Does anybody know how this person got past the limit for subject text?

Must be a different forum than the url you gave me before.
But anyway possibly you have html enabled for that board

I looked at the source but I didnt see any HTML changes in the span



<span id="subject0">megapixel game site megapixels memory cards megapixels 14 conversion megapixels to megabytes canon cameras 12.1 megapixels megapixels studio rates megapixel and photo size megapixels and image sizes kodak 12.2 megapixels md41 megapixel lens calculator megapixel video camera bold 9700 megapixels megapixels 12.1 how many megapixels do i need for a poster megapixels memory chart</span>
</b>

Not sure where you got that from.
Possibly view source in a browser?
But it is html
and
<span id="subject0">
does not look native to ubb.
Try editing the post and see if you can see what is embedded in the topic and post.

its not on my site so I don't have the privileges to edit it.

here is the site

http://forum.surfermag.com/forum/postlist.php?Cat=0&Board=UBB1&page=0

version 6.5 is pretty put of date. Currently the topic title field in the database is varchar(255). I suspect it was back then too. Any restrictions in topic length via the form can be bypassed, and there surely was nothing in the actual scripts back then that would have limited it.

In other words, no, it wasn't hacked.

I know from experience that you can only use about 40 chars or less for the subject title so its got to be a script.

fairly easy to hack 6.5, or if you will, bypass perceived safety of the forum software and break the rules...

matter of fact, up until 7.4 there were some holes that could be breached.

so you are saying its probably very easy to get admin passwords etc as well?

i know there was a flaw in how certain form submitted data was handled.

rather than go into details, the prudent thing would be to upgrade to 7.5.6, imho

then there are no questions

and 'very easy' is a relative term. 'joe blow' off the street would never get in, but....... you get the drift..