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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
 Posted - 10/31/2012 : 11:17:26 AM
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October Activity
Topic:
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Topic author: tetris
Subject: Important Notice
Posted on: 10/18/2012 12:24:04 PM
Message:
Just to let everybody know, we noticed this morning that at least one of the forums was missing from the board, the one that contained, among other things, the "More Rumors" thread.
We are not really sure why this happened. It's not anything that Tails or either of us moderators did. I have noticed the last couple of days that getting into the board was very slow at times; so perhaps there is an issue at the hosting company. Or maybe we were hacked. Activity on the board lately has been minimal. So we really can't see why we'd be a target for specific hacking; but we can't rule out a random hack attack as of yet.
Tails has asked me to look into this issue as he/she is tied up with other things at the moment. But the truth is, as a moderator, I don't have much any more access to the tools of the board than any poster. About the only things that I can do beyond any other user is delete inappropriate threads and posts, a power that I use very sparingly, even when the board is more active than it has been lately.
So, more inquiries/research will be made into this issue as time allows and we will will let you know if we find out anything. But be prepared to accept that all of the posts that were made in that forum (and maybe others) may be gone for good.
Replies:
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Reply author: justme
Replied on: 10/18/2012 4:06:05 PM
Message:
I hope it's the hosting company..... If it was a hacker, why delete only that when they could screw up everything?
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Reply author: Tails
Replied on: 10/18/2012 6:21:29 PM
Message:
This is very disturbing to me and is being looked at by the forum company. So far, all I know is it was a deletion, and not on their part. They have had no other site issues and have thousands. This is the only one.
I'm not making accusations, however facts are city servers have been down for more than a week. Why?? Servers are never down that long. If Carlo's marriage came up, I did not see it, but know the truth to it. I was not going to put it out there, but now I'm angry. The fact that Rosemary Miller is being attacked in every Everett newspaper (and Topix just TODAY) for no reason what so ever.... I also question this timing. If you did not see the meeting, please watch the video. The woman kept her cool while the mayor lost his and the papers all claim she lost hers. She was more refined than anyone there asking legitimate questions.
So, I find it odd that just the 5 years of political threads have disappeared. Someone knew what they were doing and I cant see some oversees hackers deleting "just" political threads and not others. The company is safeguarding the site from a future attack and if I find any information on what happened, I will post it, post names and press charges.
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Reply author: tetris
Replied on: 10/18/2012 8:55:42 PM
Message:
It's very disheartening that years' worth of posts might be gone for good as a result of some malicious act. But, IMHO, it would probably be a good idea to hold our heads high, stay above the fray and not mention a certain subject again that it appears some of us have probably known about for a while and have been able to supress the urge to post about, out of respect to at least some of the people that it affects.
I can't speak for Tails or Massdee; but I know that would have been perfectly comfortable deleting a post on that issue if I had seen it or if someone had requested it of me before I saw it. I'm actually proud that we really haven't seen anything posted on that situation either here or on Topix. And it should stay that way, again IMHO.
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Reply author: justme
Replied on: 10/19/2012 06:17:34 AM
Message:
Sorry guys, sometimes I open my mouth before I get my brain working................. Up until now, I held back because it was the right thing to do. When I read about this site being hacked, I was so upset, I couldn't hold back.
I'll fix it now if I can. If not, feel free to take care of it.
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Reply author: tetris
Replied on: 10/19/2012 07:21:52 AM
Message:
Justme,
Thank you for doing that even though your post was still pretty vague on the issue. Our current situation is very upsetting but I think that we can still show that we can do better than just getting down rolling around in the mud when we are attacked.
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Reply author: massdee
Replied on: 10/19/2012 09:09:40 AM
Message:
I've been out of touch for a while but I have been reading the forum every few days. If this site was hacked, I find that very disturbing and suspicious. If there were any inappropriate posts, I, like Tails and Tetris, would have no problem deleting them.
I hope the Administrator, with the help of the Forum Company, will be able to get to the bottom of this.
