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Post by Jeb on Oct 12, 2020 7:53:09 GMT -5
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
This is a tremendously lamentable error in judgement but you know, we don't usually expect or anticipate such an astonishing display of temper-tantrum table-tossing.
Hopefully Proboards will consider an exception to their TOS. Maybe it'll take a petition, I don't know.
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Post by Oliver Kloesov on Oct 12, 2020 8:07:58 GMT -5
Going forward we need to consider paying for back-ups. I'm in for $XX.xx. Poopface Joopiter |
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Post by [CK]erazor on Oct 12, 2020 8:44:04 GMT -5
What just came to my mind:
If Proboards wasn't such a 「dookie」ty product, we could just hit the restore button. Windows has a "paper bin" since when, Win95 or so, 25 years ago.
Heck, even the 「dookie」ty Microsoft Exchange server doesn't delete a user mailbox directly. If the admin "deletes" the mailbox, it will be moved into a 30 days buffer data zone, before it is actually deleted. Database servers usually make snapshots a lot of times during the day, so you can always move back to an earlier state or you even have a full transaction log running, where every single bit of change in the DB is logged, enabling to roll back in any point in time of a database.
Why does Proboards not have a paper bin like Windows has for 25 years? Why are postings gone once you hit the delete button? That's 「fluffernutter」ing stupid. Apple has their "Time Machine". Linux has "Timeshift". Every product out there is able to REVERT to an earlier state or to restore things/files.
Shame on you, Proboards.
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Post by punishingcossack on Oct 12, 2020 9:20:43 GMT -5
it could very well simply be that pillowofdoom's account was compromised, and somebody decided to have a little fun at our expense
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Post by teraflx on Oct 12, 2020 11:29:45 GMT -5
Wow, I missed a lot over the weekend.   |
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Post by Deadeye on Oct 12, 2020 11:40:10 GMT -5
What I find truly baffling is that the site is still fully functional, and only data has been deleted. That seems like a lot of trouble for somebody to go to instead of just a run-of-the-mill DDOS or other disruption. If it turns out to be some kind of ransomware scam, I hope somebody tells them to go 「fluffernutter」 themselves. When I looked into this and what happened over the weekend, I found the incident in the security logs. We've discovered roughly what happened. During my cursory investigation, I discovered that the "clean-up tool" available to certain admins makes deleting posts and threads insanely easy. Like all of them, Thanos style. As others have said, we are in discussions with Proboards folks about what can be done.  |
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Post by [CK]erazor on Oct 12, 2020 12:08:15 GMT -5
What I find truly baffling is that the site is still fully functional, and only data has been deleted. That seems like a lot of trouble for somebody to go to instead of just a run-of-the-mill DDOS or other disruption. If it turns out to be some kind of ransomware scam, I hope somebody tells them to go 「fluffernutter」 themselves. When I looked into this and what happened over the weekend, I found the incident in the security logs. We've discovered roughly what happened. During my cursory investigation, I discovered that the "clean-up tool" available to certain admins makes deleting posts and threads insanely easy. Like all of them, Thanos style. As others have said, we are in discussions with Proboards folks about what can be done. Let's be honest: It was 10 people that had the big "The Purge" button since mid 2017 as those 10 people were inherited these administrative privileges due to their membership in VSFT group. Only the founder/owner of a forum should have access to wiping the forum. 10 people is way too much. |
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Post by Danny Linguini on Oct 12, 2020 12:32:56 GMT -5
What I find truly baffling is that the site is still fully functional, and only data has been deleted. That seems like a lot of trouble for somebody to go to instead of just a run-of-the-mill DDOS or other disruption. If it turns out to be some kind of ransomware scam, I hope somebody tells them to go 「fluffernutter」 themselves. When I looked into this and what happened over the weekend, I found the incident in the security logs. We've discovered roughly what happened. During my cursory investigation, I discovered that the "clean-up tool" available to certain admins makes deleting posts and threads insanely easy. Like all of them, Thanos style. As others have said, we are in discussions with Proboards folks about what can be done. Well, unfortunately that horse has already left the barn. My two cents, as I’ve relayed to SuperHero, and this is for all the mods as well: the strength of this forum is not all the stuff it’s accumulated over the years, it’s the members. We may have our disagreements from time to time, but the common thread is that they are passionate about this game. While all that history lost is a shame, the way this game changes so frequently, the forum is just a platform; it’s the members that provide the current dialogue and discussion about what’s going on today that make this place what it is. And that will go on unabated, as we’ve already seen in just one day since this incident happened. If that bonehead thinks he took this place down with his little tantrum, gesture of defiance, lame attempt to get some attention on himself, or whatever drives someone to do something so childish, he’s got another thing coming. So here’s my kudos and appreciation for everybody who has kept and will continue to keep this place thriving. |
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Post by Deadeye on Oct 12, 2020 12:59:50 GMT -5
Ideally (IMHO) if we could just have the last...say...2-3 months recovered, that would be plenty. It would cover the most recent guides and advice on all the latest topics. Drones, weapons, pilots and Redfiend's MA guides. Stuff past a certain point is for nastalgia and while valuable, it's not the most useful info. That's my 2 cents. I assume anything they could do at this point would be an all or nothing sort of thing, but I'm not an expert at stuff like this.
