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@William,

William wrote:

Hello Robert. I do understand what you did and I think I know why you did it. I do wish you would have participated more in the old philforum.

I wanted to. But to put this in context please understand that I founded a web development startup right at the beginning of the recession. Able2know and other communities are not big earners for us and the revenue it generates covers the server costs but not any of our labor.

So we work on these things as much as we can, these are the fun projects we started the company to work on (with others who are passionate about what they do and good at it) but we also need to put in time on the projects that pay the bills.

We are actually a small team and aren't even "ramen profitable" (where we can survive on our own revenue eating ramen) yet. For example it's been several years and I haven't gotten on my own company's payroll yet and I've loaned it a lot of money (north of 30k) for a2k development as well.

So this year we had to work hard on a project that pays the bills, we can't build communities if we can't pay our bills. We intended to then work on a2k preparing it for the merger while also becoming active in the philforum community and explaining what was happening.

But the Philforum got hacked (again) and we needed to kill off the vbulletin software. Some of the other things we do involve more serious (from an internet security and trust perspective) than forums and we could not allow that gaping hole to continue on our servers while we tried to patch it and remove the exploits.

So we rushed the merger instead, which really really sucks for me because I get to hear everyone tell me that I should have done what I had meticulously planned to do and was not able to. ;-)

1 Reply

Hello Recon, good to see you in such good form. One of the days we will understand better and close that philosophical door for ever. But until then it fascinating to observe you tying up loose ends as it pertains to what so many philosophical minds brought forth. Keep up the good work. One day I will help you shut the book on philosophy and then I wonder what ken will do? Perhaps then we will all begin to live life rather that trying to survive it and understand it?

William

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

William wrote:
Hello Robert. I do understand what you did and I think I know why you did it. I do wish you would have participated more in the old philforum.

I wanted to. But to put this in context please understand that I founded a web development startup right at the beginning of the recession. Able2know and other communities are not big earners for us and the revenue it generates covers the server costs but not any of our labor.

So we work on these things as much as we can, these are the fun projects we started the company to work on (with others who are passionate about what they do and good at it) but we also need to put in time on the projects that pay the bills.

We are actually a small team and aren't even "ramen profitable" (where we can survive on our own revenue eating ramen) yet. For example it's been several years and I haven't gotten on my own company's payroll yet and I've loaned it a lot of money (north of 30k) for a2k development as well.

So this year we had to work hard on a project that pays the bills, we can't build communities if we can't pay our bills. We intended to then work on a2k preparing it for the merger while also becoming active in the philforum community and explaining what was happening.

But the Philforum got hacked (again) and we needed to kill off the vbulletin software. Some of the other things we do involve more serious (from an internet security and trust perspective) than forums and we could not allow that gaping hole to continue on our servers while we tried to patch it and remove the exploits.

So we rushed the merger instead, which really really sucks for me because I get to hear everyone tell me that I should have done what I had meticulously planned to do and was not able to. ;-)

Would you please tell me what you mean by "hacked again"? What does that mean if you are meaning it was a detriment to the other forum. If I was, I never knew it or noticed it.

William

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

At least I did not get a head-ache for nothing. All our philosopers think thinking is easy but it's not so easy in a second language while you're baking bread, cooking lunch and have to make a shopping-list ánd plan dinner for to-night...

Wink

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@William,

William wrote:

Would you please tell me what you mean by "hacked again"? What does that mean if you are meaning it was a detriment to the other forum. If I was, I never knew it or noticed it.

Through the VB forum software it was hacked in a way that allowed the hacker to install a script on our server that then connected to a remote server for instructions (it usually will then be used to attack other servers/computers/sites).

The reason it is a detriment to other sites the forum is hosted with (the forum was on the same servers as able2know and some of our mission critical sites) is because it allowed them past our security, they were in, and dialing out.

