CHARACTER MAP got a member reading private forums!

[1yesfan]

What is a CHARACTER MAP? I have idiot on my site, a member, that is able to see my admin area, forums set for forjust admins/mods, members can't see it. I have logged in as this guy and sure enough he is able to see PRIVATE forums . How is he doing this, how do I stop this!!!!

[CeleronXT]

How'd you log in on his account...?

Go to Users>Find enter his username and go to edit his access masks. Then put "No" instead of "Yes" or "Default" that might already be selected. Log in as him again and see if this has done it.

[1yesfan]

I have deleted his account now! But did all that. Today I banned him to view the site only and he finally came clean. He says it is a thing he can turn off and on. Well he told me to log in as him and I did and he was able to see all my ADMIN (private) forums.

[filburt1]

BTW the character map in Windows is just a list of ASCII and now Unicode characters, nothing that could be used to hack vB.

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map

Having a name composed of letters that can't be typed on a normal English QWERTY keyboard on an English forum with a guy that speaks English is the first sign of 12-year-old n00biness. :)

[1yesfan]

Then I would love to know how he could see my admin forums when he wanted to. in the WHO'S ON LINE you could see him viewing the forums. Yet when I logged on as him i could not see the forums and even in the NEW POSTS/UPDATED POSTS links the threads in those forums that had been upodated did not show up there when logged in as him either.
I did just discover tonight that after I set him to VIEW SITE ONLY tonight that also allowed him to see the admin forums also, again those being PRIVATE. Why is that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

[filburt1]

How were you able to log in as him? The only ways are to (1) get his password or (2) use the hack.

In the Who's Online, even guests might show up as "Moderating Duties" but all they're seeing is the Permission Denied and login prompt, so nothing to worry about.

So when you "logged in as him" were you actually able to view the forums that he shouldn't see, or am I completely misinterpreting the situation? :)

[1yesfan]

I am the admin on the site, he has been an off and on again THORN so I changed his password and logged in as him. The VIEW ONLY thing is what I set his membership to tonight. He told me to set up a account which I did and set it to VIEW SITE ONLY which I did and log in as that new person and sure enough I could see ALL forums, private ones included.
The issue before this was that he was able to read threads in my private forums, he even gave me a link to one that I clicked on and sure enough he was have linked to a thread in the PRIVATE Admin forums. Yet right after he gave that link last night I looged on as him and saw NOTHING in the way of private forums showing that shopuld not be. I wonder how he was getting in to see them????? How did he get the link?

[filburt1]

He could just guess at the forum id.

Do you have access masks enabled in the first place in the admin CP "vBulletin Options"? Private forums IIRC won't be hidden even if you check that option when setting them up unless the master switch is turned on in the admin CP for access masks.

[filburt1]

Oh yeah, if you're assigning permissions to a forum which has subforums, the permissions aren't fully inherited to subforums. To get around it, you have to apply permissions manually to each subforum.

[Steve Machol]

Have him provide a screenshot of a thread he should not be able to access. I seriously doubt he can, provided you have the proper permissions set, of course.