Are Private Messages still Private..?

[Samson]

I suppose I could also get more blunt.

Overused, "blunt" is boring.

 

[ChrisL]

They'd better be private. I like to talk about juicy things in my PMs! Any staff member tries to read my PMs is going to be a hurting unit.

 

[NYcarbineer]

With this new format I just wondered if private messages are assured of privacy or/and can they be posted. I liked the old system including the delete messages option.

Welcome to the internet, been here long? Apparently not.

No such thing as privacy online. Your comms are NOT secure. So never write anything you're not ok seeing on a billboard.

Adages to live by (online edition)

- Never say anything in private you wouldn't say in public.
- If someone tells you your communications are private or secure they're lying and are probably reading them.
- Be careful what you volunteer about yourself. You're not anonymous and knocking on your front door can be done in a matter of hours with very little effort. And it doesn't involve hacking or anything else illegal because of how readily people divuldge personal information.
- Until you've shaken their hand, you have no idea who you're talking to.
- Hacking a person is a lot simpler than hacking their computer.

Here's another little piece of advice. When you pick a username for a message board you want to be anonymous on, don't use the same one you're using somewhere else on a some board where you've revealed a lot of your personal info.

 

[ChrisL]

With this new format I just wondered if private messages are assured of privacy or/and can they be posted. I liked the old system including the delete messages option.

Welcome to the internet, been here long? Apparently not.

No such thing as privacy online. Your comms are NOT secure. So never write anything you're not ok seeing on a billboard.

Adages to live by (online edition)

- Never say anything in private you wouldn't say in public.
- If someone tells you your communications are private or secure they're lying and are probably reading them.
- Be careful what you volunteer about yourself. You're not anonymous and knocking on your front door can be done in a matter of hours with very little effort. And it doesn't involve hacking or anything else illegal because of how readily people divuldge personal information.
- Until you've shaken their hand, you have no idea who you're talking to.
- Hacking a person is a lot simpler than hacking their computer.

Here's another little piece of advice. When you pick a username for a message board you want to be anonymous on, don't use the same one you're using somewhere else on a some board where you've revealed a lot of your personal info.

That's a bit different than private messages though. If you reveal things about yourself in public, then so be it, but if you are under an impression that a message is "private," and it really is not private, then it should be clearly stated that private messages are not really private, and don't call them "private."

A person could give out their personal information to an online friend via PM.

 

[NYcarbineer]

With this new format I just wondered if private messages are assured of privacy or/and can they be posted. I liked the old system including the delete messages option.

Welcome to the internet, been here long? Apparently not.

No such thing as privacy online. Your comms are NOT secure. So never write anything you're not ok seeing on a billboard.

Adages to live by (online edition)

- Never say anything in private you wouldn't say in public.
- If someone tells you your communications are private or secure they're lying and are probably reading them.
- Be careful what you volunteer about yourself. You're not anonymous and knocking on your front door can be done in a matter of hours with very little effort. And it doesn't involve hacking or anything else illegal because of how readily people divuldge personal information.
- Until you've shaken their hand, you have no idea who you're talking to.
- Hacking a person is a lot simpler than hacking their computer.

Here's another little piece of advice. When you pick a username for a message board you want to be anonymous on, don't use the same one you're using somewhere else on a some board where you've revealed a lot of your personal info.

That's a bit different than private messages though. If you reveal things about yourself in public, then so be it, but if you are under an impression that a message is "private," and it really is not private, then it should be clearly stated that private messages are not really private, and don't call them "private."

A person could give out their personal information to an online friend via PM.

Since the moderation of almost every board makes the disclosure that they can look at pm's with cause, that means they can look at them without cause, strictly in terms of the ability to do so.

 

[ChrisL]

With this new format I just wondered if private messages are assured of privacy or/and can they be posted. I liked the old system including the delete messages option.

Welcome to the internet, been here long? Apparently not.

No such thing as privacy online. Your comms are NOT secure. So never write anything you're not ok seeing on a billboard.

