Private Messages

[Ron Earp]

A forum member recently emailed me and asked me who, besides himself, could read private messages. It seems that another member on the forum told him that others could read his messages. I'd like to set that matter to rest - nobody, including the admins (me, Al, Lynn, Paul), can read your private messages on this forum unless you allow it and allow an admin rights to do so.

An admin (but not a regular user) could login as you and read your private messages, but to do that the admin would have to change your password. Even admins cannot ever see what your password is on the forum. If I were to follow this procedure to read another member's private messages that user would be alerted that his password was changed and the event would be logged in the activity log. Bear in mind, I nor any of the other admins, care to read your private messages and we don't read them.

Now, there is one way that an admin could see a private message you wrote by accident, but, it is due to the member doing something they shouldn't do. If you get a private message on the forum and you have email notification turned on, then you can cause this to happen inadvertently. The email notifying you that you have a private message says the following right at the top:

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL!
***************************

But, if you do reply to the email notification then the email will go into the GT40s.com domain email, and, it'll end up coming to my administrator account dead letter office. I don't read those, but nonetheless that is the only way I can see that someone (admins only) could see a part of a private message you have written.

There might be some hacks that I am unaware of that would allow a hacker to get into our system, but we do updates and security checks to prevent this. So far I've not heard of it happening. I know of no way a normal user can see another's private messages.

In any event, the forum Private Message system is probably safer than your own email account since the Private Message doesn't travel anywhere on the internet, it stays on this server. I just wanted to let folks know that as far as I'm aware nobody can read other member's Private Messages on the forum. If a member suspects this or knows of it happening please let me know.

Thanks,
Ron

[Ron Earp]

One addition - a member pointed out a couple of ways to read PM's beyond what is available in the systems panel and I write below.

There is a hack for VB that allows easy access to PM's for admins, however, GT40s.com does not have this hack installed and we don't plan to install it. Admins could also look directly at the database, but this does not occur either.

In any event, I'm reasonably sure that the PM system is safe. While an admin could take steps to read someone's PMs, this isn't something they are doing.

Ron

[Mark Worthington]

Ron, about a year a go, a member told me that he had exchanged a PM with another member, and shortly after that, a third member, a busybody, had a phone conversation with him and mentioned the subject of the recent PM. When asked where he heard about the subject, the third member quickly changed the subject. Coincidence? Maybe. But the first member was and remains quite suspicious. Perhaps this is the same person who recently emailed you about the privacy of PMs.

If I wanted to ensure privacy in a message, I wouldn't use a PM. I'd probably pick up the telephone. Yeah, if the NSA wants to monitor your conversation, I guess they will.

It's a good thing I'm not into the "cloak-and-dagger" thing. I don't really care who reads my PMs.

[Ron Earp]

Well, if it was about a year ago when that would have been right around the Roaring Forties collapse. The phones were hot then, I don't think a day went by when I didn't hear from a forum member about that situation. As such, lots of talk and rumors were flying and the buzz was encompassing many other forum members too. I could easily see how topics of PMs would spread quickly.

Even so, I'm not defending the PM system or condeming it. I don't think anyone has any unauthorized access to read anyone else's PMs, at least as far as we can tell. If the person or persons who think they are having PM privacy issues will PM me (or email me or call if you are that concerned about PMs, or another admin) then we can try and look into it for them and see if there has been a breach. I know no admins other than the aforementioned admins exist and there have been no other admin level logins into the system. That stuff is tracked well and locked down securely.

The person that emailed me was asking me about the PM system because someone had told him the PM system was not safe. That is what my initial post was about - I can't find where it is not safe and without any direct information from this person who thinks their PMs are being read I can't effectively problem solve the situation.

I'm in the same boat with you - I don't have anything juicy in my PMs anyone would want to read!

Ron

[Gregg]

The simple explanation is that many people have made friends with others. What makes anyone think that their pm to one member is not shared with others via email. My 2 cents.