OM and Mouse Trace

[jeddyhi]

Mur, when you talk about having 3 socks over there, you know that drives their paranoia to even greater levels right? Now every member over there is a suspect lol!

[Smersh]

... Third, A screen shot that speaks a thousand words.

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j311/ ... search.jpg ...

Mouse Trace is not part of Google Analytics, as in a feature that's included every time but Bren said:

... Mousetrace is/was a promo plugin trial from Google as part of our Google Analytics package ...

Could it be that when OM got Google Analytics, Mouse Trace was a promo plugin from a third party software supplier that just happened to have a promotion deal with Google at the time? I know that when I install software that I've downloaded there are sometimes options to trial other software which might not necessarily be from the same vendor or OEM.

.

[murnut]

Mur, when you talk about having 3 socks over there, you know that drives their paranoia to even greater levels right? Now every member over there is a suspect lol!

Yeah...I know. ...sorry but I just love tweaking the paranoia.

I'm actually Fore...Bren and Traynor

Check my latest post as Fore
http://lucianarchy.proboards.com/index. ... e=4#314370


I got everyone all confused....e

Alright...changing back into Mur.....

Responding to myself (Fore).....

When I refer to OMF as a cult, I'm referring to the behavior of it's leaders.

Cult leaders expect blind acceptance and they don't like folks questioning their motives.
Cult leaders like to keep the explusions of cult members and members concerns a secret....no discussion of bannings or moderation is acceptable at OMF.

So that's why I say that OMF is a cult....because that's the way the leadership handles it.

[jeddyhi]

@ smersh

That very well could be the case.

In the greater scheme of things, I suppose the exact origin of where Bren acquired the program is hardly the point. The main point is why install something that allows you to snoop on members? He claims that it ran for barely a day yet 5 days passed before any Admin/owner would address the issue on the forum. It is actions like that (or inactions if you will) that cast such a long disparaging shadow on the OM Admin staff.

Now I would like to address these words from OM moderator Fore:

Here is one lie/truth (you decide) I am going to put forth.

If John Hicks thinks the Admins and the lower staff are really such bad or misguided people doing such dubious things everyday with the members of this forum.

Then why are you trusting in his claims? He was "one of us" for several years.

Exactly....but the keyword is 'was' and it was only two years and I had to quit in order to be allowed to debate the drones freely.

What we did, he did. Thats some perspective. Did he ever break into anyones accounts or spy on them? No? Well same same.

Comparing what was going on years ago ( I quit OM in 2007 ) to now is such a flaky diversion tactic that I'm sure most see the pure idiocy it involves. I don't think OMF ever ran Mouse Trace when I was on staff lol.

I recall Mur usually likens us to a cult except he doesn't know that many in the staff don't think alike on many subjects. Heck, I don't agree with Jeddyhi's view of there being "no aliens" or Admins (complicated) views of "Thought projections from the collective unconscious".

That is not my view but it is certainly a hypothesis I ponder. That is a view which you and most of OM will not even consider as a possibility. Therefore you are not truly openminded if that premise cannot even be entertained. Do I think it is possible that there are no Aliens visiting Earth? You bet you sweet ass I do. Could the Alien stories be a cover for secret technology aircraft? Hell yes it could.....I'm open to all possibilities, therefore I'm openminded to many different scenario's and hypotheses. Are you, Fore?

[Zep Tepi]

Oh look, they're trying their diversion tactics on for size again.
Instead of trying to deflect -as per usual- why don't they try answering the bloody questions once in a while?!

As for receiving MouseTrace as part of the Google Analytics "package", that simply didn't happen. Google Analytics isn't a package containing software and the like, it's a web-based analytics tool created by Google and doesn't have any other software added on. You create an account at Google and access the tool using your Google account. There are no third party offers and Google are certainly not in the habit of offering promotional products from third party vendors!

MouseTrace has absolutely nothing to do with Google, nada, zilch, a big fat zero.

Bren used that argument in order to make it appear what he did was innocent and perhaps misguided. Wrong, try again.

[Access Denied]

Even if OM have now removed Mouse Trace as they say they have, it doesn't necessarily mean they can't still spy on pm's. I believe there have been strong suspicions in the past that pm's have been spied upon (Philliman I think knows of some examples but please correct me if I'm wrong Phil.)

Yeah, I think Count pointed out a good motive for installing MouseTrace if it’s true that ProBoards doesn’t give board admins the ability to make backups of their own forums or direct access to the database.

I believe there may also be some hacks for phpBB which enable spying on pm's, which were mentioned in a discussion somewhere as I recall. As yet I can't find any links though.

Well, it’s true all we would need to do if we ever needed to read somebody’s PMs (personally I can’t think of a valid reason other than a court order) would be to use the MySQL Control Panel (phpMyAdmin) and figure out what table(s) they were stored in and how they’re indexed if there’s not already a “hack” (mod not approved by phpBB) out there. Without one it would be a chore but certainly it could be done.