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Post by hi5 on Oct 12, 2020 16:22:22 GMT -5
When I looked into this and what happened over the weekend, I found the incident in the security logs. We've discovered roughly what happened. During my cursory investigation, I discovered that the "clean-up tool" available to certain admins makes deleting posts and threads insanely easy. Like all of them, Thanos style. As others have said, we are in discussions with Proboards folks about what can be done. Well, unfortunately that horse has already left the barn. My two cents, as I’ve relayed to SuperHero, and this is for all the mods as well: the strength of this forum is not all the stuff it’s accumulated over the years, it’s the members. We may have our disagreements from time to time, but the common thread is that they are passionate about this game. While all that history lost is a shame, the way this game changes so frequently, the forum is just a platform; it’s the members that provide the current dialogue and discussion about what’s going on today that make this place what it is. And that will go on unabated, as we’ve already seen in just one day since this incident happened. If that bonehead thinks he took this place down with his little tantrum, gesture of defiance, lame attempt to get some attention on himself, or whatever drives someone to do something so childish, he’s got another thing coming. So here’s my kudos and appreciation for everybody who has kept and will continue to keep this place thriving. 100% with you on this. The value is the people not the content, which changes quite often now anyway. My respect to all the mods and no blame for anyone but the person who pressed delete. If we can’t get it back we can just make more threads - doesn’t matter much if we can’t find old posts on how awful Mag Geps were/how awesome Gary was. |
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Post by akulon on Oct 12, 2020 18:32:45 GMT -5
When I looked into this and what happened over the weekend, I found the incident in the security logs. We've discovered roughly what happened. During my cursory investigation, I discovered that the "clean-up tool" available to certain admins makes deleting posts and threads insanely easy. Like all of them, Thanos style. As others have said, we are in discussions with Proboards folks about what can be done. Let's be honest: It was 10 people that had the big "The Purge" button since mid 2017 as those 10 people were inherited these administrative privileges due to their membership in VSFT group. Only the founder/owner of a forum should have access to wiping the forum. 10 people is way too much. Yup, the person who did this will easily wipe this forum for the second time if Admin does not remove the purge privilege or just ban the accounts. |
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Arctire
Destrier
Posts: 10
Karma: 11
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Post by Arctire on Oct 13, 2020 9:27:54 GMT -5
Pillowofdoom here
A few days ago all of my keychain was compromised, leading to several issues I had to sort out (bank account, PayPal, you name it). I just noticed today in my emails that my forum account was deleted, and I would imagine that the hacker decided to delete the entire thing, including all of my discord servers, several community forums and social media accounts. Extremely sorry for the issue, the security flaw was entirely my fault and could’ve been avoided.
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Arctire
Destrier
Posts: 10
Karma: 11
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Post by Arctire on Oct 13, 2020 9:29:19 GMT -5
The security flaws were fixed, and something like this would not happen in the future.
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Post by [CK]erazor on Oct 13, 2020 10:30:20 GMT -5
Pillowofdoom here A few days ago all of my keychain was compromised, leading to several issues I had to sort out (bank account, PayPal, you name it). I just noticed today in my emails that my forum account was deleted, and I would imagine that the hacker decided to delete the entire thing, including all of my discord servers, several community forums and social media accounts. Extremely sorry for the issue, the security flaw was entirely my fault and couldâve been avoided. Just one question: What kind of "keychain" (password safe?) are you using?
