2/17/2012

Real Forum Information


Before I start this post, and the real content I am going to list everything you'll need to play along at home.

Hardware:

An old PC (1Ghz CPU, 1GB RAM, 2TB RAID 0 Hard Drive) - it is a dinosaur but any computer will do.

Software:

XAMPP (PHP, Apache, phpMyAdmin) - available here.
SMF Forum - available here.
PHPBB3 Forum - available here.
Windows XP (although any Operating System will do; such as OSX, Linux)
Firefox 10 (although any web browser will do; Chromium (not Chrome) being a better option.

Install Procedure:

Install XAMPP.
Use phpMyAdmin to create two databases (smf & bb3 were used).
Install SMF.
Install phpBB3.

That is pretty much it. There is a little more to the installation but that gives you the order. What you now have is a pair of locally hosted forums. Which for test purposes is fine. If you was doing this on a web host forget the XAMPP; and secure everything better than the standard install.

Note: Click images for clearer details - such as dates, names, descriptions, etc.

Now, the reason for this post. I was involved in a discussion last night and the topic came up of a certain admin of a forum changing things. Some involved in the discussion suggested that if anything was changed then the post would show an "edited by" statement.

I explained as the admin you can do it without it showing; which some did not believe. So this post shows how to change things without it showing. Which also shows why nothing on a forum can be taken to be true.

Firstly, in SMF, I created a post predicting various things which I knew would happen:


Nothing groundbreaking there; as all events were known when the post was created.

I then went in to phpMyAdmin


This is the database running behind SMF. The table in the database is smf_messages (although called messages it is posts; and private messages is called smf_personal_messages). In the above screen shot you will see a field called poster_time; this is the time the post was created.

Most wont realise that 1329487838 is what is commonly called a 'unix timestamp' and actually means Friday, February 17, 2012 2:10 PM.

So to amaze the world all you need to do is actually change the poster_time field to an earlier date; I chose Friday, December 31, 1999 11:59 PM.


Now we have something pretty amazing looking. Anyone stumbling across the forum will think that in 1999 I predicted the 4 events with pinpoint accuracy; even though I didn't.

I then went through the procedure with phpBB3 doing the same thing.



Note the only differences are the table is phpbb_posts and the field is post_time. I changed it this time to Saturday, July 7, 2007 7:07 AM.


Only 2 years (almost) before the first prediction; but still anyone stumbling on it would think it pretty cool that it was predicted so accurately.

And that is the point. Just because it is on a forum doesn't make it factual.

Unfortunately it doesn't stop there. In the discussion from the previous night private messages were mentioned. And once again I was the bearer of bad news and said if you don't trust the admin then don't use private messages.

Here, briefly, is why.


The message was composed like any other private message. But when the admin logs into phpMyAdmin they see everything; and can change everything also.



The admin sees the message, sender, recipient(s), subject, and time sent. And yes, you guessed it, the admin of the forum can change all of those without anyone knowing; except maybe the original sender if they pay enough attention. But then how does the original sender prove it was changed; surely they didn't bother to screen grab the message composition.

And the same thing can happen in SMF.


Now people can believe this if they want. But if you don't believe it download all the software needed and try it out for yourself. After all it is better to investigate these things than just take a person's word for it.

If you are going to try it out for yourself the online timestamp converter comes in handy; and can be found here.

Note: All of the above was completed in an insecure test environment; but can be completed just as easily on a live database/forum setup.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fascinating, thanks for going to all this trouble to help we less computer savvy folks understand the game we are involved in. Nice work

Anonymous said...

Ugh, anyone who was a forum admin there somewhere knows you can change anything without any "sign" of that like words "Post last edited on .. by ...", so please, lovely naive people - Doggie tells you the truth here. I'm admin elsewhere (NOT on THE forum) and when we edit others' posts (oops, with no agenda! :P only to fix bad links etc.) we can change pretty much everything without a "trace".

Sad thing is in your beautiful naivety and understandable desire to stick to your beliefs, you are manipulated by people with some agenda, this is really sad as you do not deserve it! :(

( yes, they do not deserve it, Doggie :P )

Asia said...

It just gets better!
:D

Anonymous said...

This was going on when Aunty AMY was running the show on the old MJHD.com as well as on MJHD.net. I posted a comment about this along time ago. Does the peanut butter and jelly jams ring a bell? LOL!

:D

Anonymous said...

This totally proves that SOUZA is behind Front, Back and TS. This was predicted on the old MJHD. There was a member by the name of Emerald City who warned us about this. And shortly thereafter, there was a mass exodus of MJHD members. Maybe they didn't want to PLAY THE GAME anymore!

Blog Author said...

Anonymous said: "This was going on when Aunty AMY was running the show on the old MJHD.com"

Yep it sure was. Thats how they had 6000+ members and only about 20 people actually posting at one point.

I noticed on MJDHI that when something gets argued that these people who have never posted a thing all of a sudden have an opinion (usually backing the admin) and then never post again. Cannot believe that people don't spot all the shit going on over there.

Anonymous said...

Oh, please. Front/MJ was posting ages ago on MJJC under the user name 'back.' I know because I was there at that time. This was back in 2005 and ongoing for several years. Souza has NOTHING to do with admin on MJJC. 'back' gave us clues way back then, and everything he was talking about is coming true or has already happened. We had no idea what he was talking about back then (now it all makes sense), although several people did suspect that he was MJ, even back then.

I just wanted to clarify, just in case some people are getting sucked into this false information that Souza is behind all these people and admin from all these various forums. I don't know what she does on her current hoax forum or what other user names she has (if any), but I DO know that she was/is NOT behind back/Front/MJ.

