We've lost a lot of posts here :o(

Yeah, I had actually been posting here the last couple of weeks. D'oh! Sorry about the material that was lost--especially the poems

PT got hammered. Mostly poofed. Not such a bad thing though, it might have actually improved the place

So, I suppose if anyone wants to catch up, my catching up posts are gone, but you can read my blog or just ask how I've been. Short answer--I've been fine. I hope all of you have been (in the words of Tony the Tiger) G-R-R-R-R-R-EAT!

Author	Comment
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/1/05 10:03 am) Reply	We've lost a lot of posts here :o( I got a message from another board admin about ezboard's hacker attack so i came to check out mine, and it looks like that has definitely happened here. The main board page says we've had posts here as recent as late May '05 but when you go into each forum nothing is showing up past April of '04. Eddie's story is gone (which i hadn't even had a chance to reply to yet), all of the poetry is gone, our conversations are gone, everything vanished...and i doubt we will get it back.
Tiny Thinker lingering (6/1/05 10:52 am) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( Yeah, I had actually been posting here the last couple of weeks. D'oh! Sorry about the material that was lost--especially the poems PT got hammered. Mostly poofed. Not such a bad thing though, it might have actually improved the place So, I suppose if anyone wants to catch up, my catching up posts are gone, but you can read my blog or just ask how I've been. Short answer--I've been fine. I hope all of you have been (in the words of Tony the Tiger) G-R-R-R-R-R-EAT!
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/1/05 11:13 am) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( Speaking of Tony the Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft (who did his voice along with oodles of other cartoon characters) just passed away last week or so. I think he was around 91 yrs old. Anyway, glad to hear you've been fine. Your blog looks nice! I gave mine up - too time consuming for me. What free time i have now is mostly spend outside in the backyard, either playing with the kids or lying in the hammock listening to the songbirds. I have to use the computer so much for school and business that i am not fond of it for hobbies any more - once work is done i'm ready to unplug! I think the post losses here are not as bad as at some boards i've seen, even at some of my other boards. The ironic thing is that whoever did this hacking job, if found and prosecuted, will probably have a very lucrative job waiting after time served because this was a very well-executed attack against a supposedly secure network.
Tiny Thinker lingering (6/1/05 11:24 am) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( Yeah, I mainly use the blog the way I used to use the boards, just to kind of give updates or bring up certain topics of interest. But I don't feel pressured to make a certain number of entries per week. I think Meta, though, was really devastated because he had been having real life issues and then his forums got squashed. His place is like TCG--hard to even view the threads, much less post/reply. He's already got temporary boards set up with some French company.
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/2/05 11:24 am) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( Well, today i can't get to TCG at all. The main board page gives me a request error. And there are a lot more posts missing from ILK today than there were yesterday, and many of the threads that are there are ruined (the replies are gone, replaced by a message stating that the post is missing or has been lost). Because those two aren't "gold" boards (apparently the regular ezboard back-ups were only done for gold boards) i may never get the posts back, and if i don't, i'll probably just close those boards for good since they weren't active any more anyway.
Tiny Thinker lingering (6/2/05 2:22 pm) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( I let the gold expire a day or two before the crash, which is why PT got hammered, methinks. They say though that they might be able to restore posts up to 5/9/05 for most boards, so maybe they can help with TCG and ILK.
Eddie257 lingering (6/2/05 4:13 pm) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( no, this is not good but I am getting my website back this weekend so you'll be able to write with/without ezboard problems. I'm not really concerned with ezboard anymore since this is the only one i still go to.
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/2/05 5:11 pm) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( Hey Eddie I hope you're doing well. Let us know when your site is back up. "They say though that they might be able to restore posts up to 5/9/05 for most boards, so maybe they can help with TCG and ILK." Well Tiny, i feel like they are giving somewhat conflicting information, since some of the "ezstaff" has said that the backups are only done for gold boards and other statements make it sound like "most boards" will be restored. Neither TGC or ILK were gold, so at this point i'm figuring they are toast. Who knows...
metanoia7 lingering (6/2/05 5:54 pm) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( Hi CV!! longtime .... Well, if the backups are only done for gold boards, were those ones gold for all or most of that time? Yeah, it all seems complicated and ambiguous. Wait and see? this one should get all or most of its posts back though .... just from looking at the front page.
