# Is the content of PMs monitored, held against us

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-content-of-pms-monitored-held-against-us/695726>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [August 17, 2014, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-content-of-pms-monitored-held-against-us/695726 "2014-08-17T00:58:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-content-of-pms-monitored-held-against-us/695726/41 "2014-08-18T18:19:14Z")

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This thread got me curious and in the interests of fighting ignorance, I poked around with reporting PMs to see what would happen.

So, over on the board where I have admin rights (big mistake, that. 😉 ) I took a PM someone sent me (it was just a “Hi, how’s it going?” PM, so nobody needs to panic.) and hit the “report PM” button.

What I got was the standard vB “report post” report which looks like this (links deactivated and names removed)

[QUOTE=admin]  
Fenris has reported a private message.

Reason:

> [@](#):
>
> Testing to see what happens when you report a PM

Sent by: Mystery Poster who shall not be named.  
Original Content:

> [@](#):
>
> This isn’t the PM, but before I deleted it from this post on the SDMB, the entire PM (which I couldn’t edit) was quoted here

[/QUOTE]

So: Assuming that the SDMB is on the same or a similar version as the other board,

A) You should have a “Report PM” button in the upper right corner of any PMs–_except ones that you send to yourself_. I tried that first as a test, and no button.

B) The unedited (and uneditable) contents of the PMs are delivered to the mods via email or wherever.

So, again assuming that we’re on similar versions, there is a remedy if you get an abusive/threatening PM. Report it. (If we’re not on similar versions then…well…disregard this post and throw tomatoes at me.)

PS–Dex is 100% correct when he says Mods/Admins can’t see PMs normally–there are no vB options for it. I’ve been told by people who understand this stuff that apparently someone at Jerry’s level of access could dig into the underlying database and probably pull out PMs but short of a court order or something, I don’t know how anyone would even start.

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**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-content-of-pms-monitored-held-against-us/695726/42 "2014-08-18T19:10:30Z")

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> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#):
>
> It’s possible this is so obvious that I been whooshed, but in case your first comment was serious… of course, you can’t report someone else’s PMs, you never see them, so you can only report ones you’ve received.

NM - it was too lame to waste your time on. Sorry.

Regards,  
Shodan

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**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-content-of-pms-monitored-held-against-us/695726/43 "2014-08-18T19:37:35Z")

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> [@Fenris](#):
>
> PS–Dex is 100% correct when he says Mods/Admins can’t see PMs normally–there are no vB options for it. I’ve been told by people who understand this stuff that apparently someone at Jerry’s level of access could dig into the underlying database and probably pull out PMs but short of a court order or something, I don’t know how anyone would even start.

Seriously, it’s not hard. As I said, using phpmyadmin ( which I don’t find much fun, but looking up the commands from plenty of sites gets one through ) one could just export them to a file. From a vBulletin staff member:

* * *

The pm table stores the meta information and the pmtext table stores the actual text. They are not encrypted.\*  
\*\*  
Alternatively a superadmin could just run a SQL query in the admin panel, as so:

\*Code:

select \* from vb3\_pmtext where fromusername=‘USERNAME’

The above code snippet (change USERNAME to whoever you are searching for) will pull a listing of all PMs sent by a user.

Code:

select \* from vb3\_pmtext where touserarray like ‘%USERNAME%’

The above code snippet (change USERNAME to whoever you are searching for) will pull a listing of all PM’s sent to that user. \*  
**[Ramblings From The Marginalised](http://www.hmtk.com/archives/how-to-use-sql-to-read-private-messages-on-a-vbulletin-forum.html)**

However, the whole idea reminds me of a Gene Hackman film I never actually saw. The lonely superadmin, bitter and obsessed, crouching in front of his monitor, reading through 50k of PMs and making connections to uncover an elaborate conspiracy.

Oh, and no need for a court order: one can do what one likes if one owns the forum, and so can those one delegates. And you could always say one was looking for child pornography.

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**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-content-of-pms-monitored-held-against-us/695726/44 "2014-08-18T20:35:29Z")

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I don’t think, if you had legit admin rights for the board, that you’d have to give a reason for reading PMs, except to your boss.

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**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-content-of-pms-monitored-held-against-us/695726/45 "2014-08-18T21:12:34Z")

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> [@Claverhouse](#):
>
> And you could always say one was looking for child pornography.

N/M.

Was gonna reply with “So you know Fenris, then” but too harsh. And I like Fenris. Though not in that way.

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**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-content-of-pms-monitored-held-against-us/695726/46 "2014-08-18T21:44:10Z")

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> [@kayaker](#):
>
> N/M.
> 
> Was gonna reply with “So you know Fenris, then” but too harsh. And I like Fenris. Though not in that way.

:dubious: I thought you DID say you liked me “that” way.

☹

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