OK. Now let's snoop some more. ;) Since there were no archived messages, this means that they could have signed on for the sole purpose of playing a game or listening to music and they never actually chatted... or they could have been auto-deleted when YM preferences were changed or they could have been purposely deleted.
Go back and click on the profile folder again. This should show a list of the actual profile folders inside the profile folder. Now, on the View Menu, choose "Details". Next, at the top of the list of actual profile name folders, you will see "Name" and an arrow symbol... for choosing ascending or descending. Right click on that section with the arrow or the word "Name" in it and put check marks next to "Date Created" and "Date Modified" if they are not checked already. Now scroll over and check the actual "Date Created" and "Date Modified" for the mystery profile and see if it gives you any more ideas about it. If the dates are old, then you have nothing to worry about. If they are recent, you can do a little more snooping. You can open Yahoo Messenger and put that profile name into the field as if you are going to send that profile a message and open an IM window between you and that name. Don't actually send a message but choose the Actions Menu in that window, then choose "Contact Options" and "View Profile" and see what info is in the actual profile created for that ID. You can also do a Yahoo Search and Google Search on the profile name to see what kind of postings may exist on the net under that name. As far as how it may be breaking the law, private citizens have what's called "a reasonable expectation of privacy" which precludes you from snooping through their stuff if you do not have legal or reasonable grounds for doing so. For example, if someone came over and left their purse on your table and you know who it belongs to... It's in your house, on your table and it's not locked... but that doesn't give you permission to go snooping through their purse. Their file(s) on your computer is the same thing. Now, if you find a purse out in a public place and you don't know who it belongs to, you can reasonably look through it to try and see who it belongs to so you can contact them to let them know... but once you find the ID for the found purse, you can't keep snooping through it or you would be violating their privacy. Depending on your State's statutes, it could be a criminal trespassing offense, unauthorized use of a movable, or something similar. Lenny Vasbinder 504-621-1870 http://www.NeighborhoodHomeServices.com FREE and automatic online backup of your documents, photos and files... https://mozy.com/?ref=SY4ZSI Check out how simple and secure it can be to use the Mozy backup system. It will back up your most important files and folders every day/night while you aren't using your computer. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christi Manry Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 9:32 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Y!M] Does the computer keep track who has logged on to messenger? Thanks for the info.. I did open the file and there were no archived messages in it. It was just a blank yellow folder with the name of the id on it. How could it be breaking the law if someone else logged into his computer. To me this is leaving it wide open for him or anyone with access to his computer to have access to the folders. Now if I had gone to someone elses house and did it and didn't have the permission then yes.. that would be breaking the law correct? I just wanted to make sure that if anyone logged into anyone elses computer using their yahoo id that it would show up and that meant that someone was there or he was using a different id. Right? LNVTM1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: If the archiving feature is turned on, then yes, it will save the new ID folder and it's archived messages as well. It will store them until the archives are turned off or deleted manually. While you are snooping, you can also read these archived messages by going into that profile/messages folder and then opening the individual .dat files with wordpad.... however, if that profile is not your boyfriends, you may be breaking the law opening their files without their permission. There should be a separate .dat file for each person that the ID chatted with. Lenny Vasbinder 504-621-1870 http://www.NeighborhoodHomeServices.com <http://www.neighborhoodhomeservices.com/> FREE and automatic online backup of your documents, photos and files... https://mozy.com/?ref=SY4ZSI <https://mozy.com/?ref=SY4ZSI> Check out how simple and secure it can be to use the Mozy backup system. It will back up your most important files and folders every day/night while you aren't using your computer. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] <mailto:Yahoo_Messenger%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:Yahoo_Messenger%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Christi Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 8:18 AM To: [email protected] <mailto:Yahoo_Messenger%40yahoogroups.com> Subject: [Y!M] Does the computer keep track who has logged on to messenger? I have a question for everyone and hopefully someone can give me an answer. I was checking my boyfriends computer and seeing who he was chatting to. I do this by going to my computer, drive c, program files, yahoo, messenger, profiles.. and on this is usually where I check who he has been chatting with.. yes I do have permission to do this.. but there was an id that I know his not his.. I was wondering if anyone knows that if someone logs onto messenger on his computer will it store it here and for how long? I am just curious because I didn't recognize the name and thought it was weird.. My id is on there as I log in on his computer from time to time. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.. if you need more info please feel free to ask.
