I just recieved a nasty PM by a member who thought I was picking on him by deleting his avatar, this is not the case and well from the tone of the PM I think this guy needs a valium!
I guess he was living under a rock for the past month cause as most of you know VFRD has been the target of some malicious hackers. The first time the hackers were able to actually gain access to the admin area and left me stupid notes, deleted my account and so on, but did no real damage. This prompted me to upgrade to the latest version 3 weeks ago, unfortunatly I did not clean out the server properly when I did this so I may have left a backdoor file (left by a hacker to get back in) when I upgraded the forum. They are sneaky and leave backdoor files that look like all the rest of the files, its hard to tell which ones are legit and which are not, some even are implanted into the legit files, tacked on the end or somthing.
There have been several attacks since then that have all been the same, this time they were unable to access the admin area to do damage there but they were able to insert an iframe into the board wrapper that calls to a downloader trojan file located on some remote server somewhere and it was clogging up virus blockers of anybody who clicked onto the website. I would delele the iframe from the wrapper right away when I saw this, then I changed all the passowords afterwords and scanned the server for viruses. However they kept doing the same thing over and over again, the same Iframe issue injecting a call to this remote virus on another sever - there was no virus on this sever it was on a remote server.
I was advised to just erase everything and install the newer version cause it has even more security features that are supposed to prevent the board wrapper from being manipulated.
So I did that and deleted everything, changed all the passwords, removed everybody with access to the admin area incase that is the back door the hackers were using, then installed the newest version of the board two days ago. Everything gallery photos, my uploads, avatars, skins, everything. I had a backup of the most of the files but found that the avatars where mostly duplicates and orphaned picutures no longer being used?? I figure it would be a three hour job sorting through the 600 avatars uploaded to the server to find the correct ones and get rid of the duplicates and abandoned avatars, forget that!! I just left it clean - its not a huge inconvience for you to spend 5 minutes uploading a new avatar compared to me spending 2 or more hours wading through the throng of unused stuff in there! I could be doing somthing more important like fixing the portal, and the member map, adding the parts lists back on, fixing the spell checker, the gallery posting tool. rather than wasting a lot of time on avatars, fluffy little avatars. Chill out avatar guy!!
Your little avatar hassle is nothing compared to the headaces I have been dealing with these hackers on the server
Most of us are not so narcissistic that we think only of ourselves. I regret that some are. We really appreciate your efforts to defend and keep this community viable & alive.
I think Tony Soprano was right - "log off, that cookie shit makes me nervous"
From what I was reading from the invision board fourms the hackers were using a cookie emulator code, that could simulate any admin. Most of you dont have access to the admin area so if they steal your cookie its just useless to them, but If they got my cookie well thats harmfull. Get off my cookie kid!
Hey Slammer, I don't do a lot of posting but I do want to let you know how much I appreciate this website. You obviously do more than many of us could ever imagine and I thank you for it. Don't let the bastards get you down!!
Cookie tlak made you upload a new avatar?!?!? Hell, this cookie talk made me go make some DOuble chocolate chip cookies!!! hehe...
Anyways, too bad you cant spoof the hacker by 'emulating' a fake cookie that would lead to a traceable source so you could know your hackers.. hrmmmmm...
Dooptie dooptie doo..
Off to bed.. Semi-long trip to Birmingham in the morning... getting up at like 5 AM..oh sh@@, that is only 4.5 hrs away.... ltr..
Some New Guidelines when contacting an Admin *any website applicable*
1) Begin by skipping the rules page thats incidental and does not pertain to you what-so-ever as the admin obviously wasn't talking about you!
2) Don't bother with using the search function or using the Help links as those items are just trouble man! Your right finger needs a rest from all that clicking right?
3) Make sure to use the words *THIS IS BULLSHIT* in bold or all caps when addressing the admin as they will not read any thing unless its got Bullshit in it!
4) Make sure not to include any info about what your talking about cause that only serves to confuse and muddy the situation!
5) When asked not to use cuss words so much - as in take it easy on the F word, make sure that you accuse the moderator of censorship and then use the same word about 50 times when describing your opinion of the moderator (Baileyrock in particular)
6) When you do not receive an answer in the mandatory 2 seconds from the admin, make sure to post the concern on the forum somewhere in the luggage forum as that is where all admin questions belong from now on (isn't it obvious)! Of course use the above mentioned *THIS IS BULLSHIT* header to make sure he reads it! (or she if its a girl)
Well, it's a good thing it's you running this show and not me. I'd have been over my head at trying to create a gallery posting tool, much less, dealing with hackers.
