What happened, what we know, what we don't know

Thank you for this thread, and for helping, you, and Ghost, and all who have, with getting our accounts back. I never posted, always read, and it had been great to have my account back, so that if I ever wanted to post, I could, and wouldn't have to make a new one.

To those skeptical about what I'm saying there is absolutely nothing that I can say or do that will change your mind.

That's ok. I know the audience of this site consists of all different types of people, some more skeptical than others.

We can agree to disagree. I presented my knowledge and experiences during this time. If you choose not to believe what I'm saying, that's your right. And you can decide if you want to stick around or not. No one has been forced to participate here, and as I stated, we have no idea if something is going to crap out again or not which is why I said back your info up.

The only thing I want to reply to directly is the accusation (I'm hoping in jest, otherwise wow) that my being able to help means that I'm the new owner of ATS. No. I've already lost a significant amount of money here. In 2007 when the site became an actual LLC I put in a 5 figure investment. I never received any return on that investment and it vaporized.

I will absolutely never be the owner as I will not put a dollar more in. Sorry. Time is one thing, money is another.

You don't know me and you don't know the history. Don't levy accusations.

originally posted by: Djarums
In 2007 when the site became an actual LLC I put in a 5 figure investment.

Holy crap! And that was just you. There were others investing as well I'm sure.
I had no idea this place was worth that much at any point in it's history.
I guess I'm out of touch.

a reply to: chr0naut

However, the site is now more vulnerable than that, and any future attempts to resolve issues will take a long time to resolve if there is only one or two (if that) who can fix it.

How can the website now be more vulnerable when the code is hidden than when it's not?

I think you do not understand the term open source. If it's open source EVERYONE has access to the code, so do the hackers. You think you can fix the code faster than the hackers find an exploit? I highly doubt that! What are you up to? It's clearly a bad idea, no amount of side tracking changes that.

By comparison, both Slashdot and Sourceforge are secure, stable, and open source contributor content sites with long pedigree and millions of users.

This is not Slashdot or Sourceforge. Your comparison lacks feet. Accept that you are wrong. If you can not see this, you live in another reality.

What you are arguing for amounts to doing nothing and hoping that it won't all fall apart again.

What part of IP and not having access to the server do you not understand? Point is, you want the source code released yet even if we find fixes, we can not upload the refreshed code. What leaves the hackers with full review of the code and plenty of time to destroy ATS completely!!

Are you that obtuse or are you just acting obtuse with a more nefarious reason?

Because you clearly not understand the gravity of your demand.

ATS is a house and the code is the basement with all the technical stuff, fuse boxes and other important stuff. It was broken in already but the lock is still locked for us. Now you want to publicize the schematics to the lock of that door without being able to change the lock. Even if we find a way to make the lock more secure, the bad guys now have the schematics and know exactly where to set the picks.

Your idea is insane.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
Because you clearly not understand the gravity of your demand.

ATS is a house and the code is the basement with all the technical stuff, fuse boxes and other important stuff. It was broken in already but the lock is still locked for us. Now you want to publicize the schematics to the lock of that door without being able to change the lock. Even if we find a way to make the lock more secure, the bad guys now have the schematics and know exactly where to set the picks.

Your idea is insane.

So, the site 'IP' is safer left in the hands of the site admins - who are missing.

And it was only because of an unpatched vulnerability that we got the site functionality partially back

LOL.

Thank you, guys, mods and those from outside that help, you save ATS for the time being, it was frustrating, sad and horrible to see the site go down like it did with the many undesirables that took advantage of the temporary vulnerability.

ATS owns you a lot.

originally posted by: Djarums
In 2007 when the site became an actual LLC I put in a 5 figure investment. I never received any return on that investment and it vaporized.

You weren't offered a representative percentage from the sale then?

Had I invested a five figure sum on something that was subsequently abandoned by those with the respnsibility to maintain that something I would have no qualms with putting a brick through the window and popping the lock.

Seems only just to me.

Personally, I am as fussy where I put my time as I am my money, but sadly such principles are far too expensive to enable five figure investments in my hobbies.

Taking responsibility is owning it.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Oh yes, at one point it was worth a lot, it was actually one of the best site for information, even caught the attention of some government agencies.

Like everything things change the internet is every rotating entity with many doors.

So another hack. By a mysterious white hat?

Respectfully, Djarums, I don't buy it. I think YOUR story is true, but Im not sure about your friend's story.

I'm sure someone took some action to help you, and DTOM, but it wasnt' just a fellow from Discord that happened by with some computer skills.

Very unlikely.

Your effort is appreciated highly! I haven't asked for may old account to be restored. I will in the future when others more invested are taken care of. Mine wasn't even a year old. So Im good for now.

