Bah.

[Tom]

Over on Pistonheads, a forum I frequent, one of the mods had his/her account hacked by a known idiot and previously banned person.

Now I once called him a troll (for IIRC a pretty racist post, PH gets loads of trolls, usually green activists or cyclists), only to have him investigate my profile, find my webpage, see my phone number, and set an autodialling machine to ring my house for the entire day. Which was irritating. He then sent me an email threat, telling me to 'expect a visit'.

So I threatened to report him to the police, at which point he came across all jokingly as if it were a big laugh.

Tonight he reappears, hacks this mod's account (god knows how, probably an unsecured PC), starts fucking around with people's passwords and profiles (including mine), and closes the forum down for an hour or so while the mods sort it all out.

I then find out that my YouTube account has been permanently disabled, which was annoying since I had more than a few unique videos on there, and I've spent the last 30 minutes googling my alias (not Tom) to see what other forums pop up, and changing my password on them as well.

How fucking annoying is that? I hope FH has better security tbh. The mod that had his/her account hacked wasn't even a supermod.

 

[throdgrain]

Look on the bright side mate, at least he didnt steal your cat!

 

[Tom]

Honestly, there are some right fucking nutters out there. People who get very seriously upset by others telling them to fuckoff.

I'm talking people who can't tell the difference between life and the internet.

 

[Skyler]

PHPBB?

I doubt vBulletin would be hacked like that.

Although that depends if it was a forum hack or simply getting passwords of known accounts, in which case no forum is really safe there

 

[Tom]

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/

Thats the forum. I have no idea about what forum software it is tbh.

 

[SheepCow]

Passwords for FreddysHouse accounts are one-way encrypted and so it is (somewhat) impossible for someone to get your account even if the database becomes compromised. Although not insanely secure (MD5 is used and has technically been "cracked") it is still reasonably secure and exceedingly unlikely for any common folk to be able to reverse a hash into your password.

So never fear.

 

[Skyler]

vBulletin is 9million times more secure than other forum software anyway.

That forum looks custom made, or perhaps based off a freely available template, either way that wont be as secure as vBulletin for example (afaik).

I suggested PHPBB since I know that has had exploits for certain versions.

 

[Tom]

Well I don't really understand what you're talking about but it sounds scary enough.

I was just wondering how he did it. I think probably he was engaged in email conversation with that mod, and got their ip address from the email, and then got into their computer that way?

I feel for that mod, they've probably got a wiped HD now

 

[Skyler]

Not sure how you get an IP from an email address.

I would say lots of hacks happen by gaining access to the persons Hotmail or other webmail service and then gathering passwords from there and off they go.

Which is why I now use Hushmail.

 

[Tom]

Isn't the ip in the email header thingy?

 

[Skyler]

No idea I haven't used pop3 email for many many years.

 

[Tom]

oooo get you

 

[psyco]

lemony snickets, a series of unfortunate events

i feel for you m8

that dude needs help...

 

[TdC]

people do strange things to get back /even /make a point. tbh if the guy made personal contact with you and harassed you I'd report him to the police anyway.

 

[throdgrain]

Im sorry Tom I have no idea why I made that earlier post, was well drunk tbh

As far as the earlier post goes, Im not sure there is a difference between telling someone to fuckoff on the internet or to thier face is any different, Ive always seen it as the same really, dont say something to someone you wont back up.

/cue loads of "fuckoff" posts now

 

[Chilly]

Tom, the mechanism for hacking was probably a bit more subtle than hacking into his PC. It probably invovled SQL injection or an XSS attack - these are actually pretty common.

 

[Calaen]

That is shit :-(

I hope you can find your videos again.

 

[throdgrain]

Yeah its absolute bollocks hope it gets sorted mate

 

[Sharma]

people do strange things to get back /even /make a point. tbh if the guy made personal contact with you and harassed you I'd report him to the police anyway.

Sounds like a few users we've had to deal with in the past tbfh.

 

[TdC]

really? I'd not noticed