You'll get it, we'll re-upload some avatars, those damn hackers will get bored and move on.
It is always the people that have nothing to do with maintaining a website who are the first to bitch about how it is run. The complainers should be glad I don't run this board! HS, keep up the good work!
As always, thanks again for keeping a quality space for all of us to keep coming back to. You do such a great job keeping this place up and running... Thanks a lot for all of your hard work!
Just a question, so as to avoid duplicate work, will the our photo albums be brought back up? I notice it says we are still have pics in there and are using space but none show of course.
Slammer.........add me to the list of folks that are very grateful for you hard work and dedication of your time to this site. Sorry you are having to deal with hackers and pissy members.
The database will show photos as being there but if they are not then my backup was incomplete and they are gone, you can upload them again in the same spot, and not have to put in the comments again if you want, just go to photo edit and reupload that pic that is missing. It took almost a full day to backup the website and well it was not complete.
HS, just wanted to add my name to the list of members that are truely gratefull of your hard work and dedication, keep up the good work the true fans of this forum will wait as long as it takes. I also wanted to say that (as many have already said) there is no other VFR forum that even compairs to VFRD, and beleive me I looked around for a while before I found VFRD (or should I say VFRD found me). While the forum was down I visited(I know blasphemy) those other forums and I felt like an infant needing nourishment but could only find empty wither breasts. HHUUUMMMM I suddenly have the craving for some milk and cookies. Thanks again HS!!!
thom, Aug 7 2006, 11:08 AM HS, just wanted to add my name to the list of members that are truely gratefull of your hard work and dedication, keep up the good work the true fans of this forum will wait as long as it takes. I also wanted to say that (as many have already said) there is no other VFR forum that even compairs to VFRD, and beleive me I looked around for a while before I found VFRD (or should I say VFRD found me). While the forum was down I visited(I know blasphemy) those other forums and I felt like an infant needing nourishment but could only find empty wither breasts. HHUUUMMMM I suddenly have the craving for some milk and cookies. Thanks again HS!!!
THOM
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I figured you would just shut it down for a while until you were sure it was safe again and I was already going through withdrawls on the very first click on VFRD that said "VFRD is shut down indefinatly" sad.gif
Can't say enough about all the hard work and long hours you put in to support our needy fixes! Thanks beer.gif
The database will show photos as being there but if they are not then my backup was incomplete and they are gone, you can upload them again in the same spot, and not have to put in the comments again if you want, just go to photo edit and reupload that pic that is missing. It took almost a full day to backup the website and well it was not complete.
Miguel, I'm having trouble re-uploading my missing pictures. sad.gif This is what I'm doing:
I'm viewing the picture that's missing and I hit the "edit" button at the top of the page (there's three other button there too, a Pin button, a Delete button, and a Report button. Anyway, at the "Edit Image" window I go down to the upload field at the button of the page and put I in the local directory path of the image and then I hit the "edit image" button. An error message pops up that says, "You must enter a message to post!".
Ok, so I type something into the post field and hit "edit image" again. This time I go to a board message page that says, "Sorry, an error occurred. If you are unsure on how to use a feature, or don't know why you got this error message, try looking through the help files for more information."
And below that is says, "The error returned was: The image upload failed, please contact a system administrator."
Also, at the view top of the screen is a new frame that says: IPB WARNING [2] move_uploaded_file(./uploads/1154614012/gallery_4208_389_119856.jpg): failed to open stream: No such file or directory (Line: 1115 of /modules/gallery/lib/gallery_library.php) IPB WARNING [2] move_uploaded_file(): Unable to move '/tmp/phpWRv7Kk' to './uploads/1154614012/gallery_4208_389_119856.jpg' (Line: 1115 of /modules/gallery/lib/gallery_library.php)
Am I doing something wrong? unsure.gif
By the way, thanks for all the work you've been doing to keep this forum alive. You're the best! fing02.gif Tim
End of thread · 30 posts recoveredWayback Machine snapshot 19 Oct 2006