Are private messages here REALLY private?

[JDgreen227]

I thought that was the case, but circumstances have led me to feel otherwise. It appears that someone is able to read my private messages here and remove my threads and posts for no other reason than they personally have an issue with what I am discussing with other members, although said private messages do not violate the forum guidelines. Makes me wonder.

 

[/pine]

Anyone that can access the database can read the text in PM's...

You could encrypt the messages but both parties would need to understand the procedure...

 

[joshuabardwell]

I'm not sure why someone would delete PMs. It's one thing if you violate forum guidelines in a public forum, but I would think that, short of out-and-out illegal activity, PMs should be pretty sacrosanct.

If you're interested in encrypting messages, look at PGP, but it's kind of a PITA to use, and most people find it not worth the trouble.

 

[PsRumors]

The way I see it, this site is owned be someone and any "private" message I place using their database is subject to being read.

 

[murphy1244]

That's kind of crappy.

 

[Nooodles]

yeah, private site so the owner can set up any way he feels necessary. Sucks buttholes but is the way. The only way a mod would look at individuals pm's is if they brought heat on themselves due to the high number of members. What did you do to bring heat on yourself.

 

[/pine]

dated but stil relevant...

Now buried deeper and obviously renamed but...

How NSA access was built into Windows | Telepolis

 

[Muhammad]

They're stored on our server... until you delete them. But we don't read them. There are too many. :laughing: Just kidding...

Same thing applies to your web-based e-mail like Gmail... technically, they exist on a server so somebody accessing a database somewhere could read them, but companies (including ours) have policies in place about privacy and safeguarding of data.

 

[murphy1244]

They're stored on our server... until you delete them. But we don't read them. There are too many. :laughing: Just kidding...

Same thing applies to your web-based e-mail like Gmail... technically, they exist on a server so somebody accessing a database somewhere could read them, but companies (including ours) have policies in place about privacy and safeguarding of data.

Well I take back all the mean and nasty things I thought about you.:laughing:

 

[/pine]

One option to protect privacy is creating an archive (zip file etc.) and password protect it...

i.e., zip up the text(message) and include it as an attachment...of course the receiving party must have the password to open the archive...

In the event the forum or whatever software does not allow .zip etc. extension attachments you can rename it something like .txt and the receiving party can rename it before extracting it...