Originally Posted by MDawg View Post
I stopped posting at this forum simply because it was taking up too much extra time to post at yet another forum. For a while I posted at just one forum, but lately have fallen into occasionally posting at another one or two as well.

I do still read some of the VCT forum and sometimes send PMs to members here.

I make an appearance today just to clarify what exactly DanDruff did. I did send PMs to some of the members here, but only to members who had communicated with me via PM at some point in the past.

The PMs were worded as follows:


Vote for MDawg

https://vegascasinotalk.com/forum/sh...he-survey-says


With some of the PMs including an additional line so that they read:


Vote for MDawg

https://vegascasinotalk.com/forum/sh...he-survey-says

Give UNKewlJ a heart attack!


Another thing about my deleted PMs at VCT is that most of them were in response to old incoming PMs from members, such that anyone looking at the PMs would see some topic in the subject line that had nothing to do with that poll. Meaning - that Druff had to open and read each PM to determine that it had to do with the poll.

I researched this, checked, and the standard forum software used here would not allow Admin to read PMs. In fact, the creators of this forum software have steadfastly refused to implement any feature that would allow Admin to read PMs.

Druff would have to have some kind of aftermarket modification installed to read PMs easily, or open up the actual database and pore through it carefully to figure out what was in PMs. In other words, Druff must have gone through affirmative steps simply to be able to read PMs, it’s not something easily done, or normally done.

It is also possible that because multiple PMs were sent out that were identical, that some aftermarket modification alerted Druff to that a member was sending what appeared to be Spam, but still, he’d have to access the PMs to know what exactly was being written, and again, to do that requires either effort to go through the database, or a modification that would allow reading all PMs. And maybe I’m giving Druff too much credit that he was alerted to anything, maybe he’s been reading our PMs all along.

Certainly, now that it is publicly clear that reading PMs isn’t so easily done and is not a standard part of forum software, I’d expect Druff to try to make excuses for what he did, maybe lie about how exactly or why exactly he did it, so as to keep his secret snooping mechanism - secret. Once someone does something like this, I’d question most anything he did in the future, and I feel even better about having stopped posting at this forum a year and a half ago.

Over the past year or longer I have sent Druff PMs where I have pointed out in precise detail where he has revealed that he doesn’t know what he is talking about on multiple gaming topics. Whether this has anything to do with his targeting me for invasion of private messages, all I can say is that Druff isn’t like normal people and has a habit of ignoring or not even responding to messages or emails that he doesn’t care about. Most forum Admins at least give the courtesy of a response, not Druff. So, for Druff to go to the effort of reading all my PMs, and post a thread about it, he must have really wanted to do all that. Or maybe he’s always been monitoring our PMs.

Anyway, now you know that he has the capability to read PMs at this forum, and is willing to do that.


Your knowledge of vBulletin forum software leaves a lot to be desired.

You're correct that the Admin panel of vBulletin does not allow for deletion of specific PMs. It's either all-or-nothing when it comes to PM deletion there.

However, the database is a different story. It is very easy to locate the database entry where the PMs are stored, and each has a timestamp field (so the PM can be dated properly for the recipient). Thus, it was not at all difficult to just take all the PMs you sent during that short period of time, and wipe them from the database.

None of this required reading any PMs, nor did it involve breaching any accounts. I just wiped about 50 records from the database (approximately 25 messages, times 2 because it shows up once in the sender's sent folder and once in the inbox of the recipient).

I have an MS in Computer Science. I'm not just some dolt who threw up a forum on some leased server space. That's how I was able to thwart some attacks some years ago being made on this forum by a angry WoV user who didn't like that certain banned members there were allowed to post here.

However, what I did to remove your messages requires relatively little technical knowledge. It also requires relatively little technical knowledge to read people's PMs via the database, so watch out on other forums.

Therefore, as I said in my other post, I would highly advise you do NOT give out personal information in any forum PMs (not just here, but all forums), and take it to e-mail. I don't read PMs on this forum, but of course you can't know that for sure, so to be safe you just shouldn't post anything personal there.

I will say that I take user privacy very seriously, and would not use anyone's info or messages here in any unethical fashion. I also will never give or sell e-mail addresses (or any other account info) to third parties. I do appreciate that there is some level trust you have in me when you sign up here.