What I am about to say is shocking to say the least.
I am saddened to inform every one that some one hacked into and has totally destroyed AVSIM  I know that this does not relate to Simvation But I thought some might want to know what happened
Needless to say any links to any files at avsim are not going to work.
I do not know when or if it will come back online

I can (to a certain extent) understand hackers going after big companies and trying to find out what really happened at Roswell and who really killed Kennedy, but to destroy a hobby website...............There has to be a lot more to this than meets the eye

Matt

Why would they want to do that?

BFMF wrote on May 13^th, 2009 at 12:00pm:


I was thinking the same thing.......wonder who's next?

BFMF wrote on May 13^th, 2009 at 12:00pm:


I suppose we have now lost "BFU" 'Bush Fliers Unlimited' corner of Avsim, with its associated Objects, Scenery, etc.

Paul....G-BPLF... ...!

vgbaron wrote on May 13^th, 2009 at 12:21pm:


Problem at the mo', the temporary Site doesn't seem to accept our usual log-in details!

...I suppose they have been lost, as well!

Paul.

Keep It Simple wrote on May 13^th, 2009 at 12:36pm:


..many thanks...worked a treat... ...!

Paul...G-BPLF...

What gets me is either the hacker has a beef with Avsim, or this hacker used Avsim for a dry run for something else. If it's a beef, it's a shitty thing to do when it effects others ( kinda like when an arsonist burns down awhole building just to get to one person)! And if it was a practice run for something else, why not take down some of them pirate sites! or better yet hit some creditcard company severs!

Maybe a disgruntled Ex-Aces employee...
"If I can't play then nobody can play..." 

Whatever has caused this.. be it a hack or a hardware/software failure, it's given everybody in the FS community a much needed kick up the **** and hopefully we can all pull together and welcome any Avsim "refugees" (for want of a better word) with the respect that we at SimV know we are best at.

I'm still trying to figure out how such a well established site would not have private 'non accessible' backups of the entire system as well as server backup

I can understand being taken down and even a backup server being nailed if its open to connection.. I am having difficulty understanding why in this day and age a site that big would not be protected using very standard and simplistic corporate security backup practices

..unless its an inside job and even then protected backup should only have access to high admin alone

I wonder if this is the reason??

Matt

Hey, it's a tough economy out there. Could it be that they just can't afford to keep the site going and this is the way to go out without looking bad?

It seems very unlikely that they would lose the backup too.

Just thinking out loud.....

expat wrote on May 13^th, 2009 at 3:49pm:



NickN wrote on May 13^th, 2009 at 3:42pm:

That is just to bad. I should of payed more attention to their site while it was 'alive'. I never really visited the site that much. Now, I feel bad for them.  

NickN wrote on May 13^th, 2009 at 3:42pm:

Hello Nick
From what I know so far it was indeed a inside job some one that had root admin privileges. That person stole the email database for our forums and then proceeded to spam just about every one in it. Apparently they managed to destroy the partitions on both disks the main and the back up disk. And since we were in the middle of a web rebuild there were no other back ups except for a old version. At this time we are not sure what the extinct of the damage is and it is going to take a while to sort it out.

I just posted a message at their temp forums saying how much impressed I am at the level of comradery and support displayed by the entire community over the veritable catastrophe that has struck Avsim...

The support shown by the forum members, payware companies, and even competing websites, has encouraged Tom Allensworth to not give up on the site... who assured everyone they would be back in due time

I said it there, and I want to say it again here, and show my feelings of true admiration and humbleness before the support shown so far for Avsim... the FS community is by far the friendliest, sanest and best mannered on the net, and I just want to say I'm proud to be a part of it right now.

Cheers everyone, and see ya tomorrow  

Felipe "HarvesteR" Falanghe

This sort of thing is just horrible , but to a freeware community this
person is just a sick peice of work . Avsim has been a trademark in
fs history . We could all help them to restore their site by sending everything we all have ever downloaded or uploaded from avsim
back to them once they have resolved the server issue , just a thought. May be a good idea untill is is 100% confirmed that this was a inside job to limit uploading to simv or any site just incase this was a virus of some kind .

wreckerman wrote on May 14^th, 2009 at 3:06am:


To think for one second that their library didn't have a few backups is pretty far fetched.  No one would be ignorant enough not to have anticipated both servers crashing at once.  I have around 80Gb of downloaded FS zip files on my hard drive, and I have 4 backups of that library, and I'm one guy on a home PC. If I'm smart enough to make back ups, then surly one of the largest freeware sites on the interwebs was. If not, then I truly feel for those developers & designers who uploaded to Avsim exclusively. That's a lot of trust for no offline backups.

