Ron Earp
Admin
It has come to my attention that there are rumors circulating that certain people can read other people's Private Messages on GT40s.com and that the security of the site is compromised. In fact, this same theory popped up in 2009 between two vendors on the site that were publicly disagreeing about a number of things. I do not know who started the rumor but I can tell you that no member, moderator, administrator, vendor, advertiser, or supporter of GT40s.com can read the Private messages of others. In fact, even the three Administrators of the site cannot read any Private Messages from others.
GT40s.com has three admins; Paul T, Magnicat (programmer), and myself. We can log into the admin control panel and do nearly anything to the forum that needs doing – move posts, delete posts, add posts, create forums, etc. - but even as admins when we view a person’s profile in the admin control panel we cannot read Private Messages. An Admin could try to log in as you, but if that were to happen your password would be changed and you'll receive a notification about that change thus alerting you that something is amiss. We can delete your Private Messages, and your entire profile for that matter, but we can’t read your PMs. Undoubtedly a programmer could probably look at the native VB files on the server while logged in as the root admin and read your PMs, but I’m not that savvy nor do I care enough to go to the trouble.
GT40s.com has two global moderators; Randy V and Brett M. These guys can move posts, delete posts, delete spam, close threads, etc. but they do not have access to the Admin control panel and they can’t read your PMs either. Nor do they have access to anything a normal member would have beyond the ability to perform housekeeping for threads and posts as I described.
GT40s.com has one local moderator (soon to be two, SPF will moderate their subforum); Fran Hall. Mr. Hall pays for the RCR subforum and he can perform the actions that Randy V and Brett M can, but only in the RCR subforum. He can only read his own PMs and is a regular user everywhere except in the RCR subforum where he can perform moderator functions.
And anyone else on the forum is a Registered User (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Lifetime – all the same privileges) and those folks make up the bulk of the members on GT40s.com. If you are still convinced that people are reading your PMs then I don’t know what to tell you, seek counseling for paranoia? As far as I can tell, and more importantly as far as my programmer can tell, the forum is secure and has no security breaches.
Ron
GT40s.com has three admins; Paul T, Magnicat (programmer), and myself. We can log into the admin control panel and do nearly anything to the forum that needs doing – move posts, delete posts, add posts, create forums, etc. - but even as admins when we view a person’s profile in the admin control panel we cannot read Private Messages. An Admin could try to log in as you, but if that were to happen your password would be changed and you'll receive a notification about that change thus alerting you that something is amiss. We can delete your Private Messages, and your entire profile for that matter, but we can’t read your PMs. Undoubtedly a programmer could probably look at the native VB files on the server while logged in as the root admin and read your PMs, but I’m not that savvy nor do I care enough to go to the trouble.
GT40s.com has two global moderators; Randy V and Brett M. These guys can move posts, delete posts, delete spam, close threads, etc. but they do not have access to the Admin control panel and they can’t read your PMs either. Nor do they have access to anything a normal member would have beyond the ability to perform housekeeping for threads and posts as I described.
GT40s.com has one local moderator (soon to be two, SPF will moderate their subforum); Fran Hall. Mr. Hall pays for the RCR subforum and he can perform the actions that Randy V and Brett M can, but only in the RCR subforum. He can only read his own PMs and is a regular user everywhere except in the RCR subforum where he can perform moderator functions.
And anyone else on the forum is a Registered User (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Lifetime – all the same privileges) and those folks make up the bulk of the members on GT40s.com. If you are still convinced that people are reading your PMs then I don’t know what to tell you, seek counseling for paranoia? As far as I can tell, and more importantly as far as my programmer can tell, the forum is secure and has no security breaches.
Ron
