SYS Progress report
Just wanted to post some updates on my themes, my site, and the Skinyourscreen.com community:
Current SYS Site Status
Skinyourscreen.com is broken. All the downloads, tutorials and images are fine, but the site is nonfunctional due to the activity of the MaxPowerhack group of net-hackers and their buddy ErrorHack. Not even the restoration of the MySQL database or the site files has been able to repair what they've done. Frustrating to see a project that you and your friends have invested thousands of man-hours into broken because of some other person's non-related fanatical crusade. C'est la vie.
Many other e107-web-software based sites are also under attack. There were some significant flaws under the previous version of the web-software that have facilitated the compromisation of my server. I don't know how far this reaches, although they have thrice been able to employ it to take the site down. I trust that they would continue to do so even if I reinstalled from scratch.
The Good: SkinWiki and the Skinyourscreen Podcast sites are still completely operational and uncompromised. The only significant downtime these sites experienced was on the 19th and 20th of February, 2006, when a dedicated denial of service attack brought the whole domain down.
Furthermore, since the previous attacks and the subsequent shutdown of the e107-based skinyourscreen site no further attacks have occurred. Though devastating to our site, the work of ErrorHack was still fairly amateur, given the fact that he had to employ existing hacks to e107 published on Russian security sites. He was simply exploiting a technique developed by someone else.
Resolving the SYS Site
First and foremost, I thank all those who contributed their time, talents, interests, personalities, and hard work for the Skinyourscreen.com community. My principle goal now is to ensure that every creative work previously published on the site remains available to the community somehow. That includes every theme, skin, template, graphic, image, tutorial or review that had been available preceding the site attacks.
However, it is evident that the site cannot be maintained using the same server software used since the early days of the site because of security concerns. This means the loss of our forums, chat-box, user accounts and private messenging facilities, which were all previously integrated into the e107 package. This means that Skinyourscreen.com is going to have to streamline to the essential functions: the ability to publish themes, skins, tutorials, and images while providing facilities for users to share their works while giving the community opportunity for feedback on that content.
The following are some options I've been considering. I've been putting together a few web-templates, too to explore these options (hence the iCan mini-icon pack released today). There are likely other options not mentioned here. If you think of something, feel free to comment:
Skinning progress
I'm now working completely on a Mac. My wife sold my two-year old 2.8Mhz P4 Toshiba laptop to some fellow student friends for $300. With an offer like that, they purchased pretty quick. It's kind of a mixed bag. I didn't want to sell it for that price, but it was to friends who were in dire need of something like that. I'm now without a direct Windows platform I can skin, leaving my LiteStep projects dead in the water.
I have installed VirtualPC for the Mac and installed WinXP, although performance running through an emulation layer is incredibly hampered. It is probably sufficient for testing purposes, however.
So, in short, 2006 is turning out to be a pretty bum year. I haven't even mentioned my academic research, which is roller-coaster as well. Hopefully things get better, especially for our friend Nerio.
Current SYS Site Status
Skinyourscreen.com is broken. All the downloads, tutorials and images are fine, but the site is nonfunctional due to the activity of the MaxPowerhack group of net-hackers and their buddy ErrorHack. Not even the restoration of the MySQL database or the site files has been able to repair what they've done. Frustrating to see a project that you and your friends have invested thousands of man-hours into broken because of some other person's non-related fanatical crusade. C'est la vie.
Many other e107-web-software based sites are also under attack. There were some significant flaws under the previous version of the web-software that have facilitated the compromisation of my server. I don't know how far this reaches, although they have thrice been able to employ it to take the site down. I trust that they would continue to do so even if I reinstalled from scratch.
The Good: SkinWiki and the Skinyourscreen Podcast sites are still completely operational and uncompromised. The only significant downtime these sites experienced was on the 19th and 20th of February, 2006, when a dedicated denial of service attack brought the whole domain down.
Furthermore, since the previous attacks and the subsequent shutdown of the e107-based skinyourscreen site no further attacks have occurred. Though devastating to our site, the work of ErrorHack was still fairly amateur, given the fact that he had to employ existing hacks to e107 published on Russian security sites. He was simply exploiting a technique developed by someone else.