This happened twice with the philforum. I posted about it once on philforum the first time, when I patched the software and removed the exploits (we also moved servers at the same time, together with a2k), but then it happened again and instead of trying to pinpoint what VB code or plugin caused it we decided to kill the hacked software within 24 hours (it actually took us 48 or more to pull off). That many hours is something I already consider completely unacceptable to be hacked but luckily no damage seems to have been done (except that the hack inserted hidden viagra ads that only showed up for google, which you may remember philforum members talking about, as it was also doing that when I got it).

You may remember the album thumbnails being weird, that may have been affected by the hack as they were running a script they uploaded into the album thumbnail directory (/home/phforum/public_html/images/albumthumbnails/0/45d64c50996cd5db3376fe06d521bf26_651.php).

Anyway, we noticed because the server started making a remote connection that was unauthorized, that is a huge red flag for us and one of the few times in my career I've had my servers breached. And like every other time it was due to crappy out-of-box software. This year philforum's vBulletin software was breached in two such instances, sending us scrambling both times. The first time we moved all the sites from The Planet's Houston and Dallas data centers to a Chicago datacenter and worldwide CDN while patching the software (similarly, we had planned to upgrade servers much later but did that instantly because it was a cleaner break with the hack than patching the hacked server and hardening it again). The second time it was "off with his head" time for VB and it had to go ASAP. I chose the option where I only didn't have to sleep for 3 days, anything else was too many more than I could afford.

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@William,

William wrote:

... shut the book on philosophy and then I wonder what ken will do? Perhaps then we will all begin to live life rather that trying to survive it and understand it?

IMO the less a person understands of life, the more formal the persons philosophy becomes -excuse me, we have our monthly safety drill, sirens go off- I think.

Happy people need very little philosophy, they are Philosophy.

Sirens are off again. Monthly reminder of the Cold War in Europe. Another war the US did not manage to capture the harts of the people.

1 Reply

Robert, thank you. Now who would hack and why, briefly and thanks. Pardon me for being so ignorant.

William

1 Reply

@William,

It's automated, the purpose is to make money, for example though the hidden (except to Google) viagra links they intended to influence Google rankings and make money selling viagra. They targeted the philforum because it was using vBulletin software and there was a vBulletin vulnerability available, that is all.

That's one reason we wrote (and are writing) our own forum software. With the out-of-box stuff you have to constantly patch it, and if you make improvements you have to make sure you don't break your improvements with the patches.

We prefer to just do it better and do it ourselves, one reason we use remote avatars is because we aren't going to do the simple local upload here that lets people get onto your servers for example.

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Thank you Robert. So it was all about advertising. Do you honestly think those on that forum cared about that? What that simply means Robert what was being said there was being viewed by many people and that is what is the most important thing. For someone to want to advertise there would be a good thing I would think for you.

I have been in advertising all my life and every one is doing just that themselves. The more they tell of themselves, the more people know about them so they can "get along", and granted many are selling crap. The fact is the numbers matter as to how many are hearing and focusing on what was being offered by some in that forum.

Yes, viagra is a bad product and if there was a way you could eliminate the crappy ads, that would be a good thing too.

I know you thought, considering how much you spent, others where getting a free ride. I think I am right here; and if not please correct me. I think you saw the potential of what was being offered in that forum and you yourself knew it's value. So all I can say is you should have let them. Most there paid no attention to those ads anyway. I know I didn't.

Well, anyway, it's probably too late to do anything about it now. But I so wish you and others would try your best to bring a many of the features we had there to here. Especially the offering "thanks" one.

William

2 Replies

@William,

William wrote:

Thank you Robert. So it was all about advertising. Do you honestly think those on that forum cared about that?

Advertising is ok, hacking a server to insert it maliciously is a horse of an entirely different color. It's simply not something acceptable to allow the forum to have remained hacked, the viagra ads were one of the more benign things they could have done with that kind of access and we can't allow that.

