An explanation of exactly what happened this weekend.

[dandelions]

After talking about this to some of the people who've been helping with the aftermath over the last few days, I have decided to tell you all exactly what happened to this site.

In November 2006, Joeno used the site access he still had to delete one of our two databases, the one which controlled non-forum settings and the one he had had the most involvement in creating. This included things like the pet size data, the pet colour database, and smaller things like that. This access was, of course, removed, but after a mistake, the November password was restored to the domain. This weekend, he used this access to first demote my admin account and disable the board- some of you may have seen that. When I fixed that, he set up a cron job to attempt to delete the contents of the entire domain twice a minute, sending a log of what was happening to my email address.

What did that mean for the site? Well, it depends how it's looked at. It did not affect the site files at all, considering their varying states of inactivity as it was. The forum was last fully backed up on February 3rd, with a backup actually in the process of being made while the domain was being deleted. This backup never fully completed, as can be expected, but it did get as far as saving the posts made since the 3rd. Hence, the majority of posts are safe, and all PMs should be.

The following things are therefore safe:
- all files relating to the new Neocolours
- user signups before February 3rd
- private messages
- all posts and topics created before February 3rd; all posts made to topics created before February 3rd; most posts made to topics created after February 3rd

What is possibly missing are the following things:
- topics which were unable to be restored- we had to manually point the database to the first and last posts, data about when it was created, and topic titles. If any of these were missing, the topic was lost. This applies to three topics, as far as I remember.

What is definitely missing are the following:
- user signups since February 3rd
- topic watches since February 3rd
- usergroup membership changes since February 3rd
- mods: the quick reply, gender, topic title on index, modified latest topics and the PM reply mods are not currently installed, as the deletion required a fresh installation of phpBB
- the custom error pages. Ironically, they're the one thing I don't have backed up, despite having created them myself. If anyone has a copy in their cache, I'd be grateful.

I have upgraded the forum to phpBB 2.0.22 at the same time; without the mods present, this is a lot more straightforward than it otherwise is. I will consider reinstalling the mods, but the fewer mods we have, the easier future upgrades are, especially the upgrade to phpBB3, which is due to be released later this year. I also no longer have a copy of the installs for certain mods.

I apologise for any posts lost as a result of this, and would also like to thank the people who have helped me in restoring the database and checking its validity, which was no small task; the SQL query to restore each backup contained approximately 2.5 million lines of code and the second had to be compared against the first to determine exactly what was missing. Once that was done, the topic data for any posts made after the 3rd had to be located manually in order for the posts to be visible. I am inexperienced in dealing with MySQL, and the help I received was invaluable.

If you notice anything unusual- posts or private messages claiming not to exist, topics being unlocked when they were locked before, or strange error messages- please tell me as soon as possible. If you are unable to post, please email octobermoth@hotmail.com.

[Zap]

Jesus. I'm so sorry you've had to deal with all this mess.

What a germ.

Huge thanks and praise and appreciation to you, and everyone who's helped to put things back together.

[Aqua]

Why the hell was he doing that? O_o He seemed like a nice helpful person before, I guess he decided to be an asshole for some reason?

Oh well.. At least it's back now. *love and hugs for Jazzy/Kamil/anyone else that had to deal with this situation*

[Kantark]

Everyone involved in getting this running again has my undying love and respect. Those involved with breaking it in the first place, er, don't.

[Jessi]

I already posted my less-mature thoughts in chat, so i won't bother with it here.

Just, kudos to you, Jazzy, and everyone who gave you a hand with what you had to go through this past weekend and getting the site back to us <3 And hopefully Joeno won't be stupid enough to try anything again x_X

[Rainbow Daydreamer]

...the site's been up for this long? How come it hasn't been coming up when I've been going back to it all day?

And I am very, very confused. I don't know Joeno but I thought he was a site helper? Did he make a mistake?

Anyhow, yay for the return of Neocolours! We are, um, the forum that survives things. Or something snappier to that effect.

[Jessi]

...the site's been up for this long? How come it hasn't been coming up when I've been going back to it all day?

Methinks you're confused, RD. It's only been up for an hour if even.

[Rainbow Daydreamer]

Oh, I see. I had my timezone an hour off by mistake, so I thought it'd been up since 1am-ish this morning...

[Slugawoo]

I'm a bit confused as to why he did this, too. o.0; Did someone do something to piss him off?

Thanks much, all of you for getting the site back up. ;o; -missed it muchly-

[zebru]

What was the little #@¥¤}‡≈≠ playing at?! So he crashed the site and forum both X-( *swears lengthily*

EDIT:

After reading the topic Trick posted I can vaguely understand why he tore the site apart (him having coded most of it and all) but I really don't get why he tried to destroy the forum as well. He certainly holds grudges for a long while. I poked around German neocolours a bit and it seems like a very serene community - prettily coded too.

Well done Jazzy and others who coped with this. Thank you for saving the precious!

[Trick]

You don't need to go too far back to remember this thread.

I prefer it when people just flounce with out the petty need for "revenge".

Kudos to Jazzy for getting the forum back up to speed so quickly.

[Marah]

:Ties herself to the forums:

They are baaaccckk!

Thank you all for your hard work!

[Kamil]

Eee! Clickable topic links are back on the main page. Thanks ever so for adding that mod, Jazzy! <3

[Madge]

Can someone please post a long explanation of Joeno's motivations? Are the problems with the front page a result of sabotage, too? I have so many questions, would it be possible for someone to post an explanation of what has happened with everything? I mean, has no-one contacted him since that board was made and locked, or has someone been talking to him over e-mail? Did he just delete all the forum stuff out of the blue, or did he have some motivation to do it at this point in time?

I mean, this sort of behaviour reminds me of Carly's "descent into madness". Except this time I have no reason to feel as though I caused it, which is a refreshing change .

In other news, it's awesome that the forum is more or less intact, and at least now I know why it was telling me stuff I'd read was unread .

Thankyou guys very much for getting everything done, you rules and it is awesome to have you.

[AngharadTy]

Well, on the one hand, you guys deserve to know what happened--but then, you do know, now, and on the other hand, to tell you all the "why" would be to air his dirty laundry. Plus, no one but him really knows the entire "why." He did try to take down everything, even things he had no predetermined control over; he was in contact with Jazzy during that first episode, and has been contacted some since. The original motivation was vengeance for the topic Trick referenced, and some misguided notion that he "owned" it, completely and utterly. (We did research of our own on that topic, and suffice to say, he doesn't.)

So the result is that we don't have him as a coder anymore, and he tried to attack our site. Does a number-by-number list really matter, in the face of that? ^_~