Nowadays, most ISPs have a contract clause that allows them to boot users off at once for hacking, particularly if you have details and a list of damages (and perhaps your solicitor's name ). If they DON'T take action, they are tacitly aiding the hacker and since they have money while the kiddies don't, they get sued.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

good to see things back together.

PHP BB regularly have updates and I assume there is email list you can join to find out straight away. From what I've seen about XX.8 vulnarabilties it looks like a SQL will let you extract the password hash for any user from the DB. if that the case he would have most likely taken control of spockie's account (I trust you've changed your password now)

you need to always keep up-to-date with BB and CMS systems to prevent this sort of thing happening.

[edit] bulk email sent out also has his IP if that helps (also says which account he used...you changed that password right?)

only possible hitch
but unlikley is that he was using a proxy
given the language he sounds too dumb to be doing that
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

quote:

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Originally posted by Spockie-Tech:
Maybe he wont be force-fed his testicles by them, but he might get his modem taken away for a week by mummy with some luck..

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We are lucky to have Brett. Live long and prosper.
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So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

Ididnt event know the site had been corupted and i check the forums every day good work Brett for geting it fixed so quick ...i think the thing probaly wasnt the problem of the BB and Cms(what ever they are ) not being up dated but was more likely that Brett hasnt had the time to do the updateing until it was too late and then probaly had even more work to remove and repair what ever damage this hacker did to the site ..once again Good workBrett for spoting the problem and geting it fixed so quickly i hope every one else apreciates all your efforts to keep this site up and running amoungst al the other work that you do for the sport ...

Well, actually I hadnt subscribed to the phpBB mailing list, so I wasnt aware there was a critical vulnerability that had been fixed.. so I have subscribed now. [sigh] another thing to keep on top of..

I did look at updating the version a while back, but didnt go ahead at the time, because there are a few customisations that took a fair bit of work to setup initially, and I wasnt sure on how to proceed with the update without wiping out my customisations..

Thanks to the actions of our friend, I had to figure all that out this morning. The patching proceedure (to preserve those customisations) and correction of the .php files that didnt match the expected code for the patch, then resync'ing and updating the structure of the database all took up about 4 hours of time

Mel's probably growled at you because she thought you were having a dig at me for not keeping the forum up-to-date, and she is one of the people who gets to see how much work does regualrly go into keeping it running normally.

Who remembers how unstable the ABBL forum was ? how many database crashes, hacks and downtime did it suffer ? By comparison, how often has this forum been offline for more than an hour ? and have we ever lost data ?

That kind of reliability takes a good host ($$), regular backups, and constant monitoring.

Thanks to all those who SMS'd me early this morning letting me know it was down.. I was straight out of bed and onto it for 4hrs, even pushing back the work I had scheduled for that day which caused me to be out working until 11pm tonight catching up..

So if you sparked Mel's ire, just remember, she's a firey red-head and often springs to my defense more "enthusastically" than I myself would..
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

As one IT pro to another, you did stellar work today I havn't had a site I managed hacked yet, but I doubt I would have responded as cool and calmly as you did and getting the site back up in 4 hours with patches is FAR better than the industry average. Hats off to Brett!

BTW: did you have to recover from a backup tape, or just reconfigure and patch?
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Spockie- Tech - I've asked you 3 times before and I'll ask again. Besides your time and expertise you put in to maintain and develop this magnificent info/communication place, you also pay ($$$) for the 'pleasure' of doing so.
Can I help with the $$'s side?
If me (and all other active participants in Australia) was to send you $5 or $10, we should at least pay for the site.....

It's sort of weird but it feels like I'm getting something for nothing...
...and it doesn't feel right.
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There is no such thing as excessive carnage.

The offer to help out with the hosting costs is appreciated, but its not really something I feel comfortable accepting.. honestly.

I wasnt complaining about the cost of hosting it at colin, just pointing out that he complains a lot about people not appreciating his offers of help when what the sport really needs is more builders, event organisers and people who make things happen rather than those who just tell others what they should be doing better.

As someone who has actually gone and built their own arena, you definitaly dont fall into that category, so your offer of financial assistance, while appreciated, isnt necessary.. I would prefer that you put your time/energy/$ into your events and help the sport along in Queensland as you do..

RoboWars is a hobby for me, I expect that my hobbies will cost money, and its not as expensive as some hobbies I've had in the past (Gyrocopters were expensive Cars even more so).

I'm happy seeing the sport move along and people have fun, the cost of operating the website is a drop in the ocean compared to putting on a big event.

If I have to push the hosting up another plan or so because of increased traffic charges, then I might start accepting donations, but thanks to one of my clients having major unused hosting capacity they generously allowed me to use to host the video-clips, I managed to reduce the megabyte-load on the Forum server by moving the video's over there and keep it in the current 6-gigabyte/month plan.

As I've often said before, the best thing you can do to make me feel "appreicated" is build some cool robots, have fun and enjoy the sport.

Knowing that this forum helps facilitate that is reward enough for now..
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

That script kiddy needs "pwn3d'd"

We lost our Freesco router and PHPBB Forums at TAFE around a month ago from similar crap. They trashed our little router, fecked up my forums(I'm administrator) and damaged the SQL management system in one go. According to my fellow security officer Andrew, he was logging around 100-120 IP address bouncing in from korea, russia and china every day. He managed to keep our network safe for around 3 weeks before someone got in and trashed the place.

Once again, Brett goes above and beyond duty
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

three cheers for brett
hip hip hurray

i reacon with out this site up and running wa wouldn't have found it way in to this great sport we still would have been 6 years behind when it caught up with us.
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For West ausies interested in robotics email me at: theoneshrug@hotmail.com
OR
dragoonarie@gmail.com
best quote ever:: "Those Gas-Turbine style warehouse heaters arent illegal, and neither is remote controlling one as far as I know."

Enough with the plaudits already.. . Thanks guys, but no need to go over the top..

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick:
did you have to recover from a backup tape, or just reconfigure and patch?

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Is this just a glitch in the forum software or are we really pulling 160+ people at once? If so, We're More Popular Then Chocolate Muffins!
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

Nope its not a glitch we are just really populer.
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Tim Team Reaper.