Torsten Posted June 19, 2008 Hi Folks, did you miss us? On saturday my server which hosts various ethnobotany sites was hacked and destroyed. Nothing could be recovered from the mess that remained. I was on holidays at the time and could not get hold of tech support until my return on monday, plus it has taken a few days to rebuild everything and get it running again. There may be little hitches here and there, but we should be running fairly smoothly. What was lost? - any data entered into the server between the 10th of June and when it crashed on about the 14th is lost. We had to rebuild and recover from a back up made on the 10th of june. This includes: * all orders made from the 10th of june to the 15th of june with order number 6155 and above. Please email me tomorrow about this as I have no way to know who placed an order. My email is still down, but should be up by tomorrow. Do not PM me about orders please. Things are going to be a little messy for a week or two, so I need to keep it all streamlined. Please note that new orders placed in the next few days will also carry these same order numbers - only those dated between the 10th and 15th are affected. * all forum posts & PMs from the 10th of june are lost. Please feel free to repost anything important and resend PMs. There will be no further additions to the recovery. What you see is what you get. * all gallery entries for that same period are lost * all posts/PMs on AustralianEthnobotany forums for the same period are lost * all activity on swapnsell for that period is lost Given the severity of the attack we got off pretty well. Plese do not bother with conspiracy theories. This was not an attack on ethnobotany, free thought, etc. It was simply an attack aimed at the server system. welcome back! EDIT: to access http://www.australianethnobotany.com please use http://www.gomaos-garden.com/australianethnobotany until further notice. There is a redirection that failed from the back up and I don't want to mess with obtuse's settings so will have to wait till he fixes it. EDIT 2: any hosted email account holders please check them NOW. I need to know two things. Firstly if you can log in, and secondly if so, then whether you have emails from before the 10th of June in there and whether you need them. There was a problem in the recovery process of the email back up, so this needs to be done manually wherever it failed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yeti101 Posted June 19, 2008 Nice work T, Now we get to see how good everyones memory really is: Everyone remembers promising to send me loads of cool free stuff right? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ballzac Posted June 19, 2008 Really started to panic when I noticed AE was down as well, and at least one other. I didn't realise they were all on the same server. Good to see all's largely back to normal. The withdrawel symptoms were getting unbearable. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yawning Man Posted June 19, 2008 The withdrawel symptoms were getting unbearable. haha yeah i was same, since the internet is kinda boring these days. I managed the withdrawels with a couple of visits to erowid. Good to see the forums up and running again, i can't imagine whoever did it getting anything out of it. wait and see maybe? keep up the good work!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Torsten Posted June 19, 2008 there are some directory permission problems due to tighter server security, so the forum's file upload function may be out of action for a day or two until i work it all out Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
baphomet Posted June 19, 2008 Really started to panic when I noticed AE was down as well Same here, I almost did become a conspiracy theorist and was kind of worried about certain privacy issues to be honest. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ballzac Posted June 19, 2008 there are some directory permission problems due to tighter server security, so the forum's file upload function may be out of action for a day or two until i work it all out Yeah, just had trouble uploading some photos, wasn't sure if it was me or the site having the problems. Same here, I almost did become a conspiracy theorist and was kind of worried about certain privacy issues to be honest. I was trying to figure out what justification the feds could have used to shut the forums down. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
