Privacy & Private Messages

[holyfield]

Probably I'm posting on wrong sub-forum, but I'm concerned how InsanelyMac handles private massages? 

 

Do moderators read private messages of users?

 

Whats the policy about users privacy on using private messages feature? 

[fantomas]

Hi

 

First of all, PM is meaning 'Personal Message', not 'Private Message'. They're not private, they're personal. An example of a personal message would be when I send you a 'Hi dude!! How are you going?'. As you can see, there's nothing private. The private thing would be when I'm talking you about my last holidays and want to share you some photos. These things are private. But honestly, I would never using the site message feature to share private things, I have my email for these purposes. But it is up to everyone to determine what they think is personal and what is private and the way they want to handle with that.

 

Now about you asking if moderators do read personal messages of users - The site is using Invision Community forum software which includes a feature that allows admin level users ONLY to get direct (and whole) access to an user account, so yes, a such kind of higher-level moderator can read personal messages of users. Now the question of whether he does it, it's impossible to know, unless the members of the site have been warned. On some sites, the administrator requests permissions from members, while others do not. But why a moderator would do such kind of things (read personal messages of users)? In most cases, to track potential spammers, or someone has reported spam in their inbox. Another special case is when a user reports that he/she no longer has access to his/her account and to check it, the administrator can access his/her account. In this kind of case, the account works very well, the problem is very often on the user's side (wrong login name and/or password). But unfortunately, there is also the dark side of this feature, especially when it is about a malicious moderator. In this case, you just have to avoid this kind of site.

 

Yes, it's ok but how to know if the moderators of InsanelyMac read personal messages of users? In theory, there's no way but as already said, this feature is allowed ONLY to an admin-level user and  here at InsanelyMac, the moderators do not have such kind of higher-level. 

 

BR

 

fantomas

 

 

[holyfield]

Thank you for explaining!

 

I used private as opposite of public. Forums posts are public, personal messages private. 
 

At my point of view it’s unethical by admin’s / moderator”s to read personal messages as these are not meant for them. The only exception might be some kind harassment, we’re one side asks for help. 
 

There is another forum (*ony*acx86.com) where I tried to reach a person via PM. That’s what happened few minutes later.

 

Quote

You have been banned for the following reason: Disregard of Forum Policies on private communications asking for help.. Your ban will be lifted on Jan 10, 2020 at 10:00 AM.

I never in my life haven’t encountered a such thing in any forums before. 
 

I”m shocked that they read all personal messages!! 
 

I wanted to make sure what’s the policy here, that’s why I asked. I did not find anything specific about the matter on privacy rules.

 

Thank you for explaining!

[holyfield]

On most European countries is actually reading personal messages without clear permission of messaging sides a criminal act, regardless how easy it’s technically to access these messages.

[holyfield]

Seems that reading personal messages not legal in US either.

 

Quote

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) [18 U.S.C. Sections 2510-2521, 2701-2710], which was signed into law in 1986, amended the Federal Wiretap Act to account for the increasing amount of communications and data transferred and stored on computer systems. The ECPA protects against the unlawful interceptions of any wire communications--whether it's telephone or cell phone conversations, voicemail, email, and other data sent over the wires. The ECPA also includes protections for messages that are stored--email messages that are archived on servers, for instance. Now, under the law, unauthorized access to computer messages, whether in transit or in storage, is a federal crime.

 

There is a clause in the ECPA, however, that permits employees at an internet service provider (ISP) to read the messages in order to maintain service or to immure the provider itself from damage. For example, if an ISP suspects that a virus is being disseminated via its systems, it has a right to intercept messages to determine whether its service is, indeed, a carrier of a virus. 

I don’t see that reading everyone’s personal messages is normal part of service.

[UefiBooter]

This is pretty serious breach of trust, let alone how do  admins have time to trawl thru private messages when there are far more pressing tasks....

 

fix the damn out of date SSL certificates

 

do something about the spammers

 

 

[holyfield]

4 minutes ago, UefiBooter said:

fix the damn out of date SSL certificates

Outdated SSL is annoying and on some browsers even nightmare.

Common name: insanelymac.com
SANs: insanelymac.com, www.insanelymac.com
Valid from September 3, 2019 to December 2, 2019
Serial Number: 03db50db56f9034eb9dfcb523f0f79577c5f
Signature Algorithm: sha256WithRSAEncryption
Issuer: Let's Encrypt Authority X3

Seems that automatic free Let's Encrypt certification update doesn’t work. This shouldn’t be hard to fix.

 

[Andrey1970]

Why I can't attach files in PM ?

[crusher]

On 2/3/2020 at 4:38 PM, Andrey1970 said:

Why I can't attach files in PM ?

I think because you are not in stuff team.

[Cyberdevs]

On 2/3/2020 at 7:08 PM, Andrey1970 said:

Why I can't attach files in PM ?

AFIAK only the Staff members and Donators can attach files in PM.

[Guest ricoc90]

On 1/4/2020 at 4:09 PM, holyfield said:

On most European countries is actually reading personal messages without clear permission of messaging sides a criminal act, regardless how easy it’s technically to access these messages.

That is not necessarily true. It highly depends on the expectations of the user. Did you notice how fantomas is explicitly talking about "personal messaging" instead of "private messaging"? most internet fora's do the same. Like how twitter, instagram et cetera are using the term "direct messaging", to indicate that these messages in fact aren't private and thus can be read.
 

Edited February 27, 2020 by ricoc90

[holyfield]

22 hours ago, ricoc90 said:

That is not necessarily true. It highly depends on the expectations of the user. Did you notice how fantomas is explicitly talking about "personal messaging" instead of "private messaging"? most internet fora's do the same. Like how twitter, instagram et cetera are using the term "direct messaging", to indicate that these messages in fact aren't private and thus can be read.

 

I guess you did not pay attention to details? 

 

Quote

reading personal messages without clear permission of messaging sides a criminal act, regardless how easy it’s technically to access these messages.

 

Personal - relating to, directed to, or intended for a particular person:

Private - belonging to some particular person. confined to or intended only for the persons immediately concerned; confidential: personal and not publicly expressed:

 

Regardless how you play with the words, matters what people actually do. Playing with words doesn't change criminal aspect. Various EU countries may have defined such act and penalties differently. As I pointed out, the permission of on of messaging sides is required on most cases, otherwise it's ciminal.

 

If sea are talking about service providers, then it is important not to process more personal/private data than strictly necessary. There is no actually any reason to read users messages by forum owner/workers until someone reports about harassment etc. Owner/worker cannot excuse himself that the messages were easy to access for some reasons. The accused must prove that he was entitled to read the messages and according to EU laws, it's not easy to prove a such entitlement.

 

[Guest ricoc90]

On 2/28/2020 at 9:52 PM, holyfield said:

If sea are talking about service providers, then it is important not to process more personal/private data than strictly necessary.

Exactly. However:

"personal data":

Quote

‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

"processing":

Quote

‘processing’ means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction;

To keep it simple: Reading my personal messages won't give away my personal data. You won't be able to identify me by reading them.

It isn't as black and white as you're presenting it to be.

Edited March 1, 2020 by ricoc90