TBGA ???

[Dowse]

G'day everyone, not sure if this is the right place to ask, but does anyone know what is happening with the TBGA (The Bowhunters Group of Australia) I havn't been able to connect to the site for 4 or 5 days. Any help would be great.

[Nephew]

No idea, mate. I just tried to log in and it just keeps timing out on me. Maybe they're updating, or changing servers or something?

[piggy]

This has been copied from another site.

Archery Forum, and TBGA is hosted on the same servers as AF:
"Archery Forum could be down a while. Out host's network has been badly attacked.
"Engineers are at DC working on restoring services asap. Very deliberate, coordinated & malicious attack on DIT network the cause. No ETA yet"

[Dowse]

Thanks for the information mate. Sounds like someone has got it in for them, trying their best to disrupt things. Might have to go out and hunt a little harder now.

[Reece]

The hosting company has been the target of an attack.

If you google "Distribute IT" you can get updates or you can look at the blog they keep updated - http://distributeitsupport.blogspot.com/

[looseplucker]

Just got an email from Antonio. The site has been irretrievably hacked. Apparently trashed with data, stories etc all gone.

[kimall]

Thanks LP thats not good any news if there will be a new bigger and better version.
Cheers KIM

[looseplucker]

Will post tomorrow cannot do with my crackberry

[piggy]

Greetings to you all. I am writing to inform you all that the host server for The Bowhunters Group of Australia www.aussiebowhunter.com was recently hacked on a huge scale. The server itself literally hosts thousands of websites and many have been affected. Throughout the week they have been working on restoring all the servers they hosted and have been successful with many. We have been patiently waiting for ours to be turned back on soon, as they were down to restoring the last four that went down. Unfortunately though, we have just been informed by their technical experts that these four servers have been deemed 'unrecoverable'. It saddens me very much to say it, but unfortunately this means that our entire database has been lost, along with all membership registrations and all the many 100's of thousands of informative posts with it. There is still a slim chance that some of it may be recovered, but we basically have to treat it as though we are starting again from scratch and whatever we getback will be a bonus.

I have been talking to Marcus Anear, from Archery Forum and Urban Archery, and he has lost all of his stuff as well. So the two biggest bowhunting and archery websites in Australia have been smashed. 10 years of a lot of hard work from a lot of good people gone thanks to the sad attitude of a couple of hackers.

Marcus is in the process of getting our domains hooked up to a new host, one that does a non web hosted back up, so we will be starting up again in next week or so. We will have to use a new skin for the site, so it will look different when we first get it back up. As we progress we will be endeavouring to get it back to its former glory and it will take a big effort from all the members to get it back to where it was.

It looks like it is going to be a new beginning for us and I will communicate to all that I can when we are going again. I hope to see you all back there soon and we are going to have to come together again as a bowhunting community to get all of our great information up and help in sharing in our love of this great pastime.

On behalf of the team at TBGA, we are very sorry for the inconvenience and also for the disruption it may have caused anyone. If you have the opportunity to pass this on to other members can you please do so in order to keep everyone informed. Yours in Bowhunting, Antonio Lara

[Stickbow Hunter]

I was not a member of the site but I really feel for the Admin and members who it would seem have lost all the content and hard work that was represented in the site. It will take time but I am sure they will rebuild again.

I wish these low lifes that do this kind of vandalism would get caught and be dealt with appropriately by the law.

Jeff

[Rock Steady]

There was a lot of good info that has been lost, but they can always rebuild.

Jeff, is Ozbow backed up on a non web based server?

[looseplucker]

An occasion for sharia law for mine. Hard to type and therefore hack if all your fingers have been cut off.

Piggy, thanks for posting Ant's email. This is just mindless vandalism and when it destroys what people have built on a voluntary basis, out of passion and love for a pastime I just feel furious.

[Stickbow Hunter]

Jeff, is Ozbow backed up on a non web based server?

I don't believe so but I am going to look into it. I believe it is backed up on a second server only.

Jeff

[TomMcDonald]

Hey, on the bright side, maybe more of those bowhunters will visit Ozbow and as a result get into traditional bowhunting practices.

[Stickbow Hunter]

Hey, on the bright side, maybe more of those bowhunters will visit Ozbow and as a result get into traditional bowhunting practices.

Not a real bright side though mate if it happened because of this kind of vandalism.

Jeff

[bigbob]

Just thought I'd mention that another site I visit, the Martin tech forum in USA [yeah its for wheely bows] has been hacked as well and is down and out. Grubs that do this sort of thing must suffer from a huge inferiority complex and need to bolster their grubby little egos with malicious and wanton damage to something that gives pleasure to a huge number of people. They should be locked away for years without access to any computer and have endless tapes of Barry Manilow played at full volume into their twisted brains.

