Texasguntalk

[OldCannon]

They had it shut down for a while. I don't know if the hacker somehow got it back up or what.

If it's really Anonymous, every single bit is likely tainted. They've most likely even changed database modules and covered it to look like nothing's changed. If it was me, I'd have already deployed tactical nukes on the existing forum, rolled back about a week on (or the closest full backup) and redeploy WITH security patches updates.

But that do I know?

[GTRich94]

It is still horribly broken. What bothers me so much is how asleep-at-the-wheel the admins are. The forums should be pulled down with a static page saying they are restoring the forum databases. Leaving the site up is just making things worse.

I agree. Isn't this the 3rd time or so in the past couple of months the site has been hacked? I'll probably wait a day of so for them to fix it and then I think I'm going to cancel my account.

[Syntyr]

If it's really Anonymous, every single bit is likely tainted. They've most likely even changed database modules and covered it to look like nothing's changed. If it was me, I'd have already deployed tactical nukes on the existing forum, rolled back about a week on (or the closest full backup) and redeploy WITH security patches updates.

But that do I know?

You sound like a sys admin from somewhere...

Wouldn't be the first time some admin was muttering one of the following:

1. Darn it I really didn't think I needed to back up the forums...
2. Now where did I put that backup tape last week...
3. Ohhh This back is 3 years old...

Or the message on the system is "Restore failed. Media corrupt"

Back it up, back it up again and move it off site, back it up again and test a restore!!!

[benenglishtx]

I realize I'm resurrecting an old thread but it's germane.

I don't remember when I became a member at TGT but I certainly wasn't particularly aware of the problems discussed up-thread. Sometime after that, I became active and really enjoyed the in-person meetups, even sponsoring one.

However, there was another incident a few weeks ago, the board went down, then came back up for a while in a vBulletin5 incarnation with defaults set to make it basically impossible to navigate. Then it went down again, completely, at about the first of this month. After a day or two of not connecting to anything, the admin put up a static page that says "TGT Site Update 12/3/2012 We're still working to restore the site ".

As an aside, the static page, viewed as source, isn't even valid html. It's plaintext with no header, no tags, no nuthin'. Perhaps I'm being oversensitive but if a sysadmin can't spare 5 minutes to handcode a properly-formatted html page then I believe that says something not particularly good about their skill set. Either that, or they were just so frantic at the time that they didn't bother to observe the niceties.

In either event, TGT visitor stats fell through the floor immediately after their last upgrade (check your favorite public site with web metrics for confirmation) and now their usage is at zero and has been there for over a week. I'm about ready to pronounce the patient dead. Most web forums simply cannot rise from the grave after being dead this long.

Two questions -

I never saw an announcement thread (and there was no forced thread re-direct, something the sysadmin used to do frequently) that explained what happened. Is anybody close enough to the situation to explain, authoritatively, what happened and if Mike1911 et.al. are actually going to bring the thing back online again?

Assuming it's gone forever, where are all the meet-up groups migrating to? I'd love to get back together with Sugarland, Glockster69, TejanoScott, and the rest of the Houston crew.

TIA for any insight,

Ben

[equin]

Yeah, shame what happened to that site. I used to visit often and learned quite a bit from some of the posts.

[OldCannon]

Wow. Didn't realize it went down yet again. Forums aren't really rocket science either. Not saying they're a piece of cake - takes a fair bit of fiddling to get them tuned, but there's no reason to have these kind of breakdowns.

[Dreamliner]

I actualy like TGT and wish it was back up...in the original format. So is it dead for good or just temp?

[equin]

Yeah, I liked it too. The statements make it sound like it's only temporary, but for as long as it's been down I think Benenglishtx may be right. It may be permanently dead, as much as I hope that's not the case.

[OldCannon]

Pretty sure TGT is permanently dead now. Just got this in my email. I was a sponsor on TGT, paying $20/mo. Looks like I'm not now:

Alan LaFrance canceled your automatic payments. This means we'll no longer automatically draw money from your account to pay the merchant. If you have any questions, you may ask Alan LaFrance about this cancellation.

[benenglishtx]

The last update...

Thanks for the links. I didn't realize that TGT maintained Facebook and Twitter accounts, too. I trawled back through the tweets and found this dated November 1:

Site is down again ... thanks to a DOS (Denial of Service) attack from a French IP (most likely a proxy).

OK, I get that. But a (non-distributed) DOS attack from an identified IP or range can generally be waited out, some blocking can be done, some talking to your hosting provider will be needed, and the problem will fade away. It's not fun but it's no reason for a forum to die, just for it to slow down for a while.

Then, on Nov 2:

We are upgrading our forum software to patch the exploit and adding a bunch of features. So far so good.

followed on Nov 4 with:

Latest Update: vBulletin 5 wasn't stable enough for my liking and has too many usability issues. I'm reverting the forum to a past back-up and going to update the vB 4.x to the current patched version. This should solve "everything" but for whatever reason the last back-up I uploaded had a corrupt PHP file. Bear with me ... we'll be back soon.

While the DOS is not the fault of the admin, these tweets make it look like the DOS wasn't, ultimately, the problem. A corrupted backup has prevented reverting to a prior state for 10 days already? If so, then use the backup before that or the one before that. These tweets sound really, really bad, as if they didn't have redundant backups.

I don't wanna kick the guy while he's down so I won't say any more on that subject. If I keep going, I may say something needlessly insulting and he doesn't need that. I feel for him; I really do. And I hope he gets all this fixed.

<begin off-topic rant>As for us regular people, backups are imporant. Does everybody understand that by now? I recently retired and decided to get a good computer that would last me for as long as possible. Since working with computers is no longer my livelihood, I just wanted to get some good stuff that I could rely on long-term without hassles. I want to spend my retirement shooting, not fussing with computer gear. So when I bought my fully-loaded Wild Dog ( https://www.system76.com/desktops/model/wilp9" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) it was only natural to make sure I also bought decent backup gear. I added a multi-drive bay (the RTX400H-SV shown here: http://www.wiebetech.com/products/RTX400.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) to keep connected for online backups and a couple of single-drive external enclosures (the previous generation of: http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=146" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ). The single-drive enclosures are used to make a weekly backup then stored in my detached garage. It's not a terribly sophisticated approach but I sure sleep better at night.<end rant>

So the first of my two questions is basically answered. How about the second?

...where are all the meet-up groups migrating to? I'd love to get back together with Sugarland, Glockster69, TejanoScott, and the rest of the Houston crew.

[orbitup]

Some of us are at TX1911's dad's site.

http://www.truckmodcentral.com/forums/f ... y.php?f=49" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He set up a TGT section.

[benenglishtx]

Some of us...

I signed up and made a couple of posts. It was good to see some familiar names from TGT. Thank you very, very much.