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krisse is offline krisse
2009-05-14 , 12:58
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#1
Apparently the flight sim site Avsim has had both its servers destroyed simultaneously by hackers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8049780.stm

One acted as the backup for the other, so apparently there's nothing left of the site at all (except whatever they can scrape from online caches).

I realise people are going to say "why didn't they have better backups", but it still shocks me that hackers would do a thing like this. What on earth did the hackers have to gain from this? How did they think this would make the world a better place for anyone?
 
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2009-05-14 , 13:09
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#2
Originally Posted by krisse View Post
I realise people are going to say "why didn't they have better backups", but it still shocks me that hackers would do a thing like this. What on earth did the hackers have to gain from this? How did they think this would make the world a better place for anyone?
Having two public facing servers as the only method of backup isn't a good idea. It is sad but there are many more crimes in this world that are a lot more sever and happen all the time.

No the hackers shouldn't of done it, yes, the site should of had better backup facilities, no, I don't have much sympathy.
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andrewfblack is offline andrewfblack
2009-05-14 , 13:21
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#3
Even for reasons other then hackers they should have offsite backup that to several locations. The company i work for backs out server up daily, and uploads the backup to 2 other computers also our tech guy uploads a third backup to a External drive that is only hooked up to a computer long enough to pull the back up then removed. I know this might be a little much for a simple website but atleast monthly I would back my sites up to another location.
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2009-05-14 , 13:23
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#4
Seriously, to not have an offsite data center for something like that...? Wow.

Tim
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Baloo's Avatar
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2009-05-14 , 13:26
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#5
Originally Posted by andrewfblack View Post
Even for reasons other then hackers they should have offsite backup that to several locations. The company i work for backs out server up daily, and uploads the backup to 2 other computers also our tech guy uploads a third backup to a External drive that is only hooked up to a computer long enough to pull the back up then removed. I know this might be a little much for a simple website but atleast monthly I would back my sites up to another location.
Two backups are arguably fine as long as one of them is off-line. With both backups being public facing and online it means that your skating on thin ice which is bound to break at some point.

I have a backup server (very low powered) that pulls data off of my other (low powered) server. The backup server is internal only, responds to no-one and has no internet connection. Works well for me.
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krisse's Avatar
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2009-05-14 , 13:28
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#6
Originally Posted by Baloo View Post
but there are many more crimes in this world that are a lot more sever and happen all the time.
Would you say that if someone complains about a delayed Maemo hardware launch or an unresolved bug in Bugzilla?


No the hackers shouldn't of done it, yes, the site should of had better backup facilities, no, I don't have much sympathy.
You realise this isn't just the site maintainers that have lost stuff but all the people that contributed to the site for 13 years. Don't you have much sympathy for them?
 
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2009-05-14 , 13:28
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#7
Geez, that sucks. Even *I* have offsite backup. In fact, I'm so bloody paranoid about loosing data that I kinda go to the extreme with my backups. If someone wanted to take me offline, it'd only be down long enough to figure out how the heck they got in. After that it'd just be business as usual again.

As for why they did it, the reasons are numerous. But most likely someone was on an ego trip and just had something to prove. People enjoy being malicious, and this is just further proof of that. Then again, it's also excellent proof that some admins are idiots.
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Mara's Avatar
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2009-05-14 , 13:28
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#8
The time I worked as sys admin for a small company we kept backup tapes/drives stored in a separate location than company.

Since it was a bare tape/drive there was 0% chance any hacker can gain access to it through internet... Only if they actually broke in to the location where the tape was stored.... To make the task more difficult the information where the tapes were kept was not documented anywhere (due to security reasons), so there was no way a hacker could have found that information from the data stored on the servers.

So I think that they did not follow a good security measures and therefore they got burned because of it...
 
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krisse is offline krisse
2009-05-14 , 13:32
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#9
Originally Posted by Lord Raiden View Post
As for why they did it, the reasons are numerous. But most likely someone was on an ego trip and just had something to prove. People enjoy being malicious, and this is just further proof of that. Then again, it's also excellent proof that some admins are idiots.
There is a massive MASSIVE difference between an incompetent admin and a hacker deliberately destroying 13 years of community work.

It frightens me that someone would do something like this deliberately. They must have serious social problems.
 
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2009-05-14 , 13:46
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#10
Originally Posted by krisse View Post
Would you say that if someone complains about a delayed Maemo hardware launch or an unresolved bug in Bugzilla?
Of course I would say the same thing. I was just trying to put it into context. Something pretty bad happened to someone who was a little lax with their security. Would you have a lot of sympathy for someone who left their car unlocked with the keys still in it and subsequently had it stolen?

Originally Posted by krisse View Post
You realise this isn't just the site maintainers that have lost stuff but all the people that contributed to the site for 13 years. Don't you have much sympathy for them?
Yes, I realize. As I said before, yes its a bad thing that happened but some silly and lax security and backup policies led to it being possible.
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