William wrote:

Well, anyway, it's probably too late to do anything about it now. But I so wish you and others would try your best to bring a many of the features we had there to here. Especially the offering "thanks" one.

We're working hard on bringing the features. As for the "thanks" one the thumbs up is very similar (the only difference being that on the philosophy forum it listed who gave the proverbial thumbs up).

1 Reply

Robert substance is what matter, not symbolism. I don't think any one cares in these forums as to who advertises there. If you think about it, that could have been used in your favor as you could have shown others who you could approach to advertise with you to help with your costs by showing them the advertising that was being hacked in. Substance is the main most primary thing to get the answers out. Of course you could be the authority as to who you allowed and not if you did approach those who would legitimately pay to advertise. even here.

William

2 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

William wrote:
Thank you Robert. So it was all about advertising. Do you honestly think those on that forum cared about that?

Advertising is ok, hacking a server to insert it maliciously is a horse of an entirely different color. It's simply not something acceptable to allow the forum to have remained hacked, the viagra ads were one of the more benign things they could have done with that kind of access and we can't allow that.

William wrote:
Well, anyway, it's probably too late to do anything about it now. But I so wish you and others would try your best to bring a many of the features we had there to here. Especially the offering "thanks" one.

We're working hard on bringing the features. As for the "thanks" one the thumbs up is very similar (the only difference being that on the philosophy forum it listed who gave the proverbial thumbs up).

I understand. It's just nice to know who is giving that thumbs up. I had some who were shall we say antagonistic at first but then later became my friends. Getting a thanks from them meant a lot to me, personally.

william

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@William,

William wrote:

Robert substance is what matter, not symbolism. I don't think any one cares in these forums as to who advertises there. If you think about it, that could have been used in your favor as you could have shown others who you could approach to advertise with you to help with your costs by showing them the advertising that was being hacked in. Substance is the main most primary thing to get the answers out. Of course you could be the authority as to who you allowed and not if you did approach those who would legitimately pay to advertise. even here.

William

Actually, some of us care quite a bit what's advertised here, at least in the sense of not wanting porn or illegal items advertised here.

Plus if there is to be advertising, it should be something where A2K actually makes some $$ -- with the hack, the viagra guys were getting their product promoted for free. There is a reason for advertising -- it is a commodity and it has a value. When people leach on and take it for free there is a simple word for it -- stealing.

Robert didn't want to be stolen from, that's all.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

...it was sent to over 500 different people, philforum or not.

... boy do I feel left out! :p

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@Khethil,

Khethil wrote:

Robert Gentel wrote:
...it was sent to over 500 different people, philforum or not.

... boy do I feel left out! :p

SPURNED!!!! Rejected!!! Not invited to the brightly lit secret tree house!!!

Wink

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@Khethil,

Ha... was thinking the same thing - we're obviously so not on the "team brain drain train"

what a shame Razz

<feeling soooooooo rejected> Wink

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@Pepijn Sweep,

shut the book on philosophy and then I wonder what ken will do? Perhaps then we will all begin to live life rather that trying to survive it and understand it?

I know you will find this weird, but on philosophy forums-guess what- I like to do philosophy. In fact (and again you may find this weird) I join philosophy forums to philosophize. I don't live my life on philosophy forums or on any other forums. Indeed, I don't live my life on the internet.

Now, don't you find that weird?

1 Reply

@William,

William wrote:

I don't think any one cares in these forums as to who advertises there.

You are so very wrong in your thinking.

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@kennethamy,

Now it doesn't seem weird. There is just no way of knowing it without socializing first. I am to shy -believe it or not- to speak publicly. Love a Forum as long as people take me seriously. Has been some years I actually read books about Philosophy I must admit ... I do like philosophy and think a Forum should also stimulate to pick up a thread from the past.
Mr. Green

1 Reply

@Izzie,

Quote:

<feeling soooooooo rejected>

I wasn't head-hunted, either. Sad

1 Reply

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