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Reply author: justme
Replied on: 10/19/2012 09:52:04 AM
Message:
quote:
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Originally posted by massdee
I've been out of touch for a while but I have been reading the forum every few days. If this site was hacked, I find that very disturbing and suspicious. If there were any inappropriate posts, I, like Tails and Tetris, would have no problem deleting them.
I hope the Administrator, with the help of the Forum Company, will be able to get to the bottom of this.
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And I hope if they do determine who did what, they are able to share that information at some point.
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Reply author: massdee
Replied on: 10/19/2012 10:36:46 AM
Message:
That will be up to Tails to share with us any info Tails finds out. After knowing Tails for so long on this forum, I believe he/she will keep us all updated.
In the meantime, I will continue to pop in and out of here and try to monitor any shenanigans.
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Reply author: Tails
Replied on: 10/19/2012 10:48:20 AM
Message:
Just a quick update from an e-mail I received from the company this morning, but I am still waiting to hear if files can be retrieved.
There was a sustained attack from a Chinese ip address that resulted in 10 mins of downtime until we managed to block it.
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Reply author: massdee
Replied on: 10/19/2012 10:56:17 AM
Message:
Can they tell who belongs to that IP address?
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Reply author: Tails
Replied on: 10/19/2012 11:43:02 AM
Message:
It was a fake proxy. There are many ways to fake a proxy and hide your IP address.... but actually getting on the board with admin privileges and deleting certain posts is more than just a fake proxy. That was a professional, that either did it for fun, or money. Not sure why someone would delete just the political posts for fun, but who knows.
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Reply author: massdee
Replied on: 10/19/2012 12:00:33 PM
Message:
Hmmm, that's interesting. I hope the Forum Company can track this culprit down. I have my own thoughts on this but I will keep them to myself until we get some definitive answers.
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Reply author: justme
Replied on: 10/19/2012 12:03:32 PM
Message:
This just gets curiouser & curiouser.......... I don't think we'll ever know for sure, but we'll all have our own [unspoken] opinion.
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Reply author: massdee
Replied on: 10/19/2012 12:05:49 PM
Message:
and I bet we all have the same unspoken opinion...
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Reply author: justme
Replied on: 10/19/2012 12:28:43 PM
Message:
I imagine we do, massdee!
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Reply author: THE DJ
Replied on: 10/19/2012 7:50:17 PM
Message:
Since most of these post are all text why cant this all be backed up on a hard drive separate from the hosting server? I think a 2 tetra byte is about $150 and if that would be enough some how find away to get this site backed up so if it happens again all lost post could be uploaded. Just a thought. Looks like they got into the server and deleted from them, but why those post. I'm surprised the host server co. did not back up this on a separate drive like all other host so if they get attacked or hacked its a matter of uploading the lost data. If there was someone out there with the know how to build a server out of an older computer with a server mother board then the site could be hosted in someones house here local. Lets hope they can find the older post and upload them back here!!
Question Do any of the moderators here have access to the server host to maybe do maintenance on the drive where all this is kept?
And yes the Mayor is a mean Grinch and its not even Xmas Holidays yet.
Good Luck
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Reply author: tetris
Replied on: 10/19/2012 10:06:27 PM
Message:
As I stated yesterday, there's very little that moderators can do beyond what a regular user can do other than delete posts and threads. Tails did let me "borrow" an administrator's id yesterday when he/she didn't have the time to address the issue. There's virtually no type of diagnostic tools or access to activity logs available to an administrator either. We're kind of at the mercy of the hosting company.
And to tell the truth, I'm kinda shocked that it has taken them so long to get back to us on whether or not this data can be restored to some recent point in time. You'd think that they would have to do some type of backups just to cover themselves in situations like this.
As far as backing up the data ourselves, I wouldn't have a clue how to that as I don't believe that we even have a physical address of where it is or how it is stored.
