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So, for better or worse I'm a speaker at a magazine conference in Edinburgh later this week and my topic is community and forums. I wanted to tell the story of the great hack of singletrack back in December 2008 and how the forum was a huge part of our survival. I want to show the shot of the site when hacked. There was a simple message left by the hacker - Farse and referenced us being owned and linked to evilzone.org (still there but no forum). I'm sure someone posted a screenshot recently.
If you google "stw farse" it's there
I'm sure it was worse for you @mark but that event fair ruined my Christmas
I've just been going through emails of the time. It was pretty traumatic
Don’t forget saving the Picolax thread
The image of the hack when you google STW Farse is really tiny. Does anyone have a larger version?
Yeah recalls at the time it was very neatly end of STW as a business. I also recall the army of members finding ways to track the culprit down.
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/Sxf4rKTC/pwned-1.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/Sxf4rKTC/pwned-1.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
I joined just before it happened and then next thing I knew my account had to be changed for some reason to do with a hack.
I assumed this was just completely normal and happened all the time. Little did I know that I was witnessing history in the making.
The hack forced me to work at the job I'm paid for. Very harrowing.
Were there logs from the time?
Gosh - I am living history.
Fourteen years ago.
Bikebiz has an article for those that were there but can't remember anything;
https://bikebiz.com/singletrack-hacked-update-in-the-works/amp/
What happened to the individual responsible?
He was sent off to bed with no pudding.
Quoting @mark
This topic has 38 replies, 26 voices, and was last updated 9 years ago by buzz-lightyear.
Viewing 39 posts - 1 through 39 (of 39 total)
The STW pre-2008 hack. What happened/outcome?
hora
Free Member
Going back a few years but what happened in the end?Posted 9 years ago
REPORT
Jamie
Free Member
http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/what-year-was-the-great-hackPosted 9 years ago
REPORT
grum
Free Member
Are we allowed to talk about it then? Pretty sure I got banned for mentioning it once.Posted 9 years ago
REPORT
zokes
Free MemberPosted 9 years ago
REPORT
Mark
Full Member
grum… what? No you didn’t. Why on earth would we?The answer is absolutely nothing happened.
West Yorkshire police said it was not in the public interest to pursue a prosecution, despite the fact we not only had a confession but the name and address of the hacker who did it. This also despite the fact the same hacker admitted to previously breaking in to and stealing an NHS database containing patient info.
Also, our own business interruption insurance refused to payout on the grounds, ‘there was no physical signs of entry to the building.’ No really!
If anything good came out of it it was that the hacking group concerned agreed to an amnesty and to leave us alone since they found themselves on the pointy end of the wrath of not only our own in house hacking skills but also that of many members of the forum who successfully engaged in an effective DNS attack on their website.
Oh, and the bit where the hacker rang me up from a phone box to tell me that if we tried to trace him that he’d just ping us around the world forever and we’d never catch him. To which my response was, ‘Well, Scott, I think we already know who you are and where you live and what school in Norwich you go to’.
The brief silence before he hung up warms me to this day, although I’d still rather the police had taken it seriously. They even told us that it wasn’t their problem since our servers at the time were located in Atlanta – Their advice was to contact the FBI!
So, bitter/sweet memories although to be pragmatic about it that was the moment we rebuilt and changed things and was probably the catalyst for our development and experiments with digital publishing, so I don’t lose sleep over it any more
In a similar vein to Caher I had to interact with the extended family, completely ruined Christmas!
Mlehworld had a record number of new and simultaneous users. Few hung around for long.
I joined not too long before it happened as well iirc, I remember thinking wtf do I do now? I think I ended up on Mlehworld too 🤣
And I'm still (occasionally) on there.
It doesn't appear to be on Wayback, though your triumphant return is.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090221134941/http://www.singletrackworld.com/2009/01/were-back/
I've been through a lot of emails from that time. It caused flashbacks!
YOU WEREN"T THERE MAN!
Interesting looking back at the analytics from that period. Despite losing everything and starting entirely from scratch it looks like we didn't miss a beat in terms of traffic 🙂
Thanks for the hi-res link to that image Scot
Will the presentation be recorded?
Can we watch it?
Coulda/shoulda adopted that smiley iced cocktail jug for some merch.
Coulda/shoulda adopted that smiley iced cocktail jug for some merch.
That I believe is Kool-Aid Man, so there may be IP issues there.
Ah. I never did drink the Kool Aid being from West Yorkshire.