BPN Slowness and Down Time.

[James Shadle]

Just like DPReview and a few other large photography sites, BPN is recovering from a hack attack.

Our first order of business is to get the server stable. Our next steps in this order will be, return performance to peak levels and then fix links to missing images.

Our overall plan includes ways to prevent future attacks and fast change-over backup servers.

The bad guys are really smart, so we have recruited some even smarter folks to help us prevent successful attacks in the future.

Please continue to be patient while we work this out.

I would like to apologize for not communicating this better. I have been so single minded (as have the rest of our recovery team) in my attempt to get us back and stable that I neglected to communicate with those who mean the most to us - you. I am sorry.

James

[Myer Bornstein]

Thanks for the info

[Ed Cordes]

Don't be sorry Capt. Jim. It is not your fault this happened. You and the entire BPN staff have always been great. It is a cry'n shame that the SOB's who did this are allowed to exist on the planet. That is something to be sorry about.

Keep up the good work you and everyone are doing and know that us BPNers will continue to support this wonderful site.:D

[Bryan Hix]

Thanks for the update. It's good or maybe not, to know what's been going on. Hopefully BPN comes back stronger, faster, and able to deflect the nastiest bad guys.

[Don Railton]

Hi James
I think regular visitors would understand the 'wheels had come off ' a little and this would have created a diversion behind the scene. I guess new visitors may not be so tolerant of a misbehaving website however I would suggest to them that its worth the wait. I intend to become a member ASAP but will wait until things become stable again before the credit card comes out...

DON

[Christopher Miller]

Thanks very much for the info, James. Greatly appreciate the fine job you all do and hope everything gets worked out without too much trouble. :)

[Jamie Strickland]

thanks for the update James, its good to know whats going on and for sure people are more patient when they know

nothing more frustrating than dealing with crazy problems like this I deal with all the time at work

[Dennis "Curly" Buchner]

I feel your pain as I was hacked a couple years ago and you really feel helpless when they strike

[Michael Wolf]

So this was an out & out deliberate attack!?

Thanks James....we are hanging tough with you & all the BPN Staff.

[Ray Rozema]

Thanks for the update and your hard work. why do they attack the site? do they have something to gain.? If you do not answer my question I underatnd.

thanks Ray

[James Shadle]

Thanks for the update and your hard work. why do they attack the site? do they have something to gain.? If you do not answer my question I underatnd.

thanks Ray

I don't know what they gain.:confused:

[Grace Scalzo]

Thanks for all your work, James. BPN is worth the wait. Hang in there....

[Harshad Barve]

Thanks for info James and don't be sorry , We all know in all crisis our captain leads from the front

[LouBuonomo]

Smart people with too much time on their hands....

[William Malacarne]

Smart people with too much time on their hands....

Smarts are wasted without common sense:(.

Bill

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the feedback Captain! :)
thanks for all your efforts behind the scenes. all this for a feeling of power. those people should get a job or something...

[Ken Watkins]

You can only wonder what sort of person finds this site offensive enough to warrant an attack?

Surely they must have something better to do?

Well done and thanks to all those concerned in getting back on line.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

James,
Well done Capt. and team. Good that things are up and running. Unfortunately, countering these attacks take up a lot of time, energy and resources. And resources not only means people, but also finances. There are good people involved in the recovery team. I hope, there are enough paying members to keep BPN on a sound footing as well.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Markus Jais]

Thanks for the info, James.
It is sad that there are some morons out there who have nothing better to do than attack a nature photography website.
I've been working in the IT industry for about 10 years now and this crap happens all too often for no obvious reasons. I hope you can figure out who they are but if they are really smart (in some strange way), it will be very hard to find them.

Markus

[Adrian David]

Thank you for the info, James.
Thank you for the efforts to keep the site working!

Adrian.

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Don't worry Skipper, your crew is right behind you and fully understand and appreciate the effort you folks at the sharp end are making on behalf of the site.

Take your time and remember the the loyalty of your members is not in question and we shall be right here when the good ship "USS BPN" once again has a full head of steam.

Thanks for your hard work all of you and anything we can do to help you only have to ask.:):)

[christopher galeski]

thanks for the info,thought it was my computer.:)

[Rocky Sharwell]

I just hate to see you and everyone else from BPN suffer from this sort of crap--The facebook update was appreciated. Keep up the good work--it is worth the wait as you will come back stronger!

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Good work to all of your team. Hope for your sake you can come up with a plan to block this sort of thing. These people are just self serving jerks. Keep up the good work!

[Jamie Strickland]

guys the new server rocks !!!

thanks for the hard work on doing all of this

[Dave Leroy]

I agree. It has made a big difference.:)

[Myer Bornstein]

The new server is great no hesitation fast etc Thanks to all who made it happen :):):)

[Kartikeya Puri]

I am glad that BPN is deflecting bad guys and we have some smart people to around to ensure we stay safe. Motivation of hte attackers will be hard to understand, but from what I know, it is mostly for bragging rights. If you target a site with enough visitors you get yourself a name. If the site has some payment information, all the better. If a server is compromised a bad guys can start distributing some malware from it. Possibilities are endless.

However in most cases you come across people who are trying to compromise a systems security blindly without caring much about the gains. They are also known as "script kiddies". The best way of dealing with future attacks is toe ensure they you do not introduce any new weakness in the system and apply security fixes as given by vBulletin on time.

Good effort from the recovery team for the effort. Thank you.

Cheers,
Kartik

[James Shadle]

"If the site has some payment information, all the better"

We do not have any user CC or financial information stored on site.

Thanks!

[arash_hazeghi]

Site still loads slow (1AM PST) is this downtime for maintenance?

[James Shadle]

It could be the host doing maintenance. We Defrag at 1AM, EDT I thought:confused:.
I will check and thanks for the heads up.
James

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi James,
site is really slow right now, I did a ping and all timed out.

[James Shadle]

Big, big changes are coming!!!!!!!!
And soon.

I'm working on the current issue.

[Desmond Chan]

I also experienced slow-down a couple of days ago - after the installation of new server - and also last night.

[arash_hazeghi]

Looks like so far you have been unable to fully resolve the issues :(