Wait a minute, have you not noticed.

[hd49728]

As a way of keeping myself safe while using any site, I made a rule of thumb not to open mails I ain't expecting. It's a huge red flag for me if a mail is even about promotions and giveaways.

Emails about upgrade of application, promotions and giveaways are not attractive with me. I can read them but I don't click on these links or immediately upgrade my application with that link.

The next step which is important I would like to do is visiting the official site and check announcements, news there. If an exchange for example has something big to announce, it will appear on its website where I can check and confirm the information I received in email.

It can be phishing emails that can easily be recognized by email addresses but even if email addresses looks official, not phishing, I still have need of confirm the information before taking my action accordingly.

[Mpamaegbu]

The next step which is important I would like to do is visiting the official site and check announcements, news there.

I can safely deduce that you're a meticulous person. Those who aren't hasty while dealing with stuff online hardly get punished by scammers. That virtue of patience is scammers' weakest point. They hate it whenever those they're trying to prey on take out time to scrutiny whatever they're told.

I also do similar thing whenever I'm prompted to update any app I'm using. Once the prompt becomes insistent to the point it gets under my skin in a way I can't overlook it, I just go to where I installed it from and update from there. I don't update apps from app interface. Nah! My reason being – what of if scammers hacked the app and were the ones sending me that update messages?

[Sticky Bomb]

Also, in the UK / EU you have the legal right to request that your account is deleted and all data forgotten... but they are allowed to keep data even when sent that request if they have a legal obligation. I wonder how many don't delete the data out of a 'legal obligation' blanket justification. This only applies to businesses that operate in the UK / EU though.

There is almost nothing like deleting data totally from a company database, data are archived and not deleted, In fact most delete buttons on websites only archives data and not permanently deleting anything. When such requests are received, even from legal standpoints, they archive your data, thereby removing it from publicly accessible database, but the core administration still have access to the data whenever it is needed and with such there is no guarantee that your data would not be sold in the nearest future. I respect Theymos discipline towards data handling which has so far proved to restrict compromise of forum data. I have worked with many organizations and not for once have they agreed to actually delete user data.

Most times Data integrity is more achievable if only very few trustworthy people handle sensitive data as against more ICT personnel and at worst third party full access.

[_act_]

Theymos do not sell our data and also he makes it difficult for hackers to get to it. I am referring to our emails.

Theymos selling user data? 😄

The guy probably has more Bitcoin than most crypto businesses. Selling email addresses would be like Satoshi opening a lemonade stand to earn some pocket money.

Did you forget? https://bitcointalk.org/donate.html

Bitcointalk even stopped selling ads since long time... I think last auction was like in July 2022, yet the forum is still thriving. That alone should tell us that making money from users' data isn't exactly part of the business model. 🙂

The important thing that I know is that most bitcoin that theymos will have today will be from mining on computer or mining on GPU and he is going to be a big business owner today. I think I have read something like that before that theymos mined bitcoin early. But what about hackers trying to gain access to the users emails on this forum? Theymos also prevent that.

[Synchronice]

Theymos do not sell our data and also he makes it difficult for hackers to get to it. I am referring to our emails.

Theymos selling user data? 😄

The guy probably has more Bitcoin than most crypto businesses. Selling email addresses would be like Satoshi opening a lemonade stand to earn some pocket money.

Did you forget? https://bitcointalk.org/donate.html

Bitcointalk even stopped selling ads since long time... I think last auction was like in July 2022, yet the forum is still thriving. That alone should tell us that making money from users' data isn't exactly part of the business model. 🙂

As far as I know, the forum has up to 1200 Bitcoin in reserves. I found an article on Bitmex that states in picture that in 2017-2018, annual hosting expanses were 45K USD on average. To my mind, at the moment, forum has to basically pay 0.5-1 Bitcoin per month or possibly even lower but when the price reaches 120K, they'll have to pay 0.25 or lower/slightly higher.
If 1 Bitcoin will be enough for the forum for 4-6 months, that's amazing. theymos does a really great job and I hope he will not get tired. If there is a problem, he can always allow advertisements on the forum again.

[IjawMan]

But what about hackers trying to gain access to the users emails on this forum? Theymos also prevent that.

This ↓ is how sophisticated the forum security is against hackers from way back and changes to improve forum security layers may have been made for the present time.

How are the passwords stored? What hashing algorithm is used?

It seems to be SHA-1 salted with the username, though I'm not totally sure.

Who has access to the database?

Gavin, Sirius, and me. Slicehost (and maybe Rackspace) also has access, since they host the server

Is the forum vulnerable to attacks? Has it been tested for security holes?

It uses SMF plus some mods and a small handful of custom changes. Hopefully SMF is well-tested and able to contain poorly-programmed mods

I did a cursory examination of all mods before installing them, but I certainly don't understand SMF enough to judge their security well.