If I was a black hat, I'd only be interested in your Amazon, Paypal, banking account and such. I would not be interested at all in deleting some forum you were involved with years ago.
Whatever. 「dookie」 happens. Thanks for the info.
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Arctire
Destrier
Posts: 10
Karma: 11
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Post by Arctire on Oct 13, 2020 10:36:59 GMT -5
Pillowofdoom here A few days ago all of my keychain was compromised, leading to several issues I had to sort out (bank account, PayPal, you name it). I just noticed today in my emails that my forum account was deleted, and I would imagine that the hacker decided to delete the entire thing, including all of my discord servers, several community forums and social media accounts. Extremely sorry for the issue, the security flaw was entirely my fault and couldâve been avoided. Just one question: What kind of "keychain" (password safe?) are you using?
If I was a black hat, I'd only be interested in your Amazon, Paypal, banking account and such. I would not be interested at all in deleting some forum you were involved with years ago.
Whatever. 「dookie」 happens. Thanks for the info.
The hacker seemed primarily interested in doing damage and not the money. The bank, interactive broker and PayPal caught on almost immediately and blocked the access, just seems like someone with a personal grudge on me. |
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Post by [CK]erazor on Oct 13, 2020 10:42:09 GMT -5
Just one question: What kind of "keychain" (password safe?) are you using?
If I was a black hat, I'd only be interested in your Amazon, Paypal, banking account and such. I would not be interested at all in deleting some forum you were involved with years ago.
Whatever. 「dookie」 happens. Thanks for the info.
The hacker seemed primarily interested in doing damage and not the money. The bank, interactive broker and PayPal caught on almost immediately and blocked the access, just seems like someone with a personal grudge on me. I'm putting on my Sherlock hat here: Why would he nuke a forum (secondary or tertiary target) if he had a grudge with you (primary target)? Doesn't make sense at all. Ah well, it's all good bro. The deed is done.
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Arctire
Destrier
Posts: 10
Karma: 11
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Post by Arctire on Oct 13, 2020 10:45:40 GMT -5
The hacker seemed primarily interested in doing damage and not the money. The bank, interactive broker and PayPal caught on almost immediately and blocked the access, just seems like someone with a personal grudge on me. I'm putting on my Sherlock hat here: Why would he nuke a forum (secondary or tertiary target) if he had a grudge with you (primary target)? Doesn't make sense at all. Ah well, it's all good bro. The deed is done.
All my accounts is gone, he went through pretty much every account I had on my keychain. The discord account was gone, my 2 other smaller communities, twitch,, everything. |
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Post by [CK]erazor on Oct 13, 2020 10:49:53 GMT -5
I'm putting on my Sherlock hat here: Why would he nuke a forum (secondary or tertiary target) if he had a grudge with you (primary target)? Doesn't make sense at all. Ah well, it's all good bro. The deed is done.
All my accounts is gone, he went through pretty much every account I had on my keychain. The discord account was gone, my 2 other smaller communities, twitch,, everything. Hope you got your personal accounts/stuff/servers fixed. Well then, have a good one, bro. |
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Post by #1 worst pilot on Oct 13, 2020 19:23:42 GMT -5
And as I posted in another thread.....I walk away for a few days and the whole place burned down. Wth. I apparently missed something big, I shall read more.
Edit. Yeaz wow, 「whiskey tango foxtrot」. Any chance I can blame pix?
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Post by alphaomega001 on Oct 13, 2020 20:07:43 GMT -5
Did someone check the mainframe ?
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Post by integeritis on Oct 14, 2020 3:36:56 GMT -5
Just throwing some past experience out and some ideas.
About 7 years ago I experimented with setting up my own forum. There is a product called IPBoards (probably a bunch of alternatives, but that's the one I tried), a forum software package. Back then it had a PHP backend, it probably changed a lot though. You just basicaly have to get a webserver, upload the software package and then install it from Terminal. You can set up the forum in about half an hour. (I never bought it though, I had access to the cracked versions of the software, though they have a free demo now)
The point is: you own the DB, you have sccess to it, and your forum software automatically manages the backups for you. Admins can even download the backups of the database.
