Why the forum was down for a day on the 23rd Jan 2011

[RD]

We , as a staff team, were having a discussion over a the now elicit topic of guns, and whether they should be allowed to be discussed on here. But a mod on here, Mike (xgsft) wouldn't be mature about it and wouldn't back down when we all agreed that there really wasn't any need for the discussion of guns on here and that they are a sensitive subject for a lot of people. He went out of line many times when addressing other staff members, and when we were telling him to grow up he started deleting every admin account and then bit by bit he deleted the entire forum.

But luckily we as a staff all congregated on MSN and eventually got Pisco on hold and we have the forum back up and running thanks mainly to Pisco's brilliant work . Mike and Jedinudist have been deleted as Mike is now a disgrace and Jedi was never a positive contributor. And we would like everyone to understand that guns will not be tolerated on here anymore, discussions or pics. They aren't needed to be paraded and they have already cuased so much damage to this forum through a stubborn childish admin.

Again thanks to Pisco and we are all glad to be back :)

On behalf of the Staff of IYNO
-randomer909

[Sik]

and when we were telling him to grow up he started deleting every admin account and then bit by bit he deleted the entire forum.

Well, I can't even comment on such behaviour.



Important thing is I'm thankfull you could put the forum back online with no (appearant) damage and so quickly!  I'm 100% with you on this, and I am sure I'm not alone !  

PS: Honnestly, I'm still shocked this happened

[Delta]

I would really like to thank Pisco for the wonderful job he did.Just as he always does, he spent time, work and money on this site and we all owe him.

[Karla]

Apologies to anyone who lost posts made since the last back-up but before xgsft went wobbly. I don't think anyone expected such a response from him, especially as the moderator discussion was still on-going. In the end all he managed to do was to get his favourite topic banned.

Congratulations go to Pisco for having a backup system in place and for restoring our community.

Thanks.

[AElf]

Congratulations and thanks to Pisco and all the rest of the admins who got IYNO back up and running.  Thank you.

On the matter of banning the topic not under discussion anymore I'm not so sure.  I am of two minds about it.  I could argue for it on the basis of free speech but my finely developed aelven senses  tell me this would not get very far, besides, I'm confident that it had been flogged to death before xgfst launched his terrorist attack.  I could argue against it on the basis that it is entirely inappropriate on a naturist forum.  AFAIK most if not all naturist clubs prohibit bringing the items not under discussion onto their property.  The thought of a naturist roaming the great outdoors nekkid but carrying an arsenal is a patently ridiculous. 

As for the terrorist attack, you can see here the tip of the iceberg regarding how far some people will go either to uphold their own rights or to deny those of others.  I am not shocked that it occurred, just saddened.

[Daft]

Thanks to everyone that helped the forum get back on track!
And god bless the backup!

[escape]

As an admin, Mike would have had access to a not insignificant amount of private information (including hidden e-mail addresses, which can then be linked to other personal information by internet searches), should we be at all concerned about the leaking of this private information (leaking of a members list etc.)?

Glad everything is up and running again, professional staff team as usual!

[Ed]

As an admin, Mike would have had access to a not insignificant amount of private information (including hidden e-mail addresses, which can then be linked to other personal information by internet searches), should we be at all concerned about the leaking of this private information (leaking of a members list etc.)?

Glad everything is up and running again, professional staff team as usual!

Potentially, but it'd have been a little bit difficult for him to do so unless he did it manually profile by profile (yes, with his admin password he could have written a scraper program to get them all), and in any case if it came to light that he'd released any such thing that would fall under the Data Protection Act or its international equivalents. And it's not hard for the remaining admin staff to get hold of his details and pass them on to the authorities considering they have his email and IP addresses from the backed up forum.

[Bobbert]

Great work getting everything restored!  We appreciate all of the work you mods put in.

[escape]

Potentially, but it'd have been a little bit difficult for him to do so unless he did it manually profile by profile (yes, with his admin password he could have written a scraper program to get them all), and in any case if it came to light that he'd released any such thing that would fall under the Data Protection Act or its international equivalents. And it's not hard for the remaining admin staff to get hold of his details and pass them on to the authorities considering they have his email and IP addresses from the backed up forum.

Hopefully none were harvested.

Although in the UK and the rest of the EU it would be covered by the DPA or its equivalents respectively, coverage outside the EU is weak. It's considered a civil rather than criminal matter as well. Essentially, although I'd like to think that the DPA protects us, it doesn't in practise. Also, the DPA is geared towards data collectors and bodies corporate (in this case, INYO, which is the sum of its members) rather than leakers - so it would be INYO (that is, us as members) who were liable more so than Mike. The Computer Misuse Act provides more relevant (criminal penalty) measures.

[Karla]

As an admin, Mike would have had access to a not insignificant amount of private information (including hidden e-mail addresses, which can then be linked to other personal information by internet searches), should we be at all concerned about the leaking of this private information (leaking of a members list etc.)?

I have been looking into this. The admin can do a full download of the database on their desktop as an SQL file. Compressed it's about 12 megabytes. Uncompressed it's about 44 megabytes. To put this into context, if I remember correctly, the entire works of Shakespeare is about 8 megabytes of text. It's a lot of data and most of the interesting stuff is already publicly available as posts anyway. Passwords are stored in a hashed form rather than as plain text so he wouldn't be able to find out passwords just from looking at the database.

Even if he had the technical knowledge to create his own mysql database, download the backup and populate it with the data, there's not really much he could do. The worst he could do is to harvest all the email addresses, but then most people give out their email addresses anyway in order to receive emails.

This was a moderator gone nuts rather than a hacker with knowledge of cyptography. I don't think that there is much cause for concern.

[Stuart]

I'm going to get tshirts made up: "I survived xgsft's frenzy of attention whoring on 23 January 2011 and all I got was this lousy tshirt"

And just to echo what others have said, many thanks Pisco, for all your efforts.

[Sik]

Once again, kudos to the forum staff for getting the site back up without any collatoral damage! (at least there doesn't seem to be any. Correct me if I'm wrong?)

It seems that a few post were lost, but the backup was fresh enough for the forum to feel like home again as if (almost) nothing happened ^^

One question I have is: if Mike (xgsft) and Jedinudist are now deleted and disgraced, why does xgfst still show up under the staff list and how come I can still see Jedinudist's username and profile information attached to his related posts?

I was wondering about that aswell, my guess is those two have been blocked but not deleted (yet)...  It would still be reassuring to see the mod status removed heh :P

[dmutah]

Thank you to all that helping bring this forum back together. I am glad it was able to be fixed so quick. Its still amazes me at the talent and dedication of all of those that help keep this forum going!

[Karla]

I was wondering about that aswell, my guess is those two have been blocked but not deleted (yet)...  It would still be reassuring to see the mod status removed heh :P

Yes, he's been banned but his account hasn't been deleted. I've check his profile page and he is also not a member of any group which means that he isn't an administrator or mod.