Hmm, I see.

Well, there is no real way of "encripting" something, and hiding it from the public, but still making it readable after that.
At least not in PHP.

Or am I wrong?

and use a JavaScript (client side) on the fly decryption?
I think something like a public and private password: RSA?

public password is stored in database, so anyone can crypt the message using adressee public pass.

When the message is ready to be decrypted and the user open it, a javascript prompt ask him the private password.
Then a function will decrypt client side the crypted message.

That made a whole lot of sense right there... seeing how the admin would have to install this in the first place to prevent himself, the lame admin, from reading pms... uh huh

Store the key in config.php and make it global.

One thing I found after testing this out...

The encryption works for storing it in the database, but when you reply to a private message, the text in the quote box is the encrypted message.

Edit - Removed quote so as not to confuse posters... I'm so used to the quote not showing up by default on my board.

Another thing I notice... When it quotes a previous PM in a reply, it has trouble parsing the apostorphes... They show up, but they are preceded by several slashes. I assume that's a side effect of the encoding.

Yes, the quoting is a pain in the ass.

If you'd want that to go away, there would be a number of additional edits in functions_newpost.php, and functions_bbcodeparse.php :/

I think PM encryption is one of the things that jellsoft may have thought about and decided it is pointless. If someone has access to your database they could do far worse than read private messages. Unless obviously it is the Administrator, But he/she could easily read the 'encrypted' message if they so desired.

If a user recieves a private/personal message they could always download it and delete the message. (Is the row in the database removed when the recipient and sender delete the message?).

Privacy depends on what your forum is about. For example if your userbase was largely under 13 years old and there were a few 40-50 year old males on your board then it may be prudent to actually check or screen messages. Obviously that is a stereotypical example and I am not saying that all 40-50 males are seedy... Rather it would be odd if they were on a board dominated by younger people.

Anyway it is a good idea though not really that useful...

your're right, of course.. and..

But this is a coder forum and we like to talk about algos, vb coding technics and beer! :D
(not enought women around here... http://www.wellage.net/images/smilies/ehm.gif)

Haha, that last comment really made me laugh :D

I'm kinda lost on the point of this...

Is it to stop admins from reading pms?

Couldn't they just login as you? there's enough hacks to do that already..