Of course the easiest way to read somebody’s PMs on any board is to simply change their password and log in as them… they’ll never even know you did if you ban them first.

[you can change it but you can’t change it back to whatever it was*]

ATS was notorious for this when I was there… just find a reason to suspend (“stealth ban”) someone and guess what, you have to ask them for the password to get back in.

[most people don’t know mods don’t have to change someone’s password to suspend or disable their account]

Anyway, if there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind that something is very wrong here, consider this again from Admin/Bren’s original “explanation”…

“…as far i know it's not possible to see any 'private' data like PM's or even typed words, just navigation of visitors to the site, what boards they go to.”

Think about it, he installed the software and (presumably) he was the only one who had the password for the MouseTrace account and could watch the replays of what “visitors” (conspicuously not “members”) were doing… all it would take to know he could see PMs if you actually buy he didn’t already is for just one member out of the 50 visitors the free account stores at a time to open one. What are the odds no one did?

More importantly, if everything was on the up and up, why weren’t the members notified about the new software that would be running on their computers before they installed it?


ETA: *because it's MD5 hashed, or should be, it is in phpBB

[Count]

Well, it’s true all we would need to do if we ever needed to read somebody’s PMs (personally I can’t think of a valid reason other than a court order) would be to use the MySQL Control Panel (phpMyAdmin) and figure out what table(s) they were stored in and how they’re indexed if there’s not already a “hack” (mod not approved by phpBB) out there. Without one it would be a chore but certainly it could be done.

There already is one available. Note that I don't (currently) run phpbb myself (only VB and SMF) so I don't know anything more about that mod. But it's been out in the open for a while...

Of course the easiest way to read somebody’s PMs on any board is to simply change their password and log in as them… they’ll never even know you did if you ban them first.

[you can change it but you can’t change it back to whatever it was*]

Well, yes you can, and it's actually quite a bit easier to read PMs without browsing the actual private message table by doing it like this:

- Fire up phpMyAdmin or similar tool
- Go to user table, export the row containing the user you want to spy
- Change the user password
- login as the user
- do your stuff
- go back to phpMyAdmin
- import the row you exported earlier

..and you're all done and the user is none the wiser because their last login date didn't change or anything. Of course, if there are unread messages for the user, those will be marked as read, so those either need to be read directly from the pm table or need to be marked as unread in the pm table.

Of course you need to have some way to bring the board offline for the rest of the world while you're doing this, but it can be done simply by putting a .htaccess file with username/password authentication stating that the board is closed for some needed mainteinance. If you do it often enough (and there are always some issues to be fixed in a busy forum) no one will ever know.

The "bonus" for doing it via database is that even the other admins will not know that you're reading private messages, but if there's a mod then its there for all admins to see so someone with a conscience and spine might question why it's there.

And for those who might be interested in the gritty details, here's my admin account from a now defunct board:

Code: Select all

INSERT INTO `sledgesmf_members` (`id_member`, `member_name`, `date_registered`, `posts`, `id_group`, `lngfile`, `last_login`, `real_name`, `instant_messages`, `unread_messages`, `new_pm`, `buddy_list`, `pm_ignore_list`, `pm_prefs`, `mod_prefs`, `message_labels`, `passwd`, `openid_uri`, `email_address`, `personal_text`, `gender`, `birthdate`, `website_title`, `website_url`, `location`, `icq`, `aim`, `yim`, `msn`, `hide_email`, `show_online`, `time_format`, `signature`, `time_offset`, `avatar`, `pm_email_notify`, `karma_bad`, `karma_good`, `usertitle`, `notify_announcements`, `notify_regularity`, `notify_send_body`, `notify_types`, `member_ip`, `member_ip2`, `secret_question`, `secret_answer`, `id_theme`, `is_activated`, `validation_code`, `id_msg_last_visit`, `additional_groups`, `smiley_set`, `id_post_group`, `total_time_logged_in`, `password_salt`, `ignore_boards`, `warning`, `passwd_flood`, `pm_receive_from`) VALUES
(1, 'TheFinn', 1294311707, 1, 1, '', 1303461567, 'TheFinn', 1, 0, 0, '', '', 0, '', '', '2ced89fea8b9531f9fb4ab5dc67cb02cca9fdf63', '', 'email@obscured', '', 0, '0001-01-01', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', 0, 1, '', '', 0, '', 0, 0, 0, '', 1, 1, 0, 2, '87.94.51.60', '87.94.51.60', '', '', 0, 1, '', 2, '', '', 4, 4245, '52e9', '', 0, '', 1);


But enough of this technical babble, the gist of the matter is that it is possible to read private messages if you're an admin or have other means of access either to the forum codebase or database. The examples mentioned earlier in this thread are by no means the only ways to do it and the legality of it depends on where the forum and the person doing the snooping is located.

