914world.com down?

[kerensky]

Originally Posted by SirAndy

Worst case scenario right now would mean we'll lose the last two months of posts. I really hope that won't be the case.

Ouch. About a month ago, I had to have Clay help me with an account issue - I'd been away a *long* while and my original email address is also long gone, so I couldn't use the regular password reset. I sure hope I don't have to have him help me with that again once you get things working. :/

Which reminds me, I need to check *this* account here at Pelican... EDIT: Yep, this one had the old email as well. Much easier to fix when you remember the password.

[lesorubcheek]

Originally Posted by 930cabman

Please forgive my ignorance, but what is to be gained by these actions? Does someone benefit financially? or just people being people

Regarding motives, who really knows, but here's one possibility. Several years ago there was a group of people (including myself) actively participating on a chainsaw forum . The forum was an offshoot of another larger forum, this one specifically targeting one manufacturer of saws. There were roughly 20-25 active members, all sharing tons of lessons learned, solutions, and overall having a very good time bs-ing about our saws. As you can imagine, there was a mix of personalities, but we all respected each other and no one really ever got overly offended, we'd just focus on the saws and enjoy it.
Not sure exactly how it started, but one of the key members for whatever reason raised a question regarding ownership of the forum's information. Most members kinda felt like it was a communal effort. We all contributed and shared input freely and most felt "ownership" was a mute point and if anything we all "owned" it.
The forum's founder and administrator answer to this question, was that all rights to the intellectual property within the forum were owned by him. Guess he just didn't understand how to be tactful, but the way this came off upset many of the forum's members. The guy that had asked the original question about ownership started messaging us basically instigating a walkout from the forum. After a short time he deleted every post he'd ever made, basically wrecking many of the threads. Needless to say, the forum was never the same.
So, in that case, there was one person who at least felt he had a reason to bring that forum down and create whatever havoc he could. Don't think he ever did hack into the forum, even though there were some strange things that happened, but he did have a motive. I have no idea if someone, for whatever reason, may have developed some bad feelings for 914World, but that's at least one possibility. Who knows.

Dan

[SKL1]

Some "people" have way too much time on their hands!! Why is it "feelings" seem to be so easy to upset these days?????

[fetus]

Originally Posted by lesorubcheek

Regarding motives, who really knows, but here's one possibility. Several years ago there was a group of people (including myself) actively participating on a chainsaw forum . The forum was an offshoot of another larger forum, this one specifically targeting one manufacturer of saws. There were roughly 20-25 active members, all sharing tons of lessons learned, solutions, and overall having a very good time bs-ing about our saws. As you can imagine, there was a mix of personalities, but we all respected each other and no one really ever got overly offended, we'd just focus on the saws and enjoy it.
Not sure exactly how it started, but one of the key members for whatever reason raised a question regarding ownership of the forum's information. Most members kinda felt like it was a communal effort. We all contributed and shared input freely and most felt "ownership" was a mute point and if anything we all "owned" it.
The forum's founder and administrator answer to this question, was that all rights to the intellectual property within the forum were owned by him. Guess he just didn't understand how to be tactful, but the way this came off upset many of the forum's members. The guy that had asked the original question about ownership started messaging us basically instigating a walkout from the forum. After a short time he deleted every post he'd ever made, basically wrecking many of the threads. Needless to say, the forum was never the same.
So, in that case, there was one person who at least felt he had a reason to bring that forum down and create whatever havoc he could. Don't think he ever did hack into the forum, even though there were some strange things that happened, but he did have a motive. I have no idea if someone, for whatever reason, may have developed some bad feelings for 914World, but that's at least one possibility. Who knows.

Dan

Based on some of the drama in our sandbox over the years, I wouldn't be surprised if someone held a grudge, but that is pretty selfish and sad if its true.

[GregAmy]

Originally Posted by lesorubcheek

Several years ago there was a group of people (including myself) actively participating on a chainsaw forum.

Sounds like a rockin' info forum.

Reminds me of the accordian and pencil shapener forums I used to frequent. - GA

[kerensky]

Originally Posted by GregAmy

Sounds like a rockin' info forum.

Reminds me of the accordian and pencil shapener forums I used to frequent. - GA

As a saxophone player and frequenter of saxontheweb.net, I can verify that there's been much bad blood over the years over such earth-shattering issues as reed strength, "open-face" mouthpieces, synthetic pads and resonator cones, the quality of Chinese manufacturing (or copying, depending on your viewpoint), and many other hot button issues.

[NARP74]

Those are strange occurrences that happened to World... Good luck getting it back, looking forward to the improvements. Security updates?

[fetus]

Originally Posted by SirAndy

One of the admin accounts was compromised (password hacked, possibly through their phone) which allowed the hackers to gain access to the administrative part of the website.

Luckily, they didn't gain access to the server itself.

Yes, we do have backups, but unfortunately due to the nature of the deletions, it's not as easy as rolling back the latest database backup.
I'm still working my way through restoring and i'm hoping we'll be able to recover with minimal losses.

Worst case scenario right now would mean we'll lose the last two months of posts. I really hope that won't be the case.

Curious can you enable Multi Factor Authentication for the Admins? Would that have helped this situation?

[930cabman]

Maybe the sandbox is smaller than we hoped it to be

[SirAndy]

Originally Posted by fetus

Curious can you enable Multi Factor Authentication for the Admins? Would that have helped this situation?

Looking into that as we speak.
The problem is that the forum software is 20 years old. It was written long before that term even existed.

And yes, we're having our 20th anniversary this December ...

[NARP74]

A great case for while you are in there, might as well...

[Puebloswatcop]

Sure hope our site is up again real soon, I am going through withdrawls......

Thanks Andy....For everything yu do for us 914 nuts

[Charles Freeborn]

I once asked at a meet up about website building why anyone would care about hacking 'lil 'ol my website. The answer was they don't care who they hack - they simply use the domain as a vehicle for malware and other nefarious activities and then when it's blocked they move on to the next one. Same MO as stolen credit cards. The only thing they care about is getting access to domains that aren't on any known hacker or spam lists and therefore blocked.

[SirAndy]

Making some progress ...

[bkrantz]

Andy, can I send you a PM somehow--if you have time?

[GeorgeKopf]

Wow. Very nice. You're efforts are greatly appreciated.

[bowlsby]

We all appreciate your high level skills Andy. If anyone can figure this out and fix it, you can. Appreciate all you do for the site.

[r_towle]

If you need any help, please ask.

Rich

[rory gallagher]

Many, many thanks Andy. Same to all admins.
We can all be patient.
Big props to Pelican for taking us in as emergency 'guests'
Good to know the prognosis is excellent.
These are strange times.
Rory

[campbellcj]

Huge thanks Andy and let me know if I can help in any way including with testing/pentesting the revived site. Also there may be a way to set up automated full snapshots of the whole (virtual) server depending on the hosting architecture/provider. MFA sounds like an awesome plan too.