ATTENTION.

Ahem. Was that big enough? Good. Because that's the biggest it would let me make it.

As most of you know, we got hacked earlier. Luckily, it wasn't really US that got hacked, but our host, so all I had to do to fix it was fix the redirect. Now, seeing as other invisionfree sites are getting the same ill treatment, I'm getting a tad worried. We've been getting hints from invisionfree and other hosted sites affiliated that the hacker is attempting to find a way to get into the actual database, which would mean him (and I'm not being sexist, I actually do in fact know that the hacker is a male) gaining access to our files and having the ability to delete them. This doesn't entirely make sense in my little head, but I'm contributing that to the fact that I'm not an uber codemonkey. Besides, it's better to be safe then sorry, yes?

So what I'm asking you to do is please, for godsakes, back up your things. Back up your galleries, your prized tutorials, your resources. Back up everything. Lea and I are frantically trying to find a way to back up the site as a whole independently from invisionfree, but we haven't come up with anything realistic yet. If anyone has any suggestions, please speak up, we'd love you forever.

I'm sorry you guys had to go through this and I thank you for being patient. RCR's members are the best out there and we don't deserve you and your support <3333

Love,
Sabs && Lea
xoxo

In the future, if this happens, the alternate URL to this site will ALWAYS work. And that is:

http://z6.invisionfree.com/redCarpet__rebellion/index.php?

But only for emergencies, please. We like our nice, shiny main url =]

as far as getting the site a back up. you should use like a free domain like... ipb or something and keep something there. or if it's just the coding and info that you need to keep, make a freewebs site and keep it there.

Oh my gosh.
Thats certainly something.
Well I suggest for everyone to get copy + paste
their gallery codes and save them in a word
or .txt file on their own seperate computers.

Its the best way around this.
Sure the hacker can get through to invisionfree
database, but they can't possible get into our
own computers, right?

Actually that is possible :(

When I came on, I was really worried :( Glad to see it back :)

Artin

How immature are people? :rolleyes:

i just don't understand how someone can actually attempt to destroy
something actual people have worked SO hard on. i mean, honestly!
it's so frickin' sick and twisted...god, i hope he sufferes the most severe
of consequences. i hope somebody hacks his site.

edit!

my friend had a forum once i believe wasn't hosted by IF.
lemme see if i can find it....

I agree with versailles.
You can host the site elsewhere. And I suggest Invision Power Board.
It should be safer there. But this's only a suggestion.

Good luck with the site, btw.

You should try PHPBB, I use it ;)

They could put an IPB on their domain. and for a fee, I believe IF will even transfer all of the data from here to the new boards.

However, you then run into the problem of your site getting too much traffic, because the boards will then be called up from the server where your domain is - not from the IF servers.

Actually, I'm still a little unclear on how the domain masking works and how it effects your monthly transfers. But I do know for sure the monthly bandwidth for a site like this would have to be up there if the boards were actually hosted on the host server. And that could mean more down-time or a higher cost for hosting.


Edit: Oh, and as I was telling someone else last night... Hacking like this is a status symbol among code geeks. Especially those who want to be a black-hat, or just plain elite. They don't care how much it took to build up a site or system - they only care about the next biggest hack they can pull off. It's like a honor badge.

My theory is they failed at boyscouts/girlscouts. Or something. :P

If we were hacked, couldn't the hacker get the
I.P. addresses of all the individual users and then
get onto their individual computers?

That's a good question...

The thing we should probably remember is that the hacker wasn't going for RCR personally. They were targeting invisionfree. Odds are, the hacker isn't going to try and get into anyone's computers, so there's no need to start fussing about that. If they wanted to hack computers, they'd do it to someone more important than a bunch of graphic-making young adults, wouldn't they? They were doing it for a challenge that would be recognized by a lot of people, so hacking individual computers wouldn't get them the glory they wanted. Just make sure you've got up to date virus protection and firewalls if you're that worried.

What he said. *points up* They typically only target an individual if they have a vendetta against them (or if they're n00bz and think that'll somehow give them some status), and since we have no clue who this person is, it's highly unlikely that he'll target anyone specifically.


Besides, he's getting exactly what he wanted right here. Exposure. The more we talk about him and fret over the sitch, the more we're fueling his ultimate purpose.

It's a quote from one of the mods/staff at PC. Hopefeully, this'll be the end of it, but that is never is true. :ph43r:

i second that.
what we need is some sort of safe zone to protect/store all the data in.
another domain might do us some good.

You know Invisionfree keeps an offline backup of all sites anyway? Making a big deal out of nothing ftl =p

I logged on yesterday to try and start my first gallery, and when I had noticed it was hacked.. I was immediately worried for the people who have been here longest to keep RCR up and running. A forum like this, that has been around for ages has had a lot of work put into it. And I'm very happy to see such dedicated staff keeping its members calm and collected.

Thank you for being steadfast and caring!

Much love, Jennafur aka Lovely Deicide.

as far as this should go, we should decide and stop talking about it.
because this is just giving them more attention that they want.
i'm saying this again. they are pathetic and lonely.
which is why they do things like this.

hummm, for the coding i'd sugguest that you back it up on your own computer, as a wordpad thing....

i mean it's alot i understand but it's always good to have it backed up in case something gets deleted anyways...

(not that you probably havent done that already lol)

this is stupid... seriously my fiancee just got his email account hacked... it's a nightmare...

people need to get lives seriously

there's very little chance that they can gain access to invisionfree databases and cause any serious damage because invisionfree have offline backups, i.e. backups that cannot be touched by anyone because they are not kept 'active' on the network. don't worry about this, guys, but it would be a good idea to have backups of galleries, etc. anyway - makes for easier editing of new stuff anyways :)