[Smersh]

... I still have 3 socks

Have any of those socks by any chance taken over the job at OMF of "New Members Steward" since you got chucked out Mur?

http://lucianarchy.proboards.com/index. ... 779&page=1

Well, it’s true all we would need to do if we ever needed to read somebody’s PMs (personally I can’t think of a valid reason other than a court order) would be to use the MySQL Control Panel (phpMyAdmin) and figure out what table(s) they were stored in and how they’re indexed if there’s not already a “hack” (mod not approved by phpBB) out there. Without one it would be a chore but certainly it could be done.

There already is one available. Note that I don't (currently) run phpbb myself (only VB and SMF) so I don't know anything more about that mod. But it's been out in the open for a while ...

Hi Count, thanks for the link and all the rest of the info you posted. As I mentioned earlier, I had heard of hacks for phpBB enabling the reading of pm's by admins but couldn't find any links.

[murnut]

... I still have 3 socks

Have any of those socks by any chance taken over the job at OMF of "New Members Steward" since you got chucked out Mur?

http://lucianarchy.proboards.com/index. ... 779&page=1

That's a whole other long story...hahaha

[jeddyhi]

OMF member agent99 shows off her intelligence! I can't even bring my self to comment on her brilliance.

http://lucianarchy.proboards.com/index. ... e=5#314432

[murnut]

See...it is a cult.

Some are obviously brainwashed.

The real questions to why mouse trace was installed in the first place have never been answered.

And why call them private messages if they are not private?

And why ban folks for asking legitimate questions?

[ryguy]

OMF member agent99 shows off her intelligence! I can't even bring my self to comment on her brilliance.

http://lucianarchy.proboards.com/index. ... e=5#314432

haha! Can you imagine if the U.S. Intel community responded like that when warrant-less wire-tapping was released to the media?

U.S. Official: "Well....I don't see what the big deal is...I mean, who cares about phone calls anyway? I don't care if someone listens to my phone calls. What's the big deal?"

Um...okaaay....

-Ryan

[jeddyhi]

OMF member agent99 shows off her intelligence! I can't even bring my self to comment on her brilliance.

http://lucianarchy.proboards.com/index. ... e=5#314432

haha! Can you imagine if the U.S. Intel community responded like that when warrant-less wire-tapping was released to the media?

U.S. Official: "Well....I don't see what the big deal is...I mean, who cares about phone calls anyway? I don't care if someone listens to my phone calls. What's the big deal?"

Um...okaaay....

-Ryan

Exactly lol

And according to agent99's way of thinking, any Americans who then got rid of their phone service were just looking for a reason to do it in a huff LMAO!!!

well, it seems obvious to me that they are just using this download as an excuse to leave the forum in a huff when in actuality there were other issues that they had with this forum that were totally unrelated to "Mouse Trace" which were the REAL reasons why they dropped out.


Read more: http://lucianarchy.proboards.com/index. ... z1TQ3yDEDl

[JonCurcio]

Leaving the forum wasn't something I felt good about. Being banned on top of it was an added intentional sting that further justified my reason for leaving. In spite of all that has happened, it's amazing that some hold such a blind loyalty to a forum that manipulates the truth and its members. The explanations given by the staff for the installation of Mouse Trace were unacceptable to me, and they were overdue. If this were the first instance of the staff behaving in what I see as a deceptive and insulting manner, then I would not have reacted as I did. What I have seen in my time on OMF is a staff who on one hand encourages open-minded and civil discussion, while behind the scenes works to steer the direction of that discussion and hands out bans to anyone who questions suspicious activity.

I had no agenda at OMF other than to become further informed and offer my opinions on issues that interested me. After the source A affair, where I saw members either leave or be banned and in my opinion, a hoax clearly exposed, I became disillusioned with a place I once enjoyed. I wasn't bitter, as some were, because I felt that I had not been a victim as they had. I felt that if one were to obey the terms of service, that there was no need to worry about bans or moderator action. It's true that I was only banned after I had left, and if I had continued a civil discussion on this Mouse Trace issue I may have narrowly preserved my membership.

What I've come to see at this point, however, is that there seems to be no end to the spin, in the face of any evidence presented. I'm grateful that others on forums such as RU are willing to take the time to expose these lies and manipulations. When these lies relate to promoting a hoax or agenda, it bothers me, but I've come to expect such in the UFO field. It's hard for me to see truth anymore in cases when so many have been clearly exposed as frauds. I've accepted this, but I cannot accept being spied on and lied to directly by *controllers* of a forum that should be based on transparency, truth, and *open-minded* discussion.

The answers being given by the OMF staff were an insult to me given the evidence shown, and were a final straw in my decision to leave. I'm not comfortable being a member of such a group under the conditions that have become more and more clear over the years. It got to a point where I was certain there could be no trust, and that isn't the kind of company I can tolerate keeping.

[ScaRZ]

The real questions to why mouse trace was installed in the first place have never been answered.

And why call them private messages if they are not private?

And why ban folks for asking legitimate questions?

I totally agree with you Mur,and is the main reason I said something at OM.

Some people just don't get it ,do they?

If it's a private message and not posted within the forum for all eyes,it is suppose to be private. I don't care what the subject matter is. What we communicate about is absolutely nobody's business.