Their library is safe & secure, and will be back in full. ( I'm willing to put money on this. )


wreckerman wrote on May 14^th, 2009 at 3:06am:


That would have the same effect on the FS world that not spending money has had on the economy.

I'm not sure about other sites, because I don't work( ) there, but I know here, ALL files are THOROUGHLY inspected, scanned, and tried out before they are EVER presented to the community for download.

If you get a virus from a download, you didn't get it here.



garymbuska wrote on May 13^th, 2009 at 7:44pm:



That is precisely when you make an offline, current,  backup copy of everything.   We do it daily.

Fly2e wrote on May 14^th, 2009 at 8:49am:

I very much agree with you Dave. I'm confident that any virus would be detected on upload here to SimV and that our entire library is backed up. There's no reason for us to stop growing just because of an accident somewhere else on the net.

OK People.. Lets not lose ourselves in the Internet Boogie-Man world!

This was an INSIDE JOB

There is no way an outside hacker got into a root system and cleaned out TWO servers unless they were connected pretty hefty to some high level chit!  

So forget virus's and forget the entire MSFS world is under attack. This was a grudge in execution and anyone with a solid tech background knows it

Enjoy the files on this and other servers and do not run and hide from the Internet Bo0gie-Man!

And ESPECIALLY dont install all sorts of automatic Internet Boogie-Man Scanners and firewalls!

NOD32 (real time protection)
Windows Firewall (realtime protection)
Spybot Search and Destroy (occasinal checks)
Malwarebytes (occasional checks)


that is all

I'M THE INTERNET BOOGIE MAN AND
I'M A COMIN FOR ALL YOUR FILES BOY!

AND I LIKE EATIN ZIP FILES TOO!

LMAO!!!

It's making news over this side of the pond

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8049780.stm

Have just been wandering around the web, and have looked at the site which is owned by the person who at the moment is being accused of the hack. I guess there is no point in hiding his name. It's all over the avsim forums plus he has even spoken about this accusation at his own free will.

This is his statement:

Morning Everyone,

Well this is a kick in the teeth aint it.

There are two issues here it seems.

1. Mass Mail - Lets hit that cookie. Yes, I send out mass emails each email has an opt out service the emails are collected by SF sources as well as some other sites that I run as part of my business, its not related to avsim.

2. Avsim got hacked.... Well I actually have inside information on this one, I am doubtful that it was hacked, its likley to be a service failure, I have much conversation history with thier guys to back this up but in all honesty I want nothing to do with it so I will not post it...... They need a henchman.

After I spoke with Gareth this morning I asked him to lock this thread to stop speculation and conjecture, because that is all it is, the facts are presented here and it need no go any further.

Kindest Regards

Phil

What does everyone make of this statement then? Before I read his post, I had actually chosen my side...maybe I have jumped the gun, so after reading his statement, I think all that we can do now is just watch what happens, rather than point the blame at someone without a mass of evidence.

Simfly forum discussing the hack: http://www.simfly.eu/viewtopic.php?t=4778&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=75

Alec

Very true Nick. I'm not looking at making accusations here, I'm just simply passing on information. I'm very interested in seeing the final outcome of this subject, and I think that goes for everyone really.

Alec

Nick and Alrot are correct in this.

All these post-laden internet discussions popping up everywhere of "who is to blame" or even "what happened" are just a waste of bandwidth.  

Other than the principals in this matter, none of us has ANY real facts about the case.  And remember that when the principals post information, it will always be biased to favor their point of view.

Cutting to the chase.......

Avsim is down, something happened to their servers, they may or may not come online again, and the disappearance of their file library and the support forums for numerous freeware and payware developers is and will be missed until it is back online.

End of story.

Everything else is "spin".

SimV is still here, our forums are active and intact, we have tons of files in our librarys and scads of tutorials and such.  We certainly feel for the loss to the community, but we continue on as we must.

best,

..................john

PS:  Dave, get that %$#@ green sockpuppet of yours out of my power supply!  

oh crap!!!!!!! no more WOAI either.

NickN wrote on May 14^th, 2009 at 1:49pm:

I am a extreme fs enthusiest and enjoy avsim , simviation , ect...
as much as the next person , but today I had more time to read through the forums on many sites about this and have come to understand that phill the owner of Simfly.eu a community that I
am proud to be a part of is being accused of , no persicuted for
destroying avsim? BULLPUCKY !! this guy has went out of his way
create a online communite for everyone free of charge to fly together
I will not think for one second that phill would do this  This was probrably a system malfunction . There would be no gain for phill to trash the very thing around that his site was created around .  Just shamfull
that people would accuse someone so involved with the fs commuity

Is this the same Phil Dawson who has given us FSIUCP?

