server crash

The server crashed this morning, as a result of one or more persons gaining access to the server (hacking/cracking). They messed up the server and completely crashed it.

I had to get my dad (who lives close to the server) to drive down to the building and reinstall the entire computer. So, it was down (and we working non-stop) from 11:00am CST until now).

dave

Is there any way of catching the person that did this?
I'm sure there a few thousand people that would like to talk with them.
Glad it's back,I hope you can get some rest now.

Romanians again. Maybe Russians. Good luck catching them. :( All they want to do is trade pirated software (and what better venue to do that on, but a stolen web server?!)

Dave

Wondered what happened! I'm shocked you got it up so fast.

Glad to see you back! I missed you all!

LimeyLisa Kay

Today, my dsl server captured four e-mails from four individuals, which each contained the same virus. I'd never seen these addresses before, and never encountered this type of situation. Just wondered if these people got my e-mail address from here... Probably just a coincidence. Anyway, I'm very happy you got it back up so fast, and sorry for your probably not so fun day... Gretchen

Glad things are up and running ok now. I knew you all were working fast and furious. Doesn't that creep you out that burglers try to steal your website. Ugh!

I knew it would be back soon...it's the "dave's way"!

Tell your Dad thanks, dave. Glad he was able to help out.

Sorry you had to deal w/such a head ache day. Hope all is well with you now. (It really seemed to affect all your sites. My goodness!)

Yup, every site is hosting on the same server, so when one feels it, they all feel it. Ugh, what a mess. And, I'm sick of sitting in this office! :) I'm still not done getting everything straightened out... soon.

dave

Tomorrow, no doubt, get outside...stretch your legs. Go shoot something! :>) Target practice! Plant something...get energized!

Here's lookin' at ya! *click*

thanks again!

Thanks Dave and your Dad for getting the site running again quickly. About 82,312 of us are very grateful. I hope you can keep the creeps out next time they try to get in.

Hey, Dave - glad to see everyone again! I remember when my webhost's server was hacked last year. It ended up with some of the church sites being replaced by porn - not too nice.

Kauffmann, it's doubtful the e-mail address was gotten from DG. Chances are it was just picked up from someone who had corresponded with you at one point, or even forwarded an e-mail that still had your e-mail address in the original "to" field.

Thanks GW. It was very weird...

I had an e-mail today offering to fix something on my computer (don't remember what) as soon as I saw that it had an attachment I deleted it. I'm sure that it did not come from here, the bad guys can get to you from many different sources. One clue was that the source line looked like a subject line.

Boy, am I glad to see Dave's Garden back, I was getting withdrawl jitters.

Thanks for all your hard work Dave. Really missed it today.

Having run a BBS in my younger days there is nothing worse than a hacker. It used to be little teenage kids trying to just see if they could crash something. Now it looks like there is a bigger game!
Those wild and crazy guys!

Withdrawal symptoms here, too, but it gave me more time to pick out the daylilies I wanted from Melissa_Ohio's co-op. So sorry you had to go through such an ordeal! Thank you for all of your hard work and please tell your Dad how grateful all of us are for his efforts, too. We are really lucky to have such dedicated people running things here.

The email addresses are actually well hidden, even if you got access to the server.

Once you access the server, you would then need to crack into the database itself (which is also protected by a different password) and then once you got into the database, you'd have to figure out where amongst the 30 *GIGS* of data in the base the emails are hidden.

So, I feel pretty safe saying that "no, nobody got the email addresses". :)

dave

Dave, as well as you bury important things like e-mail databases, do you lose your keys at home?

The keys always go in the glass dish on the side table by the door, right by my wallet and wristwatch. :) Never lost 'em!

Dave, at least one good thing happened today because of the server problem ... I sure accomplished a lot of spring house cleaning instead of being on the computer. :o) Thanks go to you and your Dad for working so long and hard to recover everything. Knowing all of us are suffering waiting for the site to be back online must be real pressure on you guys. From one Texan comes a tip of the Stetson (really a straw hat I use when gardening) to both of you.

One hardly ever realizes how much one looks forward to visiting a Web site each day until it disappears. I felt lost without Dave's Garden.

Dave, you and your dad deserve a real pat on the back for your exemplary work in getting the site back up and running in such a short time. I wish you would talk to the people at AOHell and give them a few pointers :))

Again, a heartfelt "thanks" for the site and for your work!

Jean

withdrawls no dt's yes. i worried all day about this. dave i wonder sometimes if you really understand how important this sight is to many of us. it has been my sanity for over 3 yrs now. it has been a god send and i will never leave you.

You wanna know the place DG holds for me? I reset my cable modem and router twice before I thought to try another web page and see if I could get ANY pages to come up. How sad is THAT?? :) Thanks Dave & Dad for getting DG back up online so fast...Didn't seem like it to you, I'm sure, but other sites can be down for days for this kind of stuff.

Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. After checking the site over 20 times today, I finally saw your short message about the hard crash. All I could think of was all the hard work you were putting into it to bring it back on line. You are an amazing man!!

Donna....who got a lot of painting done in the computer room cause you were down. lol

Dave-not to add more to read....but on the flip side....I didn't even notice. I'm usually not on until evening CDT so at least "some" of us never knew there was a hiccup. Gotta love the responsiveness, dedication and diligence of Dave! I've said it before and I'll say it again....You Da Man!

My whole day was bad. I was really worried over the crash. I kep thinking 8:43 A.M.PST. and the time never changed,such a sickening feeling. I guess I really like this site!

Dave,

glad to see you got it up and running. A similar thing happened to my hubby (he owns a business). His server at work was more or less "hijacked" and was being used to roll spam over the internet. He ended up getting banned from his original server before they figured out what was going on (they had to find out how deep it was, and if he wasn't spamming".)

From what I learned from that ordeal was that they use different companies (hijacked) servers to flight the spam back and forth, over numerous isps so that it makes it very hard to track.

Tell you what - hubby was one ticked off man. It took about 2 weeks to clear the whole thing up, and get re-connected. His website was down, and that is where they get their most traffic from.

They secured more updated firewalls (you understand this lingo better than I do) and are ok thus far.

Thanks Dave and thanks to your dad ...I'm glad to see you all again !

Thanks dave and your dad for the diligent work :)

Hope you and the family can get some out of office time together to get rejuvenated!!

Think I also had withdrawal ... kept on checking on this site throughout the day and became very scared and worried. Thank you Dave and Dave's Dad -- you're the best! God bless you both!

Whew!, I'm amazed in the short time you were able to get the forum back up and running Dave! Great job! Tell your Dad that we appreciate his help too!
Glad to have DG back!!!!

That was swift Dave, well done!

Thanks to your Dad too for helping.

The same thing was tried on a football (soccer) site which I visit often, and they also claimed it was Easten Europeans.

Again, well done!!


Wintermoor

I have to agree with SoCal...I got my dining room and foyer primed because I couldn't surf on DG. So it was a mixed blessing, because I really wanted to play on DG!

LimeyLisa Kay

glad to see we are back n safe!!! thanks DAVE and Dave's daddy!

:)

Knew something was up, but knew you would fix it!! Kuddos!

"eyes"

Ditto to what 'eyes' said.

Ditto to what 'eyes' and melody said.

Yes, I was like htop and picked my self up and got some things done around the house!

Sorry about your crash, Dave. Thanks to you & your dad for getting it back up so quickly from my perspective. When it ain't there, you remember how much you take it for granted!

Once again, Dave, thanks for taking such good care of all of us, and to your Dad for helping, too.