Adages to live by (online edition)

- Never say anything in private you wouldn't say in public.
- If someone tells you your communications are private or secure they're lying and are probably reading them.
- Be careful what you volunteer about yourself. You're not anonymous and knocking on your front door can be done in a matter of hours with very little effort. And it doesn't involve hacking or anything else illegal because of how readily people divuldge personal information.
- Until you've shaken their hand, you have no idea who you're talking to.
- Hacking a person is a lot simpler than hacking their computer.

Here's another little piece of advice. When you pick a username for a message board you want to be anonymous on, don't use the same one you're using somewhere else on a some board where you've revealed a lot of your personal info.

That's a bit different than private messages though. If you reveal things about yourself in public, then so be it, but if you are under an impression that a message is "private," and it really is not private, then it should be clearly stated that private messages are not really private, and don't call them "private."

A person could give out their personal information to an online friend via PM.

Since the moderation of almost every board makes the disclosure that they can look at pm's with cause, that means they can look at them without cause, strictly in terms of the ability to do so.

Well, they certainly should NOT, and then they have no business calling them "private" messages either. They shouldn't even have private messages and just stick to visitor messages in that case. It gives people a false sense of security that their messages are truly private.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Since the moderation of almost every board makes the disclosure that they can look at pm's with cause, that means they can look at them without cause, strictly in terms of the ability to do so.

According to the Rules,

Two:
No, we Moderators cannot read your PMs unless those specific PMs are reported to us.

PM's are only viewed by the Recipients unless Reported to the Staff. We respect your privacy. Should you have a specific problem or issue, Report it, we are here to help.

Those are site rules. Law prolly says they can be viewed if a law enforcement issue arrises voluntarily or by compulsilon with a warrant as happened years back with the US government wanting phone records from mobile carriers. All of who but one complied, forget who the holdout was.

 

[ChrisL]

Since the moderation of almost every board makes the disclosure that they can look at pm's with cause, that means they can look at them without cause, strictly in terms of the ability to do so.

According to the Rules,

Two:
No, we Moderators cannot read your PMs unless those specific PMs are reported to us.

PM's are only viewed by the Recipients unless Reported to the Staff. We respect your privacy. Should you have a specific problem or issue, Report it, we are here to help.

Those are site rules. Law prolly says they can be viewed if a law enforcement issue arrises voluntarily or by compulsilon with a warrant as happened years back with the US government wanting phone records from mobile carriers. All of who but one complied, forget who the holdout was.

Thanks for posting that. I was just about to go and look for this in the rules.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Glad I reread that, almost quoted a pm yesterday wanting to use some venomous language against the person

 

[Ravi]

Well, they certainly should NOT, and then they have no business calling them "private" messages either. They shouldn't even have private messages and just stick to visitor messages in that case. It gives people a false sense of security that their messages are truly private.

They aren't called private messages any more. They're called conversations.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

They aren't called private messages any more. They're called conversations.

Rules posts call them PMs, when searching through it search for PM

 

[Ravi]

Engrish, por favor.

 

[ChrisL]

Well, they certainly should NOT, and then they have no business calling them "private" messages either. They shouldn't even have private messages and just stick to visitor messages in that case. It gives people a false sense of security that their messages are truly private.

They aren't called private messages any more. They're called conversations.

Well, they're supposed to be the same as private messages. That was stated by a moderator, I believe.

 

[cereal_killer]

We cannot read PM's nor do we have an interest in reading them.

Last year I was contacted by a Detective located in Illinois regarding a member who shot and killed a dog with his Compound bow. Without going into many more details they found him on our site (not USMB) and requested some info on him (not his PM's)

Instead of just turning the info over I asked that he get a subpoena for the info he was requesting. The Detective totally understood the reason for the request. We take members privacy very serious and require everything go through the proper channels before divulging any information.

Question. If I owned a grocery store and sold bananas, but decided to call them Yellow Yummies would they still be bananas?

 

[ChrisL]

We cannot read PM's nor do we have an interest in reading them.