It seems that the outpouring of support of AVSIM has been nothing short of amazing. At the time of this posting, a news story on AVSIM is actually in the top 10 most popular news stories on the BBC's website:

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

tcco94 wrote on May 15^th, 2009 at 2:24am:

I don't think there is anything that you can't get elsewhere. Except 1000's of repeat repaints and maybe a few sceneries.


This was no hack - it was a system failure brought on by bad management and now being used a publicity stunt by the well known spammer Allensworth.

Period.

striker wrote on May 15^th, 2009 at 2:53am:

Your post and signature violate at least 4 forum rules.  You may wish to think about removing it before it gets deleted.

1.  No religion
2.  No politics
3.  No name calling
4.  No inflammatory posts.

striker wrote on May 15^th, 2009 at 2:53am:

SubZer0 wrote on May 14^th, 2009 at 11:57pm:



Actually, It's Peter DOWSON.. 

vgbaron wrote on May 15^th, 2009 at 12:08pm:

O's, A's... they're both vowels..

I've been unable to get onto it for at least 2 weeks now. Not good!

Ha-harr! That's a cracker, Nick!

And let's hope that your info about the network drive holds out.

striker wrote on May 15^th, 2009 at 2:26pm:



NO ONE at AVSIM in management has accused him of taking down AVSIM.. that is BUZZ created by the masses and not AVSIM

HE HAS been nailed for stealing email addresses and using them for spam

HE WAS rightfully accused of what he did. Tom Allensworth never SPAMMED anyone and that was a bold-face immature BS suggestion on your part


LAST

For someone who is such a professional you sure have a very immature way of showing it very much like the kiddies perpetuating the RUMOR that this person took down AVSIM except the opposite.. you jump on the other side without READING.


They posted quite clearly their network backups may be OK.. they do not know because they lost communication with the server and must go there to check out what happened. They do not know the entire extent of the damage at this point and will not until this weekend


OPEN MOUTH < INSERT FOOT


I hope you understand my position  

striker wrote on May 15^th, 2009 at 5:25pm:



No.. I believe what I have in hard facts and evidence.. And I have all I need for the email issue right here at home.

I do not subscribe to hearsay however as Bill said.. when it stinks the dog is not far from the pile. In that I will wait to see the result of the investigation before making any solid decisions around it. Regardless he was nailed for what he did and I for one am glad Tom had the guts to make sure everyone knew it. People like that should be exposed for breaking privacy laws in gain

None the less, based on what happened with the email addresses I would not trust the person who stole those addresses to run a clean game of jacks much less anything with my data on it.

As for the rest.. son, I worked with MS on AI algorithms for LIVE Search and their data systems out at the Quincy, WA facility.

I am completely aware of how servers work and the list of possibilities in why AVSIM can not communicate with theirs. I suggest you may wish to get a refresher in IT and quit sputtering tech out of some misplaced anger you do not completely understand

Even though I am in a real-life situation right now that has hindered my ability to continue my favorate hobby, I was compelled to come back to Simviation to express how shocked I am to hear about this.

I was just about to go to AvSim just to see how everything is going and to see what new addons were available for FSX when all of a sudden I was unable to access the website. At first, I thought it was just a typical server hiccup that most websites go through. I then decided to go into Google and seach AvSim to see if maybe the address has changed. It didn't. However, in the search results, I noticed a small article about AvSim. The title of the article startled me. When I read the article, I quickly found out that AvSim has been hacked and left crippled for good. I just couldn't believe it!

I mean, I can't believe bad it was. This means that AvSim will have to rebuilt what's left of its 13 year career and reputation. I feel sorry for the folks who have friends in the forums who are no longer able to contact each other. I feel sorry for the developers who saw much of their works lost to an attack by a hacker(s). I hope AvSim does recover and takes stronger measures to prevent this from ever happening again.

Nice to see I'm not the only one who thinks that...   

This is the latest update as of May 19 2009 2030 ESDT.
Due to the generosity of hundreds of community members, we will be able to bring online sometime over the weekend an AVSIM System that all of us will be proud of, I am sure.

High on our list of attributes that these new systems will provide are:

Virtualization
Clustering
Load Leveling
We will be effectively running the equivalent of 20 servers in two boxes.

In addition, we have purchased a 3Com 5500G 1 Gigabit 24 port switch to replace the existing 3C router.

I don’t want to bore you with the details, but here is the inventory of systems that will be brought back online Saturday or Sunday:

• Two HP Proliant DL380 G5’s with quad core Xeon E5450 processors working at 3 GHz.
• 32 GIG of DR2 Ram per G5
• 1.2 terabytes of storage on each G5 using 4 x 300 GB SATA-300/SAS drives.
• In addition, we will