Thank you BOTH!

a reply to: Djarums

I really appreciate what you and the others did for us all.
Personaly i thought the site was toast.

Cheers

a reply to: sine.nomine

All sites are vulnerable to the owners and sysadmins.

I'm glad that ATS is semi-normalised to it's old self. I'm a long time lurker (about 15 years), and I'd hate to see it go down.

Kudos to all, keep up the excellent work and I love y'all like family! 💚

originally posted by: Djarums
To those skeptical about what I'm saying there is absolutely nothing that I can say or do that will change your mind.

That's ok. I know the audience of this site consists of all different types of people, some more skeptical than others.

We can agree to disagree. I presented my knowledge and experiences during this time. If you choose not to believe what I'm saying, that's your right. And you can decide if you want to stick around or not. No one has been forced to participate here, and as I stated, we have no idea if something is going to crap out again or not which is why I said back your info up.

The only thing I want to reply to directly is the accusation (I'm hoping in jest, otherwise wow) that my being able to help means that I'm the new owner of ATS. No. I've already lost a significant amount of money here. In 2007 when the site became an actual LLC I put in a 5 figure investment. I never received any return on that investment and it vaporized.

I will absolutely never be the owner as I will not put a dollar more in. Sorry. Time is one thing, money is another.

You don't know me and you don't know the history. Don't levy accusations.

I'm not "accusing" anyone.

I'm pointing out that this is not how web hosting works.

There are layers of security involved.

"Ghosts" can't just magically appear in a database, especially managed databases.

And I find it extremely difficult to believe the hosting provider wouldn't contact the client immediately if they suspected a hack or unauthorized access to one of the systems they manage.

I read the discord chat. The "ghost" wants us to believe a site that has been around for more than 20 years has a gaping security flaw that somehow wasn't found during the sites peak popularity? That some little script kiddie figured out some SQL injection, then took down ONLY the usernames and passwords, and not the posts or other data?

Nonsense.

a reply to: ChiefD

As for the absentee owners and their so called "caretakers" - well, I guess I'll keep my mouth shut. I appreciate having my account back and wouldn't want to put it in jeopardy.

Okay, f*ck it...

Absentee owners? That's still the official story on October, 29th?





You know, anyone could have checked that. I can't be the first.

I'll show myself out now...

a reply to: Degradation33

1. he's not the owner, officially just managing it, or was, nobody knows because nobody knows who the owner is
2. gortex and I saw 1.hand that someone is manipulating the log in dates, like it changed from one minute to the next to an earlier date almost while we were looking at it = not trustworthy
3. he might actually be the one who caused the drama, innocent until proven guilty but a possibility

a reply to: Degradation33

I have no idea why you’re attacking my post. Yes, I have seen that, and it has been discussed in several threads. IDC what those stats say. They are wrong. Nobody has heard from the caretakers nor the owners in months. That’s been said all over this site. Please don’t cherry pick things people say and then go on the attack. You go off topic when you do that. No reason to do that. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. It’s rude of you to do this.

a reply to: Degradation33

You can log in without interacting with anyone. I stay logged in and on more than a few days have read threads without posting anything or interacting with anyone.

a reply to: FurPerson

Okay... show myself back in. And good, I'm not the only one that saw that.

I looked yesterday because I hadn't checked that yet.

I don't know though, between nefarious hackers ghosting us and an experiment or game, I lean towards the latter.

Just the fact that they changed it says they wanted it to be noticed. Like they knew (I'm assuming this was on Discord) people were talking about it, and did it so you could see it happen.

Makes me see it more as the pied piper and the leader of rats.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
Because you clearly not understand the gravity of your demand.

ATS is a house and the code is the basement with all the technical stuff, fuse boxes and other important stuff. It was broken in already but the lock is still locked for us. Now you want to publicize the schematics to the lock of that door without being able to change the lock. Even if we find a way to make the lock more secure, the bad guys now have the schematics and know exactly where to set the picks.

Your idea is insane.

I don't think it's entirely insane. If the software that runs ATS was developed in 1999 or so, it's extremely old by today's standards. That makes it "legacy software" a couple times over. Finding anyone with experience to do maintenance or, heaven forbid, make enhancements, is likely difficult. As for intellectual property, I would guess the ATS software has little to no value compared to what one can get off the shelf these days in open-source. It's the data that has value.

If it were up to me, I would migrate ATS to a modern, open-source platform and move all existing accounts and posts to it. It should be configurable enough to retain a familiar look-and-feel of what we're used to but with a lot of new features that are missing. It would be a big undertaking but it's been done countless times and there are people that are really good at it.

After that is done, I would put the old software on GitHub for everyone to enjoy or criticize! Any guesses what the forum is written in? Perl? PHP?