It is a paid software, but it is a lot smarter than proboards and you own the data. You can add AD banners and the revenue received from ADs can be invested in the renewal of the IPBoards license and server hosting costs.
The forum could become self sustaining that way and the backbone of it would be a higher quality paid software. If anyone reading this have experience with AD banners and how much they pay, please share your input for reference.
If there is really no chance of old posts getting restored and proboards does not want to help the situation, then I think they don't deserve the money what they get from the thousands of views their ADs get, and the least we can do as individuals is enable our AD blocker in our browser in order to stick it to them where we can.
Not having backup functionality in admin panels, and having a TOS like that, I don't trust them. Who knows what else they have in their TOS? Or in what shady way they use our data? I would have never imagined not having accessible backup/restore functionality for admins on a forum in this year and age, it seems so trivial and evident.
But I'm probably not the best person to talk about all this. I wasn't active in the past few months here. Still I feel the loss of War Robots history. This game and the forum was part of my life for two years for 2-3 hours a day. It is not only a loss of War Robots history, it is a loss of the documented history of ourselves. We were talking about certain topics but we were the content itself, our personalities and opinions.
I'm glad at least we have our accounts working and we kept all our forum achievements. Moving from one forum product to another would mean we lose all this though and that's a big one from the cons.
I am not saying we should do this or that, and luckily I am not in the position to make decisions about these, because I could not and I'd reather not. Just sharing some ideas and personal experience for discussion.
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Post by SuperHero on Oct 14, 2020 7:35:10 GMT -5
This all happened on the first day of my vacation with my family. I don’t have good internet or Pc access here so this has been a very frustrating sequence of events.
As of now it looks like Proboards will not be inclined to help us with a restoration since in its TOS this is an event caused by a user.
To explain why we needed the VTSF, some of you might recall the insane attack we had where someone malicious flooded the forum with gore (severed heads, dead babies etc)... it came hard and fast to the extent that we needed a team to help find and eliminate all of it. Strayed (the original forum admin) and I didn’t have enough mods or help at that time so we had to set up this team and they needed deletion powers to deal with sheer volume of crap we were getting.
However, the mistake made (and I have to bear responsibility for this) is that I never rescinded the permissions for that team. They continued to operate and help with certain forum functions, but the deletion authority was never rescinded.
As some of you guys have mentioned, maybe this is a good time to review whether this is the best platform or whether we should migrate.
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◢î╧î◣
Destrier
Posts: 42
Karma: 43
Pilot name: ƬIDDY
Platform: iOS
MA Division: 1
MA Pilot ID: 4983781
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Post by ◢î╧î◣ on Oct 14, 2020 10:31:17 GMT -5
This would give them the ability to ignore damages if any admin account is hacked. It may be in their TOS, but I'd expect Proboards to act here and restore a backup, if they have any.
There must have been thousands of threads. Smells more like a "delete from [content-table]" statement to me. Would the VSTF group have access to a database frontent?
Also, you always have to question motive. Who would go to such lengths to delete all forum content, if there is no financial gain in for them? I don't want to speculate, but this sounds either like a very disgruntled user that is a hacker on the side, or somebody else who doesn't like the forum content and wants to kill it off.
This is a quote from a Proboards Admin:"joopiter, according to the security log, that member was added to the member group VSTF. That group does have the power Forum Cleanup, which allows the member to delete all threads and posts." From what I understand, you have only access to some web interface, no access to any background DBs and such stuff. If there's a big "Forum Cleanup" button that a member of VSTF has access too, herein lies the root of our problem.
"Who would go to such lengths to delete all forum content"
Honestly, I have no idea. Frustration maybe? Heck, could even be a pissed-off ex Pixonic employee, pissing over the community around the game and pissing on his former company. Ur right, the primary motivation to do things is money or fame. I personally can't understand why a person would kill thousands or tens of thousands of threads/comments on a forum about a game.
Childish and wrong what ever the reason. |
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Post by RightOn on Oct 14, 2020 19:00:33 GMT -5
Well, I think we can all agree the game changed so much, while cool to read old posts, it won't change anything anymore... damnit. In particular the mega threads and such... 「fluffernutter」
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![[CK]erazor Avatar](http://storage.proboards.com/6607038/avatar/ELHKjZdxORLnQBpejRhX.jpg)