watertrade Posted June 19, 2008 Welcome back SAB.. thanks for all the good work T Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DreamingNagual Posted June 19, 2008 Yes it certainly was a bit frustrating, I also noticed some of the other sites mentioned above were down at the same time, So I was worried something drastic may of happened. Was there any Damage apart from the downtime and lost information caused from this? Have any users Passwords, Accounts, Pms ect been comprimised in anyway? Congratulations and Thankyou to the team for getting the site back online. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ballzac Posted June 19, 2008 testing uploads It was actually when I was trying to upload to the gallery, as I have had trouble using the attachment thing in the past, but it worked for me this time. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Torsten Posted June 19, 2008 Was there any Damage apart from the downtime and lost information caused from this?Have any users Passwords, Accounts, Pms ect been comprimised in anyway? It wasn't that type of hack. This was not about harvesting data from a server, but rather it was about denial of service. ie teaching us IT illiterates a lesson about security. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MindExpansion Posted June 19, 2008 You have to hate the jerks that pull this sort of stunt for their jollies. Thanks for the hard work Torsten, I was panicking like a dog, not so much worried about privacy but as has been said, withrawing lol. Peace, thanks and hope all works well, Mind Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fenris Posted June 19, 2008 Phew, breathes sigh of relief. Good to see everything is shipshape again Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
random fly Posted June 19, 2008 How about Australian Ethnobotany? Why is the address redircting to Gomaos' Garden? And yes, it's good to be back, thanks Torsten Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chilli Posted June 19, 2008 You have to hate the jerks that pull this sort of stunt for their jollies. No I think hackers are neat, haven't you seen the film about these hackers that go around hacking stuff... what's it called... oh yeah, Hackers? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nabraxas Posted June 19, 2008 the film about these hackers that go around hacking stuff... also Die Hard 4 good to have you back Torsten, but gee, i got so much done these last few days that i've been putting off for ages... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jesus On Peyote Posted June 19, 2008 Nice to be in the company of friends again. stared getting worried after the second day. sweet home sab-abama Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ballzac Posted June 19, 2008 but gee, i got so much done these last few days that i've been putting off for ages... I didn't. I just took up another, more expensive and time consuming hobby. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ace Posted June 19, 2008 Its good to be home Thanks for all the effort involved in getting the place back online Torten, much appreciated. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Torsten Posted June 20, 2008 How about Australian Ethnobotany? Why is the address redircting to Gomaos' Garden? And yes, it's good to be back, thanks Torsten The way they have it set up is that they have the AE domain hosted as a subdomain of gom's garden. The backups did not save system data, so things like redirections were not recovered. So, even though all the stuff is back, it is not pointing at the right things. I don't like messing in other people's control panels, so you have to wait till their admin sorts it out. I've let obtuse know about it, so it should be fixed soon. btw, I posted a direct link to AE above. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WoodDragon Posted June 20, 2008 Hey Torsten, and everyone else. I too was refreshing my tabs for the last week like a trained rat pressing a lever in a cage - yes, my name is Woody and I'm a SABaholic... Like everyone else I'm glad that we're back reasonably intact. I had an order in on 9 June, so hopefully I won't need to bother you further Torsten. Speaking of things in the mail: Bob-bob, if you're reading, I got my seeds in the mail and the first gordonii is poking its head from the sand. I posted a great long thankyou about half an hour before the server went down, so I won't attempt to repeat my profuse thanks, but if thos cutting I mentioned recover I'll keep you in mind. Thanks again. Ahhh, we're baaack! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
obtuse Posted June 20, 2008 Hi everyone, just a quick post to let everyone know that AE is up and runnign properly now. sorry for the delay, i took this opportunity to do some housekeeping, which delayed things a little bit. But all ok now. Thanks Torsten for getting the server up and running again. cheers, Obtuse. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Moses Posted June 20, 2008 my hdd crashed irreversabley back on the 3rd of june so ive been offline since then, my parents(love ya mum & dad) bought me a new pc but its got vista so i get up and runnin and s.a.b. is gone a.e. is gone, i cant contact anyone,dont know how long u been down,then all my email is gone -fck i was stressed but now all is good with the world again(well bits of my world atleast) so i would like this opportunity to apologise for all the bad things ive said/ thought in the last few days about who could have done this welcome back all & thanks Torsten for your efforts(shame about ur holiday) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
apothecary Posted June 22, 2008 Had some weirdness last night about 230-3am. Could access the main forum page but clicking any of the links resulted in an IPS error. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
