OTX Sample

You can now append an encryption of your member’s email address into the URL with the SHA1 variable.

What is SHA-1?

The SHA-1 (SHA= “Secure Hash Algorithm”) hash function is the most secure cryptographic hash function available. Encrypting the email address of your users into SHA-1 will protect your members’ privacy and your ownership of the email (since it is computationally impossible to decrypt a SHA1 hash) while allowing us to ensure the uniqueness of survey takers’ email addresses.

What does a SHA-1 hash look like?

The SHA1-encryption produces a 40-character string.

Example:

panelist@yahoo.com becomes: “dd7050b86e4273115e80b08be85580be304abbde”

How to add it to survey entry link?

&sha1=[40-digit SHA-1 hash] can be appended to any OTX survey entry link.

Example:

- survey entry link: http://survey.otxresearch.com/SurveyEntry.aspx?e=60170063-3788-4eb3-913b-a7c6ff2f4dbe

- survey entry link with SHA1 for panelist@yahoo.com : http://survey.otxresearch.com/SurveyEntry.aspx?e=60170063-3788-4eb3-913b-a7c6ff2f4dbe&sha1=dd7050b86e4273115e80b08be85580be304abbde

- survey entry link with SHA1 and PID for panelist@yahoo.com (member 12345): http://survey.otxresearch.com/SurveyEntry.aspx?e=60170063-3788-4eb3-913b-a7c6ff2f4dbe&sha1=dd7050b86e4273115e80b08be85580be304abbde&pid=12345

What’s the effect of using the SHA-1 hash?

There are no effects at this time. We will just collect the SHA-1 for every respondent you send into our systems.

In a few weeks though, we will turn on some additional security features based on frequency and past participation. These rules will add to the current existing ones based on panelist id (PID) and various cookies and objects, and will consequently make it more difficult for professional survey takers to take multiple surveys in our system.