Hello all,
When I checked the forum this afternoon, it appeared to me we had be hacked. There was an odd message on the single page. I tried logging on and it wouldn't let me get into the system. I noticed two new users, one from someplace like Maui and another from Russia. I logged onto the FTP site and changed a couple of folder names to hopefully disable the site and keep any more damages to a minimum. To be honest, I might have caused part of the problem, but the two foriegn registrations looked awfully fishy.

So, that's part one. Danny contacted Jeremy Thorson who agreed to help us again. He helped us cull the huge list of bot registrations a week or so ago. Within a couple of hours, Jeremy appears to have us back up and running.

Part two...we were able to restore from a backup file from a few days ago. Danny and I both made one, and Jeremy still had one on his computer. Unfortunately, I believe we lost posts from the past couple of days. I know Dan was talking about his home show booth and there were a few other posts. You'll want to try to repost them if you feel like the information is valuable.

Danny and I had agreed to pay Jeremy $50 each to clean up all the dozens of hours we saved culling the old member list. We'll be doing that tonight.

If things go right, Jeremy is going to spend some extra time this weekend upgrading the forum to version 3 of the php bulleting boards. That should help with both security, member list management, and add quite a few new features.

We don't ask for money much here because the Denver Chapter pays for most of the costs, but this is above and beyond the normal expenses.

IF you would like to help, please consider sending $20 by PayPal to Jeremy at jthorson@sasktel.net

If you do send him some money, please send me a note to let me know you did it and how much. There is no pressure to send money...just a request to help if you can afford it. We'd be down for a long time without his help...and there is a good chance we would have lost a lot of data.

Thanks again for everyone's help, and sorry for the loss of data.

Mike Jackson

Hi all,
Just a quick update. Besides the money Danny and I paid, five other people have sent funds to Jeremy. That's a huge help, and thanks to all five. I think we can get Jeremy paid up if another five send him around $20. No pressure, just a request if you can afford it and feel the BB is worth the donation. By next week, we should have a new version of the phpBB up and running, hopefully with no loss of names, posts, or messages.

Just for the record, this old phpBB is much more vunerable to outside hackers than we want it to be. At some point a year or so ago, we started getting bot registrations a few at a time. Danny and I manually deleted them as we had time. As it progressed, we were getting roughly 100 per day and we couldn't keep up deleting them manually. We more or less gave up and let them register, but it required us to have to manually activate the legitimate users. We missed a few amid all the bogus ones. Then last year, Jeremy supplied us with some code that helped stop he bot registrations. After that, the new ones stopped almost completely. However, at that time, we had over 11,000 bogus entries taking up a lot of database space and increasing the time it takes to do a backup of the site. Danny and I deleted a few hundred of them manually, taking about an hour to delete 50, when we dediced it wasn't worth the effort and time. A couple of weeks ago, we agreed to pay Jeremy to purge all those bot registrations. He used some sort of script he developed to purge the bot registrations. We went from 235 pages of registrations down to 8 pages with about 50 per page. The new 3.0 version of the BB should make it much easier and painless for us to delete any bot registrations, plus it is supposed to shield against them in the first place. There will be a lot of new and better features for all of us, too.

I am not 100% certain we were hacked, but the same error messages appeared at Yellowstone.net's forums. All of them went down and none of them have been back up for weeks. Luckily, we had Jeremy to save the day. If you can afford it, please send $20 by PayPal to jthorson@sasktel.net, and if times are tough, no problem whatsoever. If you do send him money, please let me know by Private Message or email so we can keep a running tab. I just don't want to see him come up short for his professional work.

Thanks again, and sorry for any inconveniences,
Mike Jackson

Hey Mike!
Maybe the new version will have banter spell check!

Hey thanks for your ongoing efforts in keeping this going. It's much appreciated from the folks here in Machine...and those who just visit!

Good job...and thanks again! You too, Danny, Jeremy, Denver Letterheads, and all those who post!

-AHO!

I'd love to help and will try and work out the "pay-pal" thing. Have never used anything like that and just thinking about trying to do so, gives me the sweats. I gotta say this site is terrific and would subscribe on a dime....I'd just like to be able to use a business cheque!

Doug.
I sent some money to Jeremy using Paypal its very straight forward mate.
These guy's are doing a great job here
Dave

Smitty....I did it the old fashioned way. The pay-pal thing I'll have to work out once you send me that second million pounds you spoke of ;=)

Hi All,
I believe you will now be seeing the fruits of our labor. Jeremy upgraded the BB to the newer and safer version of the program. There will be a few more features and toys in this version, too.

Now, we can include photos right into the post by using the ATTACH feature just below. Click on the Browse button, find a file and it will upload directly to this server. Please keep the size down to no more than 600 pixels wide. Oversized images will be bumped off immediately by the program.

The image below is 400 pixels wide.

This is much better. Excellent job you guy's, it was good before but this is so much clearer.


Dave

ah, for pity's sake!

This new format is sweet, can fix up my ol' gut!

20 pieces of silver from me...

Aho!

Love the new format. Thanks for the work.