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/3/05 7:03 pm) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( Hi M! Yep, it's very much "wait and see" right now. Nice to see ya again! Hope all is well with you.
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/6/05 7:01 am) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( If i'm reading the latest announcement correctly, they are either finished with or currently working on 3/4 of the ezobards on the network and only 1/4 have not yet been touched - either all four of the ones i admin are in that last 1/4 or else mine are just screwed and unfixable... Edited by: chaelosm voice at: 6/6/05 7:02 am
metanoia7 lingering (6/6/05 1:08 pm) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( none of the (handful of) boards that i visit have any posts restored from earlier than Apr 04 either .... so right now, that's looking like it, and their earlier statement that they could restore boards to early May 05 status seems wrong.
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/6/05 10:08 pm) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( Which makes me think that they were not being honest when they listed weekly backups as one of the features of having a gold board. I remember when they made a big hoopla about adding that feature. It seems to me that if the hacker had deleted the backups then they wouldn't have anything and couldn't go back to April of 2004; seems more likely that for most boards the last backup was April of 2004. Even their earlier estimate of early May still shows that the backups weren't weekly as stated in the gold package features and it had been at least 3-4 weeks since the last backup.
Tiny Thinker lingering (6/6/05 11:59 pm) Reply	Re: We've lost a lot of posts here :o( It's hard to say if they did or didn't make weekly backups, or whether a particular date was related to the extend of damage done in the data corruption, but here is something I don't get: Why were the backups connected to the internet? Normally backups are connected directly to the server only to retrieve the data, or sometimes not at all (using some intermediate device). I mean, the surest way to prevent data loss from hacking is to have your backups stored in a device that cannot be remotely accessed. I understand this might not be possible for so much data on a weekly basis, but even a monthly backup to such a secure environment would certainly prevent the level of data loss we are seeing on the forums. The thing is, I really don't like the competition. Either it is even less reliable/has WAY fewer features OR it costs too damn much. I mean this would be a great time to move to a new service, but who? I am really hoping this disaster will get EZBoard off their asses to fix a lot of the issues that allowed this to happen as well as other long-promised but unseen upgrades (which is really going to be important in getting customers to stay/come back).
metanoia7 lingering (6/8/05 10:20 pm) Reply	no backups at all *Quote:* Which makes me think that they were not being honest when they listed weekly backups as one of the features of having a gold board. I remember when they made a big hoopla about adding that feature. It seems to me that if the hacker had deleted the backups then they wouldn't have anything and couldn't go back to April of 2004; seems more likely that for most boards the last backup was April of 2004. Even their earlier estimate of early May still shows that the backups weren't weekly as stated in the gold package features and it had been at least 3-4 weeks since the last backup. i am less suspicious than you, i bet they were making at least a cursory effort to do backups, but the system might not have been near so secure and sophiisticated as they were letting on in their advertising. (Never is, and you only need to rig up a rickety system to fulfill basic contractual obligations. ) And the "attack" was maybe not so "subtle and precise," just exposed maybe obvious weaknesses. But clearly whatever they were doing wasn't nearly secure enough.... hardly ever is, until after something happens ....
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/9/05 11:33 am) Reply	Re: no backups at all *Quote:* Why were the backups connected to the internet? Normally backups are connected directly to the server only to retrieve the data, or sometimes not at all (using some intermediate device). I mean, the surest way to prevent data loss from hacking is to have your backups stored in a device that cannot be remotely accessed. I understand this might not be possible for so much data on a weekly basis, but even a monthly backup to such a secure environment would certainly prevent the level of data loss we are seeing on the forums. What they have described, as best as i can figure, sounds a lot more like a mirror than a backup - same info on a different server on a different spot on the internet. In any case, they have certainly used the term "backup" awfully loosely in their promotional ads and promises for their gold community features. Like both of you (Tiny and M) have mentioned, i think this attack has really exposed some problems that have been there for a long time. I think they have just been lucky that their half-assed "security" measures and buggy software has held up this long. I've had problems with the "mark forum read" feature on one of my boards, and with my personal account reverting back in time and having other glitches (including being completely deleted) and these problems go back two years and have still not been fixed after