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Reply author: wevr radio
Replied on: 10/20/2012 3:53:41 PM
Message:
I just notice on my post for WEVR RADIO I am missing the last 3 responses replies they were there the other day had 12 now back to 9 replies. Something is happening to this Site on missing post and hope it can be fixed. Gotta get it fixed before all is lost and talk to the server host to see if this can be backed up on someones hard drive.
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Reply author: Tails
Replied on: 10/24/2012 10:26:57 AM
Message:
Here is the final answer concerning the missing political thread:
It isn't our responsibility to backup your data or data you think is important.
There are backups but they are designed to restore the whole system. To do what you want to do would require us to restore the whole system to another server, identify the posts in question and then reconstruct the data on your live forum.
It is a considerable amount of work and would cost hundreds of dollars.
So, over time I will try and reconstruct what we had. I hope who ever is responsible feels real proud of this senseless intrusion.
I have some google search posts from the rumors thread (but when you click on it, it takes you to this main page) ......that over time can be manually entered. That will be built back up again.
The site has been safeguarded, however, nothing is really full proof. I’m sorry that this happened and so much information was lost, but I take this as a life lesson. You see…the Internet will never let you forget your mistakes and hold people accountable.
Sure we have had some criticism, debates, disagreements but that’s what we have the first amendment for.
I apologize again for not safeguarding this site more, as I believed it was just a relatively small site, and unlikely to be a target of a breach/hack.
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2012 : 11:50:59 AM
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Almost forgot this one; the next post too.
Sometimes, a little badgering pays off. But the news is not all good. However, we feel that the good far outweighs the bad in this case. But let’s get into.
A couple of days after we received the ForumCo’s “final” answer about our missing forum, Tails received another message from them. They thought they might have found a way to recover a least of good part of what was missing from the site. Good news!! They had a backup that they could use to restore the entire site; however, the backup was only thru September 30, 2012. Also, they did not feel comfortable attempting to restore the site to its current site address because if what they were attempting went wrong, there was the possibility that the site could be wiped out completely.
So, we gave them some time to do their thing and just waited. And yesterday, we received a message from them that they were successful and a second site had been created as advertised.
This left us with a dilemma though. We feel that having two sites will be confusing. Also, we have no commitment from the ForumCo of how long they will allow us to have two sites; since this is not a free site, we can’t imagine that they will let us keep both of them forever without paying for a second one at some point. So we feel that we need to be proactive to find the best solution to this problem.
Everyone who contributed an opinion thought it was important to recover the lost posts. But we also know that people also won’t be happy if we lost all of the posts since September 30. To be honest though, there have been a limited number of posts since that date. And only eight topics have been posted to in that period.
So the approach that we decided upon is to migrate to the new site. There is a lot less data to migrate to the new site than there would be if we went the other way. All of the posts that we still have on the old site that were made since September 30 will be migrated to the new site. However, they will be in the form of a single post under my user id in each of the eight topics that have been updated in that time frame. However, the data contained inside that post will retain the user id of the original poster as well as the date and time of those posts and the original order of those posts. All of the special formatting of any posts will be lost though.
So what will the other impacts of this change be on everybody? We hope, not a lot. But here are the impacts that we are aware of.
- All posts made in the missing “Politics” category between October 1 and the date that the category was re-established are gone for good. We have no idea how many posts that may be.
- If you use the search function to find posts made by a specific user, that won’t work for any posts made in October 2012 as all of those posts will be assigned to me on the new site.
- If you use private messages, none of those messages sent or received in October 2012 will be migrated to the new site. However, since the old site will continue to exist for at least a while, those messages will be available as long as the old site continues to exist.
- Soon after this post, all of the categories on the old site will be locked so that there can be no further posts on the old site. This is necessary to perform a complete migration of the October 2012 posts to the new site. However, once the migration is complete, the Forum Announcements category will be unlocked one last time to post the address of the new site and then will be locked for good.
- For the time being at least, the old site will continue to exist; but, obviously, the forums will be browse only. Right now, I’m not sure if there is a way to shut down new users from joining or new private messages from being sent; but I’m not sure what the point of continuing doing either would be.