Resolving the SYS Site
First and foremost, I thank all those who contributed their time, talents, interests, personalities, and hard work for the Skinyourscreen.com community. My principle goal now is to ensure that every creative work previously published on the site remains available to the community somehow. That includes every theme, skin, template, graphic, image, tutorial or review that had been available preceding the site attacks.
However, it is evident that the site cannot be maintained using the same server software used since the early days of the site because of security concerns. This means the loss of our forums, chat-box, user accounts and private messenging facilities, which were all previously integrated into the e107 package. This means that Skinyourscreen.com is going to have to streamline to the essential functions: the ability to publish themes, skins, tutorials, and images while providing facilities for users to share their works while giving the community opportunity for feedback on that content.
The following are some options I've been considering. I've been putting together a few web-templates, too to explore these options (hence the iCan mini-icon pack released today). There are likely other options not mentioned here. If you think of something, feel free to comment:
- Reinstall latest version of e107 from scratch and manually reinstall all themes, skins, etc.
- Move the entire site into a Blogger blog and just bring on contributors. The principle SYS domain would just become a repository of files while Blogger provided the front-end.
- Investigate the use of other content management solutions (Xoops, PHP-Fusion, Exponent, TextPattern, ModX, Typo3, DragonFly, JetBox, Geeklog, etc...).
- Create static HTML pages for each theme and the main-page.
Skinning progress
I'm now working completely on a Mac. My wife sold my two-year old 2.8Mhz P4 Toshiba laptop to some fellow student friends for $300. With an offer like that, they purchased pretty quick. It's kind of a mixed bag. I didn't want to sell it for that price, but it was to friends who were in dire need of something like that. I'm now without a direct Windows platform I can skin, leaving my LiteStep projects dead in the water.
I have installed VirtualPC for the Mac and installed WinXP, although performance running through an emulation layer is incredibly hampered. It is probably sufficient for testing purposes, however.
So, in short, 2006 is turning out to be a pretty bum year. I haven't even mentioned my academic research, which is roller-coaster as well. Hopefully things get better, especially for our friend Nerio.
posted by mrbiotech at
2:32 PM
7 Comments:
Hey Mr. B,
So sorry to see SYS down. It was such a nice site. Best of luck getting it back up. Also sorry to hear about the litestep detour. I was itching to see those themes see the light of day :( If you need any help bug-testing on windows platforms...just ask :)
By
Anonymous, at 10:25 PM
if e107 isn't that good, maybe, you should try plaing with something else?
Creating static pages might be a good idea. The only real disadvantage for this would be a lack of interactivity and some problems with content updates. CMSes are better, you know it yourself...
By
SacRat, at 5:13 AM
Mr.B, I agree with Sacrat you should look into another CMS. I spent months looking and testing different software and found that as far a free and secure forum software goes SMF was the best bet. Then I started testing CMS's and found MKportal to be secure and easy to set up. It intergrated into SMF with only 1 file hack, and it also will use the forums theme so the site will look the same throughout. SMF also has a converter to convert your e107 to SMF. If you look through my site you can check out all the functions of the cms and forum. If it's ok with you I will link to the Podcast from my site.
By
Anonymous, at 6:36 AM
my prayers go out to you MrB.
i just dont understand why someone would do that to such an outstanding fellow as yourself. i suppose however those of us that contibute to the spreading of good will are subject to attacks from the ememy. but we have the victory..... and the last laugh.
if i can be of any help please let me know.
your friend tony
By
Anonymous, at 11:52 AM
p.s. Richie, could you share your blog's template so I slightly update mine? ;)
By
SacRat, at 3:30 AM
It's always the same Rich... sh*t always happens to the good guys!... not that knowing that helps much.
By
Anonymous, at 8:05 AM
I am truly sorry about the recent problems you are going through. Hopefully, from this unfortunate situation, a new and even greater site will emerge, phoenix-like,from the ashes of a hack-attack. You're site was one of the best I have encountered. The very best for the ahead year.
By
Anonymous, at 7:20 AM
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