[billb]

Atrociously innappropriate backup procedures.
First rule of backup is have one copy off site. ie. not in the same place as everything else.
All their backups appear to have been on the same servers as the sites themselves.

Must be heartbreaking for the people who've administered TBGA, Archery-Forum and the other 4798 sites that have been deemed unrecoverable. Including a number of people who have lost their livelihood. (Also those employed by Distribute.IT who, though they appear to have been completely incompetent, did not deserve this)

Latest story released today:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/securi ... 1gd1h.html

[GrahameA]

Evening All.

Made the News. http://www.theage.com.au/technology/se ... 1gd1h.html

[Gilly]

So sad that all the stuff has been lost, these idiots need to get a life!
I'm sure they are smart, why do something so destructive when they could do much better????

[billb]

Why do it?

Mainly because they are going to make a fortune out of it.

This is a professional mob doing it to gather information to sell.
Passwords, bank account details etc etc.

How many times have you sent your bank account and/or address details to someone from this website (or another one) in a PM for a classifieds transaction?

How many other sites do you use the same password for as you use for this one? Paypal possibly? Your online banking? Amazon account? Facebook etc. etc.

All those PM's, all those passwords. All now sitting on the hackers server being datamined and then sold.

These people are professional criminals. Not 'misspent youth'. From memories of the early articles that came out about this they are the same mob who did the CIA over a few weeks ago.

Time for a fairly broadranging password change for most people I would hope. (myself included)

[piggy]

For that very reason I use a different password for each site

[Reece]

It's interesting to note that this attack was extremely destructive.
Most datathieves strike and dissapear without doing much damage. Why would they bother? They got what they wanted.

If I was investigating this, I would start with a list of disgruntled employee's and clients.

[wal]

Hey, on the bright side, maybe more of those bowhunters will visit Ozbow and as a result get into traditional bowhunting practices.

Looking around tonight Tom I think I can see evidence of it occuring already the visitors, not the appreciation of trad bowhunting.

Cheers

[TomMcDonald]

Hey, on the bright side, maybe more of those bowhunters will visit Ozbow and as a result get into traditional bowhunting practices.

Looking around tonight Tom I think I can see evidence of it occuring already the visitors, not the appreciation of trad bowhunting.

Cheers

Well, you can lead 'em to water! And no I didn't hack the other site

[piggy]

They were saying the FBI or CIA Can't remember which one now has caught the hacker they believe to have caused this problem along with hacking the FBI & CIA and a number of others, he is an English school boy!
When he hacks he leaves his calling card, they found it and are currently trying to extradite him to the US possibly for 40 years.

[Nephew]

I can't understand why LULzSec would hack TBGA? They usually go after Govt agencies, or Corporations that they have decided are behaving in an unethical manner. Perhaps the server that hosts TBGA displeased them somehow. Either way, still a mighty irresponsible and nasty thing to do.

[bigbob]

There appears to be a plethora of hackers right around the globe and most is maliciously intended. A lot is emmanating from Europe and also China. Apparently the Pentagon is under sustained attack and the ability of these individuals and their modus operandi is superior to the 'good guys' defences. It is not a long bow to draw that given our complete reliance on high tech and IT the every day relative peace and quiet we now experience is about to descend into chaos. Lives and lifestyles will be destroyed by the vageries of some anonymous hacker hunched over a laptop in some grotto in Russia or the like.I will be changing all my passwords on a regular basis now, and am extremely reluctant to do any more online buying due to security issues.The best anti virus and firewall protection is obsolete in relation to the threat these guys convey.

[TomMcDonald]

I can't understand why LULzSec would hack TBHG? They usually go after Govt agencies, or Corporations that they have decided are behaving in an unethical manner. Perhaps the server that hosts TBHG displeased them somehow. Either way, still a mighty irresponsible and nasty thing to do.

Maybe they are on PETA's side.

But I think the host that got hacked manages around 5000 sites or so, including TGAB

[Nephew]

[
Maybe they are on PETA's side.

But I think the host that got hacked manages around 5000 sites or so, including TGAB

Possibly Tom, I wouldn't put it past the A.L's to do something as low as this. Oh, and thanks for inadvertently correcting my acronym. I was writing TBHG, instead of the correct TBGA.

[looseplucker]

It is certainly something in their box of tricks to try - but hacking hunting sites is pretty small beer to PETA who raise gazillions by having nude models in downtown Manhattan - but then they are not averse to providing material support for domestic terrorists, those that firebomb labs that do animal experimentation.

This was a general hack by a 19 year old who may be spending the next 40 years playing Mummies and Daddies in a Federal hoosegow in the USA.

I hope so.