countless bug reports and many other users reporting the same problems. So hopefully this attack is a wake-up call to ezboard, inc. - that is if they are still around after the dust settles. Tiny, i've seen several links posted at the new "server status forum" to various other message board systems that people are signing up with, but those links get deleted within minutes by the ezboard mods. I've never really gone looking elsewhere myself because it was the people on ezboard that made me stick around, not any love for ezboard or its features, so i don't know really what else is out there. I have tons of web space and php knowledge and could set up my own phpBB system but i know that the people who i'd care to "post with" are all on ezb and may not want to register somewhere else, so that's why i haven't. I think a lot of people feel that way, and i see posts to that effect at the help forum - if anything will save ezboard after this debacle, more than anything else i think it will be the relationships between ezboard members that keep those members with ezboard only because they want to keep the relationships, not because they really care about ezboard.
Tiny Thinker lingering (6/9/05 6:15 pm) Reply	Re: no backups at all Oh sure, I'm not an EZBoard apologist, and we've talked before about looking at other options, but honestly, I can't afford them. To get the service (customization, ease of use, security, etc.) that would make a move feasible would cost more than I could afford. If a bunch of us, say about 5-6 folks, pooled together we might have enough to get a nice system set up, but that would likely lead to interpersonal issues. People are always so nice until they have to share their money with each other and trust each other not to take advantage.
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/9/05 6:30 pm) Reply	Re: web hosting/bb's Someone posted a link to this place at the help forums ... said they switched over and it offered way more features than ezb for lots less money and was really easy to set up. $2.99/mo is cheaper than the gold package. It's a full web hosting service, just has a phpBB as part of the deal, so you get more features than just the board too. Dunno if you'd be interested but it sounded good enough that i was considering it and i don't even need web hosting!
Tiny Thinker lingering (6/9/05 9:35 pm) Reply	Re: web hosting/bb's Yeah, but 2 GB bandwidth--is that per month? How much would a busy board with lots of graphics use? I honestly have no idea if that's a great deal or if it's a rip-off.
chaelosm voice ...learning, and living. (6/9/05 11:47 pm) Reply	Re: web hosting/bb's I don't know how much an active board would use, but i do know that on one of the websites i have on my hosted space, the site gets between 500-700 unique visits and 3000+ page views per month, and my bandwidth usage for the entire account (and i have other sites on the same webspace shared via IRMs) is always .02 GBs or less (yes that is point zero two, i have never come even remotely close to using the 5GB that comes with the package i have for that particular account ... and this .02 is a monthly average which is i think how most hosting companies calculate it). None of these are image-intensive sites but they've definitely got more images than your board has right now, emoticons included. My son is considering a phpBB for his community, because it is an extension of his website and doesn't rely on ezboard for traffic since most of his visitors come directly from his site or via search engines. I've suggested to him that as long as he sets it up so that he does not give a custom avatar option (ie make people host their avatars on their own space like they do here on ezboard) the bandwidth shouldn't be a problem. In the original post at the help forums where i found the link to this u2 hosting company, the poster stated that the terms are month-to-month, so i guess one could always try it and see how it goes if one doesn't mind putting the work into it. Totally off-topic but i notice Tiny that you change the font color when you post in this forum - is the default color too difficult for you to read and if so should i tweak it a bit to make it more readable?
Tiny Thinker lingering (6/10/05 12:10 am) Reply	Re: web hosting/bb's *Quote:* My son is considering a phpBB for his community, because it is an extension of his website and doesn't rely on ezboard for traffic since most of his visitors come directly from his site or via search engines. I've suggested to him that as long as he sets it up so that he does not give a custom avatar option (ie make people host their avatars on their own space like they do here on ezboard) the bandwidth shouldn't be a problem. After reviewing some searches I had done before I think that this place is an even better deal. It's prices are very reasonable compared to EZBoard Gold. It's also phpBB (or some close variant). It has a very nice set of features and a decent pricing structure based on my limited knowledge of these kinds of things. Given that I get no traffic from EZBoard anymore (even before the crash), I can't say it would be any different having a dead board with a different format/host. *Quote:* Totally off-topic but i notice Tiny that you change the font color when you post in this forum - is the default color too difficult for you to read and if so should i tweak it a bit to make it more readable? I can read it but a lighter color with a bit more contrast does help.

life as a butterfly > day by day > We've lost a lot of posts here :o(
Page 1 2	<< Prev Topic \| Next Topic >>