User space at petflytrap.com

[LauraZ5]

I use the Humbodlt site religiously and am saddened to read this thread.

 

[RL7836]

Quote[/b] (chloroplast @ July 26 2005,10:12)]

Quote[/b] ]how about publicly identifying the guilty party(s). i'd like to know if it was an active member, or someone who just joined to use the free space. i think we deserve the right to know who did this to us.

Agreed, especially if it was an active member. Two-faced people are especially malicious and should be identified.

This has the sound of an "old fashioned lynching". Obviously, whoever did this is not on anybody's 'favorites' list right now.

Phil is being quiet on this topic and I can't pretend to know how/what he's thinking.... but what good could ever come to Phil & his business from posting names? On the other side, if he did go public - maybe some nasty litigation...

And what if Phil 'outed' the 'wrong' person? There are many more technically-literate people on this forum than I could ever hope to be .. but from what I've seen - any decent hacker would cover his/her tracks quite well. They're probably using someone else's space which they hacked into. If Phil identified you as the creator of malicious code and you had nothing to do with it - how would you feel?

I understand that the frustration level is running pretty high - for good reason. However, times like this are usually the absolute worst times to be making rash decisions and those decisions are frequently regretted...

Let's put away the noose for a bit and spend the time recovering what was lost...

Just some thoughts from the 'other side'....

 

[PlantAKiss]

What does Bob's site have to do with this issue? I'm sure Bob lost a few links that were connected to photos hosted on the PFT space but Bob's site is fine. Bob is always losing links as people update/delete various photos from their servers. That's just the nature of the beast. Links come and go. But Bob reigns supreme when it comes to photos!

Only the folks who stored photos on PFT's space were affected. It does suck that one or two people caused the loss of this for all. But revealing names probably wouldn't be a good idea...

 

[jimscott]

While I support Phil's decision to do what he wills, I do not have an understanding as to why the two offenders weren't just banished and their hosting accounts removed, without doing away with the site itself.

Furthermore, what about cpforums.org? Is that site safe?  

 

[Est]

Quote[/b] ]While I support Phil's decision to do what he wills, I do not have an understanding as to why the two offenders weren't just banished and their hosting acounts removed, without doing away with the site itself.

Well, I don't know the whole situation, but from what I understand, it could be a security liability. I don't know if the resposible party is even a member here at TF at all, and not the slightest clue as to whether there was an actual breakin in to the server or just abuse of the party's webspace. In the event that a breakin did occur, I agree that the server would have to be taken down for at least a while to check damage/how it happened/what the party accomplished. If there was a breakin then the server is a security liability because there's the possability of subsequent access to the servers holding sensative data (PFT and Jungle Supply user information, whether it be identity, addresses, etc.) No matter what the case, the server which was used not for hosting business related information (and thus not neccessary in terms of the business) and had become a security liability. I'm not saying they only considered the business aspects, but in the end, that's what matters most. Well, thanks in any case for the good run, Phil; it's a shame that it had to come to this though.

I hope/trust that the IP of the party that created the liability (referring to the party with malicious code, not the MP3 people in this instance) has been blocked from all subsequent servers and their ISP notified. If they are a user here on TF as well, then there is no need to make a public statement or anything, just kill their account after blocking their IP (and all that good stuff.) It's a dangerous game they were playing, and when you play it there are no second chances.

 

[BobZ]

Thanks, PAK. You are absolutely correct. The loss of a few hundred PFT links is no big deal for me. Links in my Photo Finder disappear every day for a variety of reasons. Finding and deleting broken links is a constant and daily chore. My sympathy is with the users who lost their files that they had not backed-up.

 

[chloroplast]

RL7836,

Point well taken, though the irrational part of me admittedly continues to wish for a public lynching!