sugarless sue said:
Right LJ,I have received a PM from Admin and he also can not access PM's
Incorrect. I have in the past retrieved the text of a PM from a backup of a closed phpbb forum on request of the sender. Doing this on a live server would be no different.
sugarless sue said:
no mod or admin can access,read or in any way interfere with the Pm's on this forum.
Also incorrect. Anyone with database access can do what they want with PMs.
sugarless sue said:
Therefore the problem must be outwith our scope.What the problem is,however I cannot answer.I hope this puts your mind to rest about privacy issues.
Unless I am missing something the problem is down to one of three things:
1) A bug in phpbb which does not appear to have been reported by anyone else except in connection with migration or upgrade
2) Deliberate tampering by someone with permission to access to the database
3) Deliberate tampering by someone without permission to access the database.
I think you should be concerned about option 3 if nothing else.
Incidentally there's an interesting discussion on phpbb.com regarding the ethical issues of the "private" message system, particularly regarding the name. Of course since this is a UK domain then the data protection act and computer misuse acts are relevant.
Barcodius.
IT Consultant and former admin of 6 phpbb forums.