Please could MNHQ delete all PM inboxes of those on The List?

[boatsgoby]

My home address is in at least one of those inboxes, which obviously is now far from secure.

[Rainuntilseptember15]

I wasn't on the list and not was the person who I know I pmd by address too, but I don't know all their user names.
We have changed passwords but why should I not worry that another hack will be successful and get more info then?

[Simurgh]

Different set ups ALassUnparalleled. People seem to have an insatiable desire to just hang on to information and that's what has to be addressed.

I've seen people holding on to data which can no longer be accessed without herculean effort and cost because the systems to run it are dead. (And they therefore have no idea what it is they're hanging onto.) Try to talk to your IT section about it these days and they will probably just get glazed looks on their faces and mutter about 'cloud storage' and 'available terabytes'.

I swear it's like trying to take people's blue blanket from them.

[ALassUnparalleled]

I post a small music forum where the site owner regularly posts. We get told periodically he's deleting all pms as it's costing him money to store them on the server so if we want to keep them we have to move them elsewhere.

[YonicScrewdriver]

Auto delete better than remote delete.

[YonicScrewdriver]

I imagine extremely hard - don't think any messaging system allows that.

[Simurgh]

I think that Surely meant the ability to remove them from someone else's account. That would be served to a degree by having all PMs auto delete from apparent sight after a fixed period of time as many websites do. I'm sure that many people with current concerns would feel happier if they knew that any PMs they had sent would be 'gone' after - say - thirty days.

[SurelyYoureJokingMrFeynman]

Indeed, ALass. That's why I'm suggesting it as a new feature - being able to delete PMs one has sent, obviously without being able to see the rest of the recipient's account.

I've no idea how easy or hard that would be for Tech. If hard, then presumably it won't happen.

[ALassUnparalleled]

Surely You can delete pms you have sent from your own account. It would be impossible to delete them from the recipient's account without access to their account.

[Roussette]

emails? I meant PMs of course

[SurelyYoureJokingMrFeynman]

(As part of general housekeeping and future protection, I mean, not defence against this particular attack.)

[Roussette]

I wouldn't want a blanket deletion of all emails thank you! I think that's shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted somewhat.

I've never given out my address, nor have I received anyone's. So there is no need, besides which there isn't much in there apart from a few of PMs I do want to keep as they are

[SurelyYoureJokingMrFeynman]

Tell you what would be useful (sorry Justine, add to the list): the ability to delete one's own sent PMs.

That way one can do one's own housekeeping and delete PMs after they're read.

Of course MNHQ would have to keep a copy somewhere, because of potential for personal attacks this way. But it would mean one isn't reliant on the recipient doing as asked and deleting.

[ALassUnparalleled]

You don't actually know if he read or didn't read pms. The fact he has not disclosed information from pms doesn't mean he does not have that information.

You don't actually know if those on the list were all the accounts hacked.

All you do know is that every member now has a different password so the fairly small window of opportunity for him to access information is closed.

[JustineMumsnet]

@akkakk

boatsgoby
with the forced logout and the change of password - in theory, no one can log into any of those accounts any more, other than the genuine owner who has had a password reset sent to their home email address...

while the hack was live, anyone with access to the list could have logged in and read those PMs - however, it is unlikely they did / there is little evidence of any info from PMs being released / if they did, it is too late to ask MN to delete it now...

so, while I can understand your concern I am not sure that it will actually make any difference...

This is correct - thank you akkakk, for this and other helpful posts. We've zero evidence of any external access to user data after the first password update on Tuesday.

[ALassUnparalleled]

Oh dear I was on the List.

I don't store pms but I have sent one to a poster which had my real name and home address.

I can't even remember which poster and she may have name changed as it was a while back.

Really whether one was on the list or not shouldn't every one who has personal information about any other poster stored in an inbox delete it and save anything needed elsewhere?

It may of course be too late now- if he accessed in boxes he has the information and the site should not now be hackable but for the future maybe if a poster has shared real life personal information you should move it out of inboxes?

[bumbleymummy]

Please do NOT do this!!! I have had some lovely messages over the years and I do not want to lose them! I do not have anyone's personal addresses in my Inbox.

Is there a way to batch download PMs in case MN do decide to do this?

[Simurgh]

I've deleted all my PMs including the Sent box. It was just a good wake-up call to do some extra housekeeping.

[SuburbanRhonda]

To all those saying PMs shouldn't or don't contain personal information, on the school uniform thread earlier in the summer, where MNers were offering to send, post-free, used school uniform to anyone who had a need, there was a lot of exchange of information because people needed to know where to send things to.

Had we realised the site was about to be hacked, we would, of course have asked the recipient to delete the PM once the items had been sent and deleted it ourselves from our sent boxes.

One very kind poster from this thread let me know she was on the list and one of her PMs had my name and address in it. So all my PMs have been deleted and so have hers, but that won't be the case with everyone who was kind enough to donate on this thread.

[Gobbolinothewitchscat]

I'm totally confused now but I agree with the comment that all this deleting is a bit after the event plus there have been password changes

I don't really PM much and just use it as I would the boards - ie I don't swap personal details such as addresses. There is one poster who knows who I am in real life and I know who she is but I trust her entirely! That said, I'd usually use email to communicate with her.

It might be worthwhile going forward if posters swapped email addresses if they think they will be discussing anything very sensitive it want to swap addresses

[SurelyYoureJokingMrFeynman]

Woah, woah.

Stressful subject and everyone's het up right now. Not ridiculous to raise as a topic, and also not abuse to think through practicalities of different kinds of deletion.

for all the busy deleters.

[YonicScrewdriver]

It's not abuse to point out practicalities.

[YonicScrewdriver]

By all I mean a universal delete across MN.

[Thurlow]

What abuse? I thought posters were just saying that they wouldn't like their PMs deleted en masse.