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CalloftheHauntedMaster
Junior Member
289 Posts |
 Posted - 21 December 2005 : 12:16:03
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Ok, this is actually kinda creepy.
I've set my forum's active user permissions to disable anonymous members and I obviously have private forums. What's weird though, is that when I sometimes look at the active users, I see GUESTS looking at those private forums. Now, I've done some testing and determined that when I'm not logged in (aka GUEST) I cannot see any of those forums at all---as expected.
However, once I sign in as admin, I occassionally see GUESTS looking at forums that I know they cannot possibly have access to.
What's going on? |
This account was hacked into by Image, a very honest guy as you all can see! Stealing people's passwords is his pasttime. Beware of this, before you register at his forums! |
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Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 21 December 2005 : 12:20:07
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They do not have access to them, what they are seeing are the error messages telling them they do not have access to them.
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 Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
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CalloftheHauntedMaster
Junior Member
289 Posts |
Posted - 21 December 2005 : 12:28:44
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However, there are times when it says, "reading topics in _____ forum".
And what about forums that I have hidden. Shouldn't they not see those forums at all? Yet, I see that sometimes, they are actually reading topics in a private forum. |
This account was hacked into by Image, a very honest guy as you all can see! Stealing people's passwords is his pasttime. Beware of this, before you register at his forums! |
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masterao
Senior Member
Sweden
1678 Posts |
Posted - 21 December 2005 : 14:22:54
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Same thing with private/hidden forums as with topics, they just see the error msg telling them that they don't have access.
They could have seen a link to a specific topic in a hidden forum or noticed that there are leaps in the forum_ids for visible forums, and changed the forum_id manually to try and see what it is. In the end, if they don't have access to a forum or topic due to it being set to allowed members only (hidden or not), they will not see the posts. They will only be greeted by the error msg that tells them to login or that they are not allowed to view the forum/topic in question. |
Jan
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FR Portal Forums | Active Users 4.0.20 Mod |
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CalloftheHauntedMaster
Junior Member
289 Posts |
Posted - 21 December 2005 : 14:29:03
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| Hm. All right. Thanks |
This account was hacked into by Image, a very honest guy as you all can see! Stealing people's passwords is his pasttime. Beware of this, before you register at his forums! |
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laser
Advanced Member
Australia
3859 Posts |
Posted - 21 December 2005 : 15:01:45
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Most probably it's a spider from a search engine. There are a number of ways to confirm what they are looking at :
- the simplest : copy the URL, make sure you are logged out, and go to the URL
- more complex : setup Google ads and see what you get in your private forums 
If you're more concerned (or need more convincing ) create the SAME thread in a public and private forum and have Google Ads running on both. In the private forum you will only get ads about passwords & security. In the public forum the ads will match the post content. |
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