And a big 20 from me. Guess the ladies an' the punch'll hafta wait.
Pat

Were you guys able to cover the expenses through the contributions so far?

I just noticed in the "Who's on line" section that myself, Google {Bot}, and 1 guest were browsing. Are these the "bots" that give us problems here on the forum? I'm a bit short on computer savvy, so I did a quick search for Google Bot and found some info on the use of bots.

Dennis
Boise, Idaho

p.s. Larry...I forgot to answer your "hello" to me a few days ago. All is well here, although Noel said work was slow. I suppose he is no different from the other businesses that have been affected by the recent economic changes. Life goes on.

Dennis,
Qa few people have sent money to Jeremy to help update and tweak the Forum software. He's been staying with us and watching the board. He added some code today to help cut down on the "auto-bots".

There are some people, mainly coming out of Russia, that have created "robot" registration scripts for any BB or Forum software they can find. These scripts go in an register a bogus name, then include linked pages to all kinds of sites. I've never really figure out why they do it, but I've been told they go to these kinds of sites to add "link counts" to help sites move up in the search engines. For the most part, they are not too distructive, only a pain in the rear to keep culled down. As we mentioned earlier, without hours of culling time, they had filled the board up with over 11,000 bogus registrations. Jeremy's first job was to take them out.

Danny deleted about 50 a few days ago and let Jeremy know. He ran another script and hopefully will make it harder for them to sign in automatically. The search engine was not working. We let him know and it was working fine again in just a few hours.

I saw the Google "bot" on line the other day. I think that is a different kind of bot and not harmful at all.

While I think most of the new expenses have been covered by the current contributors, we could always use a little more to "bank" some time with Jeremy. He has been a terrific resource and help for all of us.

FYI:
This board was started by Sarah Clark a long, long time ago as an alternative to a couple of other sites which seemed to get bogged down with off topic posts. Her original Hand Lettering Forum was hosted by a free service. All went well for a short period of time until that service started adding popups at almost every click of the mouse. About that same time, a few of us decided to "homestead" the URL "TheLetterheads.com", registering it for the future. When Sarah's site started getting unbareable, we activated the new domain and moved the BB to it. That worked for a while until the outsiders kept putting in trash posts. There was nothing we could do to stop it as there was no registration required to post. We eventually switched over to the newer phpBB software and that worked fairly well until recently when the "autobots" took over. Add in the hack and we simply needed to do something new. This stuff is way over my head, so we needed Jeremy.

So, if anyone else wants to help, feel free to send $20 to Jeremy. We all benefit!

Dennis,

Jeremy is still tweaking the forum to eliminate the bots as much as possible. Google and Yahoo will be seen frequently because they are indexing for their search abilities, not to cause harm. Try a google search sometime for any of the subjects you find on the HandLettering forum, google will display that info listing The HandLettering forum as the source.

Several days ago we had about 50 bots listed as attempting to register. Fortunately the new software allows quick and easy mass deletions of bots. Due to the work Jeremy's done in the last few days, there have been no new bot registrations at all.

Danny

More and more websites use an automated engine where the newly arrived member has to type an encrypted code which is displayed on the screen to eliminate autobot-viruses.
Maybe you know what i mean: A code in different fonts, italics and crossed through with somne lines, so that only a human can read it and type it in.
Maybe that would be a cheap option to enclose in the registration form.
Maybe a professional like Jeremy could copy that script for free somewhere and paste it in the forum engine.

Mike and Danny,
Thank you for the reply and explanation.

Mike, I did copy and paste the link to Jeremy and it took me to a site that required a password. I'm more than willing to chip in to assist in covering the cost of his efforts if I only knew how to send the funds to him. I thought that the link would have another Paypal link set up to pay him directly. Enlighten me as to the steps to take and I'll contribute to the cause. Thanks for all you folks do in the background to make this site such a joy to visit.

Dennis

Dennis, there is no link for Jeremy. Copy this: jthorson@sasktel.net (don't click on it) Go to PayPal, go to make payment, and paste in the copy for pay to, enter amount and follow prompts, based on the fact of having a PayPal account. If you don't have a PayPal account, contact me.

The original fix - changing the site over and some adjustments were probably covered at some point, but Jeremy has put in more time than was originally budgeted because of other problems that ensued during the switch. He has worked on it as recently the weekend, and has charged at a rate that has been more than fair.

For all that have contributed, thank you! Anyone that would like too, it will be used as required.

Thanks!

Danny

Danny, thanks for the help. I do have a Paypal account and the funds have been sent to Jeremy with my thanks for his great work.

I know there are a lot of folks who read this forum on a regular basis, myself included. Heck, I'm not even in the sign trade, but I'm willing to add to the collection plate for services rendered. You can't buy info such as we find on this forum and where else can you find a thread such as the "Original Dead Man" with all those galoots talking in a secret code.

Dennis
...in Noel's territory

secret code = "banter"

Thanks for the support!
M. Jackson

Thanks Jeremy, someone did a great job of raising you....
Glad to hear it worked out to be a good arrangement for all concerned. Maybe you'll pick up some clients in the process.... but first you'd better finish your sister's website.... .