Avsim hacked!

[Artlav]

So, if partition tables is all that is gone, what all this "gone forever" mumble about?

 

[ar81]

If the company goes down, jobs are lost.
If not, you bet that jobs might be cut to pay for the fix.
If you have $100 revenue, and hacker job makes it to be $0, then a loss would push towards downsizing.

If revenue is unaffected, and if payroll was $20, and the fix costs $10, then it means that you need to reduce $10 of payroll to pay for the $10 fix. The fix gives a temporary job to somebody, and $10 of permanente jobs will be lost. Profit remains unaffected.

More police means more taxes to pay police. Or it may involve higher debt that will imply a national mortgage for your kids to pay and a longer crisis, or it may involve printing money that would pay police by devaluating dollar assets of many companies, or it may mean government in need of higher taxes that taxpayers (companies and individuals may be likely to pay).

In capitalism there is no free lunch. If a hacker attacks, it will revert into more crisis that might hit the hacker back, or his loved ones.

Causing great havoc these days is like throwing stones to a glass ceiling. Not the smartest move in the world. If it is just for the sake of vandalism of a lamer, it remains as silly as if it was intentional. A good hacker might want to prevent lamers from attacking, so jobs are not lost so the hacker is not affected by the contribution of crisis the lamer will create.

 

[bradfirj92]

I would be extremely interested in how this was done from a technical standpoint. Gaining access to root on two separate machines is no mean feat. Unless an account with a weak password was added to sudoers and then forgotten about.

Also important! Apparently the file library was on a separate (and hopefully unaffected) NAS. *prays*

 

[Hielor]

Hopefully Orbiter add-on makers will take a lesson from this and upload their Orbiter files to OrbitHangar, where they should be in the first place. This is the exact reason why Vash started linking to other sites on OH. If I'm a user, I don't want to have to hunt all over the internet for addons, especially when there's no reason at all to use AVSIM over OH. It requires a login to even access the files, it has more downtime, and (now we see) it is less secure.

This incident shows that AVSIM was not trustable at all if we talk about proper backups. I'm glad that this happens at a time while I'm going to completely change over to X-Plane (I'll get an extra hard drive for it next month). Since 2001 AVSIM was my basic source for free sounds and liveries for MSFS (as MSFS was the basic focus of AVSIM). But since the MSFS era is going to end (slowly, but it will shrink in future), X-Plane will be my future, including payware stuff and for sure different sources than AVSIM (basically payware anyway).

Compared to FSX, X-Plane was a huge disappointment for me. FSX has many years of life left in it yet.

Especially when you begin talking about payware stuff--the options for X-Plane are extremely limited compared to the options for MSFS.

 

[Overmind5000]

Let's hope that Orbithangar is not destroyed. I get most of my addons from there.

 

[Hielor]

Let's hope that Orbithangar is not destroyed. I get most of my addons from there.

Did you read the thread? OrbitHangar is not AVSIM, so it wasn't touched, and as was discussed earlier, Vash is smart enough to make backups.

 

[ar81]

Let's start having our own backup of OH in our computers...

---------- Post added at 20:33 ---------- Previous post was at 20:32 ----------

I would be extremely interested in how this was done from a technical standpoint. Gaining access to root on two separate machines is no mean feat. Unless an account with a weak password was added to sudoers and then forgotten about.

Also important! Apparently the file library was on a separate (and hopefully unaffected) NAS. *prays*

Wasn't the password "Joshua" :lol::rofl:

 

[dougkeenan]

Like Fahrenheit 451, each of us has to memorize the source code of one module.

 

[Keatah]

Regardless of what was/is done or what is being said and, there was *no* effective tested backup.. It is the site owner's fault that adequate precautions were not taken. You cannot dispute that in any way, shape or form.

Heck, they could have swung by the shop every month or two with a cardboard box of usb drives. That's what I have done in the past. At least only a month or so would be lost.

On a similar note, if one of my personal systems goes down due to hackers or virus problems I just use that as an excuse to go out to the movie while restoring from a drive (kept in a plastic baggie)..

 

[SlyCoopersButt]

Throughout my time on the web I've heard countless cases of software developers and programmers and everyday individuals losing months or even years of work because they never backup their work, But a huge website? Wow. I require backup of my personal stuff at least once every month or so with storage DVD's. But I realize I have neglected for about two. It's easy to get lazy about. It's like having no home insurance. Something you hope never happens but you better be prepared for!

But then why does it never for example seem to fail (To my knowledge) that whenever the FBI or any agency like them can always reconstruct almost any contents that ever were on any hard drive no matter if you format it and fill with junk and so on? Special technology we don't have access to?

 

[jgrillo2002]

If this is the case. if someone has the out planets pack then please by all mean upload it to Orbithangar. I dont think we should upload at avsim anymore because of the way they back up is really going to screw up vital addons for this community/ I think I might have the OP pack somewhere. I just have to find it.

 

[escapetomsfate]

If this is the case. if someone has the out planets pack then please by all mean upload it to Orbithangar. I dont think we should upload at avsim anymore because of the way they back up is really going to screw up vital addons for this community/ I think I might have the OP pack somewhere. I just have to find it.

I have outer planets and the two texture expansions, in the "original" zip files ( I keep all my orbiter downloads in one folder). I could upload it if the author ("VF2_Rolf, Chode, Tony, Hot Dog - many others") is ok with it.

 

[VF2_Rolf]

Sure...go ahead if you have them handy.

 

[ar81]

Instead of "incompetence" I would say there might be a confusion between "familiarity" and "risk".

Statistically you can calculate scientifically a trend with 5 events.
Without that you do not have "scientific evidence" of failure or conditions that lead to failure, which is exactly what happened when Challenger was launched.

Many companies do not take proper action before risks, not by incompetence but because they say "it has not happened before, so it is unlikely to happen". And since risk prevention costs money, they see it as a loss of money.

 

[Linguofreak]

So, if partition tables is all that is gone, what all this "gone forever" mumble about?

Well, loss of a parition table isn't nearly as bad as overwriting the drive, but recovery is still difficult. It may well be that Avsim doesn't have the resources to do it.

 

[bradfirj92]

I understand where the owner is coming from, hard backups can be a PITA to manage even for an individual. Networked backups are great, my pc backs up over network every week, but it's not a solution in itself. That NAS has a tape drive which is used once every 2 or 3 months.

The point is that net backups do become useless in the face of malicious intent because usually if he/she/it has access to the server. They also have access to read write on the Nas.

 

[Tex]

Although you guys make some interesting points about the differences of FSX and X-plane, this is not the thread to do so. Let's stay on-topic about the recent AVSIM news. Thanks guys!

 

[fort]

I think to have all the AVSIM addons for Orbiter since 2005 (...and for the versions since 2005). Some are classified, others no, but with a little time ( but I always can do a research by name or by type )... If necessary in the future and if my connection allows it for me. ..and if the authors me there authorize.

fort

 

[garyw]

I would be extremely interested in how this was done from a technical standpoint. Gaining access to root on two separate machines is no mean feat. Unless an account with a weak password was added to sudoers and then forgotten about.

Also important! Apparently the file library was on a separate (and hopefully unaffected) NAS. *prays*

Chances are it was the same password.

Tom doesn't strike me as the most security aware person. For example, the new forum starts with the URL "linux". Nice way to advertise the OS and so give people the ability to start running attacks against it.

 

[bradfirj92]

If it was the same password he got what he deserved.

Actually thats a bit harsh but it's still really stupid.