little know fact about your PM (private message) privacy on forums

[striped_bear]

Guess what, your private messages on vbulletin forums and similar (like this one), are not really secure at all.

Anyone who has access to the database can browse ALL PMs in plain text, without a problem.

I know this because I have run several forums in the past (I did not spy on anyone, just knew it was possible).

Who has the GIM database now?

[I am me, I am free]

Who has the GIM database now?

Someone belonging to a secret society. Doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Just think: all those PMs you failed to delete can now be easily perused by anyone who knows the secret handshake.

[Heimdhal]

all well, I guess they see me saying "skydyke" alot, but thats about it. Never did get too personal with information on there.

Aint nothing on the internet secure anyways, no matter where you are. If you go in knowning that, youll never say anything you want to remain a secret in the first place.

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

I have it on good authority that several people on GiM1 got banned for what they spoke about in PMs. The general public, me most of all, never saw this, but apparently the mods were eyeballing every aspect of the site.

[Ponce]

One simple rule: When you post then post like if the whole world was looking over your shoulder............simple.

[Horn]

I know... I have been PMing about this place on GIM2 and so far, haven't been banned.

We'll see.


If either of us take the fall over there, it's time to raise more hell.

I'll keep an eye out for your demise... ;)

Until then

[StackerKen]

I know... I have been PMing about this place on GIM2 and so far, haven't been banned.

We'll see.


Me too

[Ponce]

Me 3...........what are you guys talking about hahahahahahahah. Just wanted to participate.

[MAGNES]

gpond joined agora to tell us not to post personal info.

gpond was asked about a privacy policy on gim.

He totally ignored my requests.

On gim I went on and confronted GKhan about a gim privacy policy.

He didn't ignore me, he told me to take my medication.

They do not give a sh*t.

They should of said bye to everyone and addressed concerns.
They didn't do that cause they wanted to pre empt organization.
They failed again. They read PM's too, and there was heightened
activity people exchanging emails in PMs, making comments,
they knew what was coming another agora. That is why Gkhan
is freaking right now and calling us names, have look , we are
to blame, lol .

The GIM database is literally a gold mine for criminals, emails, pm's,
addresses of people sharing info.

The government does not worry me, nobody was doing anything illegal.
The database lives everywhere, in cyberspace, gov computers.

That is not the big issue.

What efforts were made to secure it totally,
no private individual or organization should
have access to it, unfortunately sometimes
I think the worst when skyvike comes to mind.

And gpond too was not trusted by many old gimers.
He came out of nowhere after gim had server problems.
This information comes from gimers older than me.
From the beginning. It was conveighed to me in PM
on agora by Jefferson Davis, who went by a different
name on gim which I will not name. But people knew
the posting history and concerns of Jefferson Davis.
He was real and he was honest. He did not post much.

You will never get a straight answer from them.

But maybe 100 of us can sign our names to a letter and pass it along.

Stick to privacy issues only.

Others made efforts too, let them speak up.

[MAGNES]

Me too


They are reading here, do not post stuff like this,
they will read PM's and pre empt, and ban.
Use PM.

Trust me people they are reading here.
This is what they were doing when agora was around.
They kept it a secret from gim members and banned
people for linking, etc, pm's even,
http://goldismoney2.com/showthread.php?923-Be-aware-of-those-who-would-like-to-destroy-this-site

[Horn]

They are reading here, do not post stuff like this,
they will read PM's and pre empt, and ban.
Use PM.

Trust me people they are reading here.
This is what they were doing when agora was around.
They kept it a secret from gim members and banned
people for linking, etc, pm's even,
http://goldismoney2.com/showthread.php?923-Be-aware-of-those-who-would-like-to-destroy-this-site


Was agora your site Magnes?

I was never part of that division?

[AlterEgo]

It can be done!

But you can't just sit down and read a db like a book.

The info can be extracted but not while it is online because it would crash if you were to poke around while the forum was running.

That said given time I could prolly hack together some php code, set up MySQL on my home machine then download the db and see if I could extract the data. Remember a lot of data is encrypted (well on this software, can't speak to VBullcrap) and that would have to be broken.

I just don't think that I would bother, (I mean I would not bother) to work that hard and long for some crappy PM's.

All that said I have no clue about what they were doing over there, because I have not had it happen to me in the 4 years I was a member.

[sunshine05]

I always heard that too striped bear. Thank you for posting about it. I'm sure a lot of people think a pm is private. It should be!

[StackerKen]

Me 3...........what are you guys talking about hahahahahahahah. Just wanted to participate.


http://goldismoney2.com/images/smilies/standard/laugh_m.gif

[AlterEgo]

They are reading here, do not post stuff like this,
they will read PM's and pre empt, and ban.
Use PM.

Trust me people they are reading here.
This is what they were doing when agora was around.
They kept it a secret from gim members and banned
people for linking, etc, pm's even,
http://goldismoney2.com/showthread.php?923-Be-aware-of-those-who-would-like-to-destroy-this-site


So what? Why should any of us give a hoot if they read this forum.

Never, Never post something on the internets that you don't want others to read.

Is that so hard to understand?

??? ??? ??? ??? ???

[Brent]

Just weighing in to say that I believe I was banned the first time on GIM due to some PMs both sent and received. If it wasn't those PMs it was a huge coincidence but I remember at the time I went back and looked through my last month or so of posts and there were absolutely zero personal attacks and of course no porn or spam. I'm not a huge believer in coincidence hence I believe I was banned because of the sensitive nature of the PMs I was getting.

As Ponce said, type like you have the FEDs reading over your shoulder or at the very least like they could pull up the information if they wanted to.

This is one of the biggest red flags about the whole GIM issue, anyone that Gkhan would be worried about hiding his history from and running off-grid from would already have multiple copies of the entire GIM database. Hence deleting it would be a waste of time and completely stupid. I don't believe they are stupid.

[PDT]

Guess what, your private messages on vbulletin forums and similar (like this one), are not really secure at all.

Anyone who has access to the database can browse ALL PMs in plain text, without a problem.

I know this because I have run several forums in the past (I did not spy on anyone, just knew it was possible).

Who has the GIM database now?


Book, myself, my wife, and many others founds that out the "hard way" long ago. I was banned once just for sending a PM to a trusted ally.

[PDT]

Wrong. Even if you deleted your PM's, the database is often incrementally backed up, so "they" can probably read them anyway.


Does anyone remember when I deleted a thread a few months back, someone wrote to Bear Sh*t and objected, and he reinstated my thread? And then banned me for re-deleting it? NOTHING a common user deleted at GIM 1 was "permanently" deleted.

[sirgonzo420]

Book, myself, my wife, and many others founds that out the "hard way" long ago. I was banned once just for sending a PM to a trusted ally.


perhaps we could all exchange email addresses?

[PDT]

Was agora your site Magnes?

I was never part of that division?



No, a guy nicknamed "Skirnir" set it up from scratch. He came up with the name, I came up with the URL.

And it fell apart when many of us started abandoning ship when he implemented his GIM-like censorship/control policies. He was just a kid ("the boy" in term of Book), and had no real leadership qualities.