Last year I was contacted by a Detective located in Illinois regarding a member who shot and killed a dog with his Compound bow. Without going into many more details they found him on our site (not USMB) and requested some info on him (not his PM's)

Instead of just turning the info over I asked that he get a subpoena for the info he was requesting. The Detective totally understood the reason for the request. We take members privacy very serious and require everything go through the proper channels before divulging any information.

Question. If I owned a grocery store and sold bananas, but decided to call them Yellow Yummies would they still be bananas?

Interesting story.

Thanks for posting. I figured as much, but the way some people were talking . . .

 

[cereal_killer]

We cannot read PM's nor do we have an interest in reading them.

Last year I was contacted by a Detective located in Illinois regarding a member who shot and killed a dog with his Compound bow. Without going into many more details they found him on our site (not USMB) and requested some info on him (not his PM's)

Instead of just turning the info over I asked that he get a subpoena for the info he was requesting. The Detective totally understood the reason for the request. We take members privacy very serious and require everything go through the proper channels before divulging any information.

Question. If I owned a grocery store and sold bananas, but decided to call them Yellow Yummies would they still be bananas?

Interesting story.

Thanks for posting. I figured as much, but the way some people were talking . . .

There's a paranoid bunch here..ignore them.

We are a business and we don't violate members privacy....ever.

 

[Mad_Cabbie]

Question. If I owned a grocery store and sold bananas, but decided to call them Yellow Yummies would they still be bananas?

Bananas are NOT cute, yummy 'perfect' anything -

They are old, dirty and evil.

Before the third reich; nay ... before Genghis Khan ... bananas were setting on the shelf ... picking apart our infrastructure with their evil minds whilst manically plotting the fall of man.

I generally have ZERO interest in posting extremely sensitive information online in the first place.

It would probably just read like TMI overload, any-hoo.

Cabbie.

 

[Tresha91203]

I'm not paranoid and not all that private, personally, but I don't live alone, two members of my family have to make it through their reelections, and I like to argue with people about hot, touchy topics. I try to be mostly polite and reasonable, but some people are whackos.

Just curious, when you say you cannot, do you mean you may not or you cannot?

 

[Lumpy 1]

We cannot read PM's nor do we have an interest in reading them.

Last year I was contacted by a Detective located in Illinois regarding a member who shot and killed a dog with his Compound bow. Without going into many more details they found him on our site (not USMB) and requested some info on him (not his PM's)

Instead of just turning the info over I asked that he get a subpoena for the info he was requesting. The Detective totally understood the reason for the request. We take members privacy very serious and require everything go through the proper channels before divulging any information.

Question. If I owned a grocery store and sold bananas, but decided to call them Yellow Yummies would they still be bananas?

Interesting story.

Thanks for posting. I figured as much, but the way some people were talking . . .

There's a paranoid bunch here..ignore them.

We are a business and we don't violate members privacy....ever.

We cannot read PM's nor do we have an interest in reading them.

Last year I was contacted by a Detective located in Illinois regarding a member who shot and killed a dog with his Compound bow. Without going into many more details they found him on our site (not USMB) and requested some info on him (not his PM's)

Instead of just turning the info over I asked that he get a subpoena for the info he was requesting. The Detective totally understood the reason for the request. We take members privacy very serious and require everything go through the proper channels before divulging any information.

Question. If I owned a grocery store and sold bananas, but decided to call them Yellow Yummies would they still be bananas?

Interesting story.

Thanks for posting. I figured as much, but the way some people were talking . . .

There's a paranoid bunch here..ignore them.

We are a business and we don't violate members privacy....ever.

For me, it's an issue worth an airing out from time to time, also a reminder of intent for those concerned.

On the other hand, I am a bit of an instigator...

 

[Lumpy 1]

Question. If I owned a grocery store and sold bananas, but decided to call them Yellow Yummies would they still be bananas?

Bananas are NOT cute, yummy 'perfect' anything -

They are old, dirty and evil.

Before the third reich; nay ... before Genghis Khan ... bananas were setting on the shelf ... picking apart our infrastructure with their evil minds whilst manically plotting the fall of man.

I generally have ZERO interest in posting extremely sensitive information online in the first place.

It would probably just read like TMI overload, any-hoo.

Cabbie.