Can Mods/Admins spy on PMs

[Hanna]

Not that I've been sharing my stash of CP or anything :thief:

but there are some.. personal things I have discussed via PM

[Skye]

I've always wondered this too...
I feel like if anyone could though it'd be Osay and maybe admins.

[Chockeh]

I don't think so, and I doubt that they would if they had the privilege to do so. I also said some personal stuff via pm, so...

[Cucurbita]

Nope. Vbulletin keeps you safe.

[Kueh]

I've explained all my carefully detailed plans to abduct Osay and make him my Man-Butler-Slave-Pirate, and he's made no moves to counter my plans, so...

[Kingofrunes]

I've explained all my carefully detailed plans to abduct Osay and make him my Man-Butler-Slave-Pirate, and he's made no moves to counter my plans, so...

Well the cat is out of the bag now. :lol:

[Kueh]

Well the cat is out of the bag now. :lol:

No, he won't be telling anyone.

I checked a bit earlier, The Cat is still safe and sound in the bag where I left him.

He won't be ruining any of my plans any time soon.

[TA]

I've explained all my carefully detailed plans to abduct Osay and make him my Man-Butler-Slave-Pirate, and he's made no moves to counter my plans, so...

http://i54.tinypic.com/hwwl6c.jpg

[Baku]

Osay could, by going into the database and checking the privatemessages table. :v

[TA]

On a serious note... Don't worry, we we respect our users privacy.

[Osayidan]

Technically the only time we see PMs is if you report one, then it gets quoted in the report (but only that one PM and not the chain of PMs, unless that one PM includes the chain of PMs all quoted inside it). It's also possible to see them through the database, but there's ridiculous amounts of PMs and it's not pretty, so out of pure lazyness alone people's PMs are safe from my eyeballs.

[Thorne]

Asking only makes them suspicious.

[Nakishu]

I love it.

"Your privacy is safe because we're too lazy to look at your pm's."

[Claudia]

Cool, me and Yoorah can now continue to safely plot our plans for world annihilation and subsequent control of the whole entire universe.

Because you guys are so nice to let us continue planning in secret, we'll spare you all and you can be our slaves!

[Tsubaki]

the database has all of the PMs, unencrypted, so if that gets leaked everyone can see your personal messages.

[Tropa]

I love it.

"Your privacy is safe because we're too lazy to look at your pm's."

LOL

[Yoorah]

Use OpenPGP/GPG if you want secure communications! \o/
...not that anyone really needs that here.

[Claudia]

Use OpenPGP/GPG if you want secure communications! \o/
...not that anyone really needs that here.

yes we do.
you and I are taking over the world, remember?

?!?!

[Yoorah]

I was merely trying to divert attention. D8

[Claudia]

ohhh, okay.
I see!

But hey, it's a relief that admins can't creep through PM's.

[Hiccup]

Cool, me and Yoorah can now continue to safely plot our plans for world annihilation and subsequent control of the whole entire universe.

Because you guys are so nice to let us continue planning in secret, we'll spare you all and you can be our slaves!
Amg yes! I can't wait :D

[BobYoMeowMeow]

yes we do.
you and I are taking over the world, remember?

?!?!
you should step away from yoorah owo
he's a male

[Rydian]

I love it.

"Your privacy is safe because we're too lazy to look at your pm's."At least they're telling the truth. I mean when you have PM conversations you ARE storing the data on their servers... and even for forums that keep their data encrypted, it's gotta' be decrypted to be used, and the people who run the servers have the info to do it.

[TA]

At least they're telling the truth. I mean when you have PM conversations you ARE storing the data on their servers... and even for forums that keep their data encrypted, it's gotta' be decrypted to be used, and the people who run the servers have the info to do it.

Actually... messages and even private messages rather, are not stored encrypted. But they are in massive MySQL databases and would be a pain in the ass to try to sift through as they aren't stored in any kind of decent order. Anyone not completely insane would be way too lazy to try to spy on someone like that (unless you had only a handful of members... as in like a private guild forum of like 5-20 people... that's a little more realistic).

The only thing stored "encrypted" are passwords, and even we cannot access those. We can change them, but we cannot view what one is, because it simply does not exist within the server in a readable format.

vBulletin uses MD5 and SHA1, but you should keep in mind that MD5 and SHA1 are not encryption algorithms, but are hashing algorithms. As such, they cannot be decrypted as the hash does not include the original data.

Passwords are stored in the following format:

$password_hash = md5(md5($password_text) . $user_salt);

[Rydian]

I wasn't saying this forum did, since it was already posted it didn't.

[Baku]

Actually... messages and even private messages rather, are not stored encrypted. But they are in massive MySQL databases and would be a pain in the ass to try to sift through as they aren't stored in any kind of decent order. Anyone not completely insane would be way too lazy to try to spy on someone like that (unless you had only a handful of members... as in like a private guild forum of like 5-20 people... that's a little more realistic).
Looking to spy on a specific someone is easy though, SQL is cool. I never saw how the actual table is, but it surely contains username column for sender and receiver.

SELECT * FROM privatemessages WHERE senderid=2494 OR receiverid=2494;
An SQL query similar to that would show all PM's where you were involved for example.

[TA]

Looking to spy on a specific someone is easy though, SQL is cool. I never saw how the actual table is, but it surely contains username column for sender and receiver.

SELECT * FROM privatemessages WHERE senderid=2494 OR receiverid=2494;
An SQL query similar to that would show all PM's where you were involved for example.

Bakuuuuuuuu....

Random member paranoia.... Increases by 9001.

Good job.
:fail:

[Rydian]

Well, isn't it a good thing if people are more careful where they submit personal information?

[Baku]

Bakuuuuuuuu....

Random member paranoia.... Increases by 9001.

Good job.
:fail:
:3~!!

BUT BUT, we all know Osay is too lazy for stuff 8D.

But seriously, I'm sure he wouldn't invade anyone's privacy unless there's pr0n involved, he's chill.