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EY.o Site Crash Sept 10th, - Wha' Happened??

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Sean Engle

Your Friendly Administrator
Administrator
Founder
Greetings.

When I was young, my mother told me that I should be happy for small things - that "daily life" alone is a wonderful thing. So - the mere fact that you are reading this message is good - be happy.

Last week, on September 10th, 2013, the EY.o site was hacked into by individuals from Russia - and then subjected to a DoS attack for hours afterward. The hacking went sequentially through the website, and defaced ALL posts, blogs, settings, source files, etc - and filled them with random obscenities, etc. This is not my first hacking (remember the jihadists in 2003 or 2004?) - but when it happens it's a bit like having your house broken into - and you go crazy locking things down and trying to prevent additional loss, etc. I was up until nearly 2 am shutting things down - it was not pleasant.

But - over the course of this weekend, the only real damage to the database that I found - that which basically kills it for us - is the degree of completeness in the changes to the database. Not only the content of the threads - but also to the settings, the forum settings, etc. Basically the entire db was trashed - but not the site itself. At the beginning, I was also concerned that perhaps the email addresses had been compromised - but to date it seems that no one has been spammed or has there been other evidence that they were indeed pulled from the database. If you have reason to believe differently, please let me know.

But as you know - there are costs for everything in life. The cost here is obvious (I'm guessing you've noticed already): We've lost all the data between Jan 28th and Sept 10th. Why? Because I finished my grad program just over a year ago, and in January I was in the process of multiple job interviews and then getting hired by my present employer. So, when I re-entered the workforce, I pretty much lost sight of everything else (we men only have single processors mind you... :nerd: ) - and since things were running smoothly and we had not had any problems, I failed to keep up with the backups, etc.

For this oversight - I apologize - to all of you. It won't happen again - ever - for any reason; I have instituted a series of regular backups (which I won't describe here - but they will be regular and complete).

What can you do to help? One word: POST.

I am asking everyone to please post a thread that you may have posted this year about whatever particular topics - for the bloggers to post their blogs again and for everyone to generally fill in this huge hole left by the hackers maliciousness and my inattention.

If you registered and created an account after Jan 28th, you'll need to go back and re-register. I've switched the registration over again for security - but I'll be watching my phone and will approve requests as soon as I see them. I have a copy of the trashed db - so I can look things up - but basically it's unfit for human consumption.

Again - I'm sorry for the hassle -- but basically the world has returned to Jan 28th on EY.o -- eventually things will calm down and return to normal. Really.

I'll post more later on in another thread. Please feel free to rant any anger about the loss of data directly to me - either here, or via email.

Thanks,
//sse
 
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exoduse35

Sustaining Member
I guess I get the pleasure of being first to Thank You for bringing us back to life! I am sure it was a bunch of work. I also find it ironic that the last postings I made were to release my E-mail, real name, and place of residence and boat location onto a thread in the raft up. Go figure. Sorry the 8 months of posts are lost but we will soon restart any important ones and there are probably a few best left lost. Thanks again for relieving my withdrawals. Edd:egrin:
 

Sean Engle

Your Friendly Administrator
Administrator
Founder
Hi -

Yeah, I saw you were the first in - Loren must be on a short leash tonight! So - you win the prize! :egrin:

Well, hopefully the drama is over. I've been watching who's here - and have already banned a bunch of IPs from China and Russia....

//sse
 

Lucky Dog

Member III
Short leash! Never, we wouldn't have sailboats if that was true. No forum made wonder else do people use the Internet for. Thanks Sean, seriously you have reason to apologize for anything. When my job was cut, I seriously looked at putting my have resorted boat back together and selling her. Besides this is the best forum on the web.
 
Thank you for your efforts on our behalf

This site is one of the things I enjoy about owning an Ericson. No matter how many times you might have heard "Thank you", it can't be enough for the effort an endeavor like this takes. I appreciate your sticking with us and doing so much for us.
 

Mort Fligelman

Member III
Many Thanks

Sean:

It seems to me that most who post on this site have their boats as their first love....at least that's what my wife says........

I look forward to the morning and nightly reads as if I were going to my boat.........

Thanks for keeping my destination alive and well.......

A Grateful Member
 

Rick R.

Contributing Partner
Thanks Sean

I know it's terrible to deal with this! Now some of my misspelled words gone so allows not lost...lol!Rick
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Thanks!

And a hearty Thank You from me, as well.

It occurs to me that if I cannot easily recall what I wrote in the last few months, it must not have been very important...
:rolleyes:

Loren
 

Mindscape

Member III
Thanks Sean!

Sean - as always thanks for all your efforts. If there is any ranting to do it will be directed at the individuals that found some need to hack this site. The wealth of information on this site is not measured in posts but in the people that contribute their time here to help those of us that are sometimes a little short on knowledge or feel like there must be a better way. So the lost posts are no big deal. Thanks for bringing the community back together and giving us a place to meet again.
 

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
God bless you and EricsonYachts.org!!!!!

Thank you so much Sean for your efforts. God bless you and EricsonYachts.org. Thank you for holding back the "Cyber combat toe to toe with the The Ruskies". I was at a loss all week and was really worried that this might have put an end to not only the best resource for us Good Old Ericson Owners, but one of the best sailing sites on the web! This site has been as important to me just as the wind and waters I sail in.

Thank you again Sean! :clap::clap::clap: Here come the Posts!

http://youtu.be/9ynY5NvYsZY

-Jefferson Asbury
 

Guy Stevens

Moderator
Moderator
Yeah!!!! Thanks for the work Sean!

Thanks for the work Sean!!!~!~

I just had on one of my sites hacked, and it is a ton of work to get everything up again, this sounds like it was even worse.

THANK you!

Guy
:)
 

D & DM Cahill

Member II
Thanks!!

Hi Sean. Thanks for hanging in there through all the headaches the hacking must have caused you. Most of us place a high value on this website and a high value on the service you provide for us. Let us know if you need additional funds in solving the problems caused by the hacking. Thanks again for all the work you do so the rest of us can enjoy our association with other Ericson owners.
 

e38sailorman

Member II
Sean,

Thought you were mad at me, service denied for several days! Thanks for getting it fixed and back up and running.

Marc
E38 WaveWalker
Gig Harbor WA
 

Fparry

Member II
As I sat on my boat watching the rain fall this past weekend I wondered about this and everything else. No users group to diddle with so it's either scotch or porn.

The hang over was so bad I nearly missed the Sunday morning sailing window.

Thanks for your hard work.

It is appreciated by people you will never meet.
 

kari

Member III
Oh Yeah! Thanks much from the east coast ....I love this site , my first and first sail boat (Ericson) . . . it all started here for me . . . my 73 Ericson 27 and this site changed my life..seriously . . . for me this is where it all began, love it...this site is the best, hang in there . . . we're all familly . . . got my hat from Morgan . . . feels good . . Thank You SEAN!:)
 

msFootrope

Moderator
Moderator
More Thanks Yet

I can probably say that non of my posts were lost as I doubt I've posted anything in the past year - I mostly leave that to Craig. But I'm glad to have it back again without a doubt. Thanks for making it so, and congratulations on graduating and obtaining employment. Looking forward to hearing more about that.
 
Good work

Nice going and thanks for the explanation, Sean. It would not have happen originally without you and the making the fix is another example of your dedication to the site.
 
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