates how people find our site
Requests for other types of documents use similar information.
No personally-identifying information is collected.
Related Links
Disclaimers
The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute
endorsement by the Department of Agriculture of the linked
web sites, or the information, products or services contained
therein
Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA)
The FOIA sets standards for determining which records must
be made available for public inspection and which records
can be withheld from disclosure.