- If you access the site through a “bookmark” or other such shortcut, you will need to update the site address to its new name. If you feel that you will need to access the old site for anything, you could add a new “bookmark” rather than updating your existing one. However, if you do that, be warned. The internal name of the old and new sites is exactly the same. So if you create a second “bookmark”, it will try to create it under the same name. I caught this before I actually created the second bookmark; so I don’t know what will happen if you try to create two “bookmarks” with the same name.
- We ask that the new users of the site that joined in October 2012 to re-join the new site. We apologize to the two of you for the added inconvenience.
If you feel that you need to contact Tails or myself during the lock-out period, please do so through private messages. Even if we find a way to shut down private messages on the old site, we will not do so until we are sure that the new site is fully functional for everyone.
See you on the other side. |
Edited by - tetris on 10/31/2012 11:52:25 AM |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2012 : 12:24:47 PM
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OK, the migration is complete and the address of the new site is You must be logged in to see this link. as it says above. I forgot that the ForumCo had kind of let the cat out of the bag yesterday. I've noticed that a couple of people have already found there way there. But thank you to everyone for refraining from posting while the migration was in process. I actually did a lot of it last night; but I had to get an administrator's password from Tails this morning to finish it. I'm going to leave the "Important Notice" topic unlocked on the new site. If you have any feedback on the the new site or the migration, please post it in that thread.
A couple of things. We would have prefered a different address for the new site, something that incorporated "Everett" and "MA" in some fashion. However, it was too late when we notified the ForumCo of our desires. So it is what it is. And while the existing topics have been locked on the old site and you can not post any additional responses, it does appear that you can still post a new topic, at least as moderator or an administrator. However, since no one will be able to respond to it, it makes to sense to do so. But because of this, we will continue to monitor the old site for spam regularly. So, if you happen to be on the old board and see any spam, please let us know and we will take care of it.
I will attempt to put a post on Topix as well to notify the community at large that the site has a new web address. However, I know that there have been some problems in the past sometimes when you attempt to post web addresses on Topix.
Happy Halloween and Happy Posting |
Edited by - tetris on 11/02/2012 1:34:59 PM |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2012 : 12:37:05 PM
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| One other thing. It appears that we picked up some advertising along the way with the new site. We'll see if we can do anthing about that. It doesn't seem too intrusive though. |
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justme
Advanced Member
1428 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2012 : 1:22:24 PM
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| Tetris I can't thank you enough for all your work on this. You've made me, & I'm sure many others, very happy!! |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2012 : 4:14:16 PM
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| Thank you for all your hard work. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2012 : 5:07:05 PM
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Justme, I guess that there could be others that we've made unhappy!
It really wasn't all that hard and there wasn't so much to migrate that it could become tedious. It let me flex some muscles that I haven't used in a while. It was kinda fun to figure out a way to do this as fast and as simply as possible and still address our most important concerns. |
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justme
Advanced Member
1428 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2012 : 06:05:07 AM
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| I'm sure this is not making some people happy............. which is one of the reasons I'm so pleased about what you've done!! |
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wevr radio
Member
22 Posts |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2012 : 1:45:24 PM
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Thanks, WEVR. Good luck with the station.
I fixed the link here and I'll make sure that it gets fixed on the other site too. I'm usually pretty good about testing links when I post them: but I obviously missed that the other day though. Congrats to everyone that still found their way here even though I screwed up. I'm wondering if that was your problem the other day justme.
As Tails posted on the old site, links don't show up on the site if you're not logged in. Having been logged in almost all the time on the old site, I never noticed that before. So if you hear anyone commenting on having problems locating the web address of the new site, please pass the new address along to them. |
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justme
Advanced Member
1428 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2012 : 3:22:23 PM
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| I realized the , was there & took it out but I think my PC was just in a mood that day. I had no trouble the next morning......... |
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Important Notice
