ID's like Hashes

[shokmuzik.com]

I want for all users a ID with the same lenghts, for forums, threads, etc it would be awesome, too. I couldnt find a method onboard, so how can I do this?


ex.

Default ID
http://www.example.com/forum/member.php?u=1
http://www.example.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=1
http://www.example.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1

New and longer ID
http://www.example.com/forum/member.php?u=f12k4S41hD8Wuy2h
http://www.example.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=g2IH7q
http://www.example.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1h56j3Kgh4

and so on, what do you think?

[Opserty]

Why?

You are making lots more work for no real reason...

[shokmuzik.com]

Privacy. Yes, his aspect is not important for most users, but if you could have the option between a number from 1 to endless, your nickname, and a random hash as your ID, which will give you the best feeling of privacy? Maybe it gives more security, too.

[Opserty]

I don't see how privacy is related to a UserID number? How will a unique hash be any different from a unique number? Both of them are unique so both will point to a user in the end so there doesn't appear (to me) to be any gain in privacy. (A hash will just be longer and maybe letters or something).

I don't understand how its going to make it more private...

but if you could have the option between a number from 1 to endless, your nickname, and a random hash as your ID, which will give you the best feeling of privacy?

Just choose a totally random nickname? (I get the feeling you are misunderstanding the concept of "privacy"). The "UserID" is just an internal pointer that vBulletin uses to relate all data back to a user, if you change this to a hash what purpose would it serve? Everything would still point back to the user so that change seems useless.

[Adrian Schneider]

Yeah but you can still lookup profiles just as easy, so what's the point of giving them a false sense of security?