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for this information, I knew admins can do a lot, but not what exactly. Changing the dates of posts ... that's what some people suspected she did with 2 TS redirects in January, not just changing the subject lines, but also the dates of some posts to make it look like they were posted later, as far as I remember. Because something went wrong with those redirects, the one for Elvis' birthday was posted (and redirected) a day early, but she changed the subject line to January 8 (from January 7), saying she knows that that's what TS meant, lol. But it also seemd like she had changed actual dates and posting times of some posts to make it fit better, since the redirect happened too early.

I hope the members of the forum read this blog, I'm sure most of them, if not all of them, never knew that admins can do all those things, including changing the content of PM's. I knew admins can read them, but I didn't know that they can change basically everything in PM's.

Anonymous said...

Quote: "Oh, please. Front/MJ was posting ages ago on MJJC under the user name 'back.'"

Oh please, and how do you know that Front is actually "back"? Any proof? Right, there isn't any. Front was asked on MJDHI to log in and out on MJJC in the next couple of days at one time, not post anything or whatever, just log in and out, it would have shown in his profile that he logged in. That never happened. Would have been an easy way to give a hint (still wouldn't be 100 % proof, because they real "back" could just read the forum and do this to fuck with people, but it would have been a hint).

Front is someone who just copies "back", to the point where her posts get totally boring, because they sound forced, like someone is just using words and phrases that "back" also used, going through "back's" posts just rearranging the words and phrases. It's like with movie remakes, most of the time they are not as good as the original.

Anonymous said...

I hope this is not too off topic, but someone should tell SimPattyK that this article is from Sept. 13, 2001, not 2011 (which was mentioned several times in their Whitney thread):

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=102477&page=1

So the first "weird" thing on her "weird list" about Whitney's death that she posted today is again just the result of ignorance and not being able to read. The rest of the list is of a similar "quality".

Anonymous said...

"Oh please, and how do you know that Front is actually "back"? Any proof? Right, there isn't any."

LMAO!!! There's plenty of proof, unless you're blind or stupid. ;)

Blog Author said...

Anonymous said: "LMAO!!! There's plenty of proof, unless you're blind or stupid. ;)"

This was concerning Front being Back. Once again though it comes down to the classic statement "There's plenty of proof" without actually supplying any.

If you want to prove something it is best practice to include actual proof of an argument rather than just saying there is - in my opinion anyway - so that you actually have a valid point.

Blog Author said...

To the person who emailed me (name withheld as requested) regarding using Windows XP. It was just an old base unit I had lying around. As I said any Operating System could have been used. It was just an old junker that happened to be on hand.

Had it been a proper build the 2TB RAID 0 would have been about 6TB at least; and most likely RAID 1 just for safety. And as Operating System for a web server I'd of started out with something like CentOS; based on the old favorite Red Hat.

But; it was purely for demonstrative purposes. And that old junker is now in pieces as part of another project.

Anonymous said...

Admin said: "This was concerning Front being Back. Once again though it comes down to the classic statement 'There's plenty of proof' without actually supplying any."

They can't supply proof, because there is no proof. Claiming that there is proof became the forum mantra for 99.9 % of the things they claim on MJDHI.

N said...

I used to be an admin of both platforms PHPBB and SMF forums, but frankly, I thought everyone knew that the admin can do absolutely everything without a trace, changing post time, editing, reading private messages from database, of course the admin can, he' the God of that place, can do anything he wants, without members noticing. Unless they're sharp quick minds or they understand that admin is an anonymus whose intentions can be any and they pay attention to it, especially when MJ is A LOYAL forum member lol, who by accident defends souza and the forum more than he defended himsefl in his own trial.
you know what/? This IS the greatest show ever. Reality show ran by a multiple personalities wierdo. :) Next episode please!

N said...

I don;t care if Back is Front by the way (even if you can tell how bad s/he's trying to replicate). First Back didn't sound like Michael, could have been anyone , 2nd, Back wasn't proved to be Michael , so why would one care now if a bunch of 2 sick people started to immitate another anonymus right on time after the topic was reopened after a year? Come on, ppl, get smart.

Anonymous said...

seems like all thats left on the souza show are a bunch of obsessed stalkers who mj spent his life avoiding the likes of.

Asia said...

I just can't wait till that crazy site closes down.

and if there is anybody left there with half a brain left... I urge you to get out before...

the shit hits the fan.

Anonymous said...

Family haven't shut us down, instead only keep validating us! How do you like those apples?!

Blog Author said...

Anonymous said: "Family haven't shut us down, instead only keep validating us! How do you like those apples?!"

Family??? Manson or Jackson??? But seriously why would the family even care about MJDHI? To the family you (I'm generalizing here) all appear as a bunch of nutjobs. They care about what goes on at MJDHI about as much as they care about the price of Lima Beans in the Southern region of Mexico.

See, you can try to make MJDHI sound important by saying the "family haven't shut us down" but why bother? I'm pretty sure the family have more things to worry about than a bunch of clueless people following Front/Back/Souza/Bec waiting to be spoon fed the next installment of their insanity.

The flip side is that the family haven't tried to shut down MJDHI because it is so insignificant; that and maybe the Jacksons feel pity at the people there following the insanity (just a guess I don't know what the Jackson family think).

Anonymous said...

The Jacksons have no time for all Michael's harmless stalkers. I don't know if Michael legally rejected stalkers so far, but he sure didn't like them. If you don't know that, then you're not that much of a fan really:)

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