Can Mods/Admins spy on PMs

• TropicalCat wrote on 2012-01-01 19:00

  Quote from Jelly;716628:

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

  
  
  LOL
• Yoorah wrote on 2012-01-01 20:35
  Use OpenPGP/GPG if you want secure communications! \o/
  ...not that anyone really needs that here.
• Claudia wrote on 2012-01-01 23:09

  Quote from Yoorah;716971:

  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 wrote on 2012-01-01 23:30
  I was merely trying to divert attention. D8
• Claudia wrote on 2012-01-02 00:00
  ohhh, okay.
  I see!
  
  But hey, it's a relief that admins can't creep through PM's.
• Hiccup wrote on 2012-01-02 03:39

  Quote from Claudia;716672:

  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 wrote on 2012-01-02 03:44

  Quote from Claudia;717210:

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

  
  you should step away from yoorah owo
  he's a male
• Rydian wrote on 2012-01-03 00:45

  Quote from Jelly;716628:

  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 wrote on 2012-01-03 11:40

  Quote from Rydian;719111:

  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:
  [code]$password_hash = md5(md5($password_text) . $user_salt);[/code]
• Rydian wrote on 2012-01-03 14:11
  I wasn't saying this forum did, since it was already posted it didn't.
• Bakuryu wrote on 2012-01-03 14:19

  Quote from TA;719951:

  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.
  [code]SELECT * FROM privatemessages WHERE senderid=2494 OR receiverid=2494;[/code]
  An SQL query similar to that would show all PM's where you were involved for example.
• TA wrote on 2012-01-03 14:29

  Quote from Bakuryu;720021:

  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.
  [code]SELECT * FROM privatemessages WHERE senderid=2494 OR receiverid=2494;[/code]
  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 wrote on 2012-01-03 14:38
  Well, isn't it a good thing if people are more careful where they submit personal information?
• Bakuryu wrote on 2012-01-03 14:50

  Quote from TA;720029:

  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 [s]unless there's pr0n involved[/s], he's chill.