Intel Forum Get's "Hijacked!"

Overclocked Doc · #1 11-30-2004, 10:51 PM

talk about a strange deal! Over the weekend another forum I belonged to (Intel Forums) was hijacked big time! It started with the front page being altered, then systematically (if you can call it that) all the members were deleted and then all the threads and so on! When they were done the Forum literally "ceased" to exist.
The owners of the forum were caught off guard and apparantly have little or no backup from which to get the forum up and running again. All apears to be lost.

From what one of the mods told me, someone from Italy hacked into the server and was able to decript the password to the "root" files of the forum and from there 'went nuts!"

Nothing like having a few years hard work go down the drain!

Play_The_0dds · #2 11-30-2004, 11:23 PM

i mention off and on about using a free email with a fake name and using a fake name to sign up for sites even like this....i made it clear even to the tool (which is the only mod) that i mean no harm, and am not going to do anything bad(atleast not on purpose) but your post is exactly why i do this because think about this, do you think they just deleted everything before they crashed it...no they downloaded all the user info so they can look through it. if they take my account, they got nothing the most they can take is this forum and break up this little group i like to hang around with. being most of you have simular interest i think we might run across each other again if this site closed for good with no warning.i am used to it rewally, if i start to like something and look foward to it something usually finds a way to kill it. i have had to move on so many times now i lost track of forums and chat programs i have been to. i used to think i was doing good sending files to friends over a old baud cradle modem with a TI99-4A or a commadore 64 back in the early to mid 80's. when the actual internet came about it was alot of black screens with yellow text, so what ever forum i have to move to will be like this one, a Powered by vBulletin that is easy on the eyes, other reason is the layout, dont have to click a thousand links to read replys. basically it would look just like this one.....now that people are actually talking here i dont see the point in going anywhere unless disaster strikes.

Overclocked Doc · #3 12-01-2004, 12:35 AM

I had joined Intel and "Host club" before joining here. I had backed away from Intel for a while because the mods wouldn't deal with a certain individual and just let him run rampent. I then found Host club, a forum very close in size and stature as this one. The people there were very friendly, and I was just starting to feel "at home" when it went down permanently. It seemed the owner just up and walked away and didn't leave the keys for anyone. I even enquired about buying the rights to it at one point, but that was a lost cause. shortly afterwards I ended up here. It really does make a big difference when the "regs" converse with each other.

scouse · #4 12-01-2004, 01:15 AM

That is real bad, i am surprised that the owners did not have full backups stored on their personal computers, i lost all my websites data not long ago and now i save it all on my home PC..It is always a worry that someone will hack websites, it is sadly common..

vidster · #5 12-01-2004, 11:22 AM

I never even realised that a forum could be dismantled like that

.
I hope the Tool has some sort of backup!. It would be a crime to loose a forum that is rapidly becoming my favourite

.

blizey · #6 12-01-2004, 12:56 PM

Scouse,

I was visiting your forum every day, then suddenly could not access it anymore. I was afraid that someone had done that to you intentionally. Also, the other day...I was doing a search on your site. It was taking forever for the page to come up. So, I'm watching the little bar at the bottom of the page ( that tells you what site or info you are linking to) and twice it popped up that data was being transferrred from the whitehouse. Is that strange or not?

PTO said: do you think they just deleted everything before they crashed it...no they downloaded all the user info so they can look through it.

What value would that info have to anyone?

Play_The_0dds · #7 12-01-2004, 03:37 PM

you used a email addy to sign up, spammers pay for those...if you used your name and address those too can be sold to mailing list marketers, messenger names are handy if you just like to be mean to people, you dont want to know what all script programs can cause on a instant messenger. alot of people dont put it in, but a few newbs still do and they get burned.

scouse · #8 12-01-2004, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by blizey
Scouse,

I was visiting your forum every day, then suddenly could not access it anymore. I was afraid that someone had done that to you intentionally. Also, the other day...I was doing a search on your site. It was taking forever for the page to come up. So, I'm watching the little bar at the bottom of the page ( that tells you what site or info you are linking to) and twice it popped up that data was being transferrred from the whitehouse. Is that strange or not?

PTO said: do you think they just deleted everything before they crashed it...no they downloaded all the user info so they can look through it.

What value would that info have to anyone?

Blizey that is strange about being transferred from the whitehouse that has got me spooked..The site has been getting upgraded and is nearly complete so things should be running more smooth..Rod (tyranny_Hunter) who is a partner of Nwowatcher has been working hard and i am lucky to have him as a partner..Let me know if things still run slow for you, give it a try for me if you will please..

Back to the Whitehouse thing i am real confused on this i will ask about with other members to keep their eyes out and see if they spot this happening again..I will look into it so a big thank you for the heads up mate..

blizey · #9 12-01-2004, 06:31 PM

Scouse,

I just came from your forum and repeated the same search I had done a few days ago. Everything was fine this time, no slowdown, no whitehouse.

I did try to catch it last time. I had my finger on the print screen button but, it did not come up a third time.

Well, I'm glad I mentioned it. Guess being paranoid and suspicious is a "good thing" sometimes.

Stormys Rain · #10 12-01-2004, 08:34 PM

I just hope it was whitehouse.org, not whitehouse.com which is a porn site. I was helping my son with school work when we discovered that gem.

blizey · #11 12-01-2004, 09:56 PM

Good God, its ridiculous that you should come across that crap while doing homework. It reminds me of the intrusive calls that telephone solicitors make to your home. I couldn't wait to get my name on the no call list.

Well, the whitehouse thing could very well have been on my end. I was having a slowdown problem with my puter for a few days. I recall a strange porn page trying to load on my machine not too long ago. So you don't even have to go looking for this stuff??? It's going to find you?

Play_The_0dds · #12 12-02-2004, 12:06 AM

just by connecting to the internet you are opening up to anything. you can log on and never open a browser, or any program and viruses will move in. spyware and viruses can just download right in your system when you visit some web sites. SP2 for xp tries to fix this....just turns off things we have to turn right back on to do much of anything on the net.
a good software firewall is a must, hardware firewalls are not enough anymore.
i cant say what is good to use anymore, it all seems to have gone to $hit, anti virus, firewalls, any software i can think of seems to have sp2 problems. adaware, thought it lags really bad on some machines now is one of the few programs that seems to be holding strong. i have bought copies of almost all my software and try to be legal across the board, but i cant afford to keep up with the new versions. i would go fully over to linux but i like video games on my pc..................i bought my kids a game cube for christmas and a bunch of games. i dont know if i will buy anymore pc games because of the headache from patches, the operating system acting strange because of some update. i looked at the ps2s and xBoxes, went with the game cube because it didnt go on-line, wasnt micro$hit, excuse me, microsoft and my wife likes the harvest moon games and kids like zelda(so do i)anyway. if the games are about as good i may just dump windows(it is just for my games anyway). most everything i use on mandrake is free distro so new versions and updating wont kill my bank account.

scouse · #13 12-02-2004, 04:09 PM

Glad to hear all was good for you this time Blizey.

And yes being parranoid a bit is a good thing as it keeps one aware at all times..

Hey Stormys rain that is terrible and it goes to show like PTO has pointed out how bad things are now although like he says it is a MUST to have a software firewall at the least.

vidster · #14 12-02-2004, 04:22 PM

On the subject of being paranoid:

I received an email from 'AOL' (Hmmm....) taday asking me to update my credit card details for my account.

The only problem with this is i don't pay by credit card. I pay by DD!

This is the first time someone has tried to con me on the internet, well some people would say AOL is a con....lol

Overclocked Doc · #15 12-02-2004, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by vidster
On the subject of being paranoid:

I received an email from 'AOL' (Hmmm....) taday asking me to update my credit card details for my account.

The only problem with this is i don't pay by credit card. I pay by DD!

This is the first time someone has tried to con me on the internet, well some people would say AOL is a con....lol

"Ahh Yes!"....the internet, what a wonderful tool!