Forum- Passwords & Personal Data
After we changed everyone's passwords a couple of weeks ago, people were asking some questions about passwords and personal data. Firstly, we don't hold much personal data- as people have usernames, we don't know real names. We do ask for the year and date of birth to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). We ask for an active email account and send a link that has to be clicked on to complete the registration. This is to make it harder for automated registration by advertisers and spammers. We also ask where you're from, where you are based now and what your first language is. There are also optional fields where people can add biographical information and interests if they wish. Unless you use your real name as a username or connect via Facebook, the data is anonymous. If an acount is deleted, this information is deleted from our records.
We cannot see passwords. Here's a screenshot of what we can see in admin:
The box for password is blank- we have no idea what it is or how many characters it uses, and we have no way of seeing it. We can enter a new password, and occasionally do when someone is having problems logging in or sorting out a new password. However, the second we save it, the box goes blank again.
If you're emailing or sending us a Private Message about your account, please don't send us the password- the username is enough.
[Edited by the webmaster to add...]
Since we use the leading brand of forum software (vBulletin) to manage our forum membership lists, these passwords are stored in a secure way and we have no possibility of retrieving them from the database. For those that are more technical, the actual passwords are salted with a random three character string created on registration. The actual password is stored as md5(md5(password) + salt).
Categories: UsingEnglish Content
Hi,
Sorry to trouble you regarding username-password problem. I found that I am no longer able to log into the site. Unfortunately, I am not able to remember what email address I had registered when I registered, because I have lost info from my computer.
Shall I re-register? Or is there a way to log into this account? I thought this is the email address associated with this account, but apparently it is not.
Thank you
Olympian,
Can you check the email you used here- you will find login details there.
Can administrator or Tdol help?
I can't log in UsingEnglish.com. Maybe both the 'Password reset' is set and my old e-mail account didn't work recently.
I tried the 'Help' tips in UsingEnglish but it didn't work for my case!
Yes, I can. Please check your email.
Hi Tdol,
I haven't heard from you so I re-registered by another username 'dawnngcm1'. However, I still can't see 'reply' button on the thread or message you guys. Please help!!!
Dawn,
Please check your email account- the one for the old account or the Private Messages in the new account- I replied to both places.
Same problem here, can't register anymore :-( I wasn't notified that either my password was changed or that my account was deleted. - Does my account still exist? Or do I need to re-register? (I haven't been on the forum for quite some time.)
Answer very much appreciated :-)
Please check your email- I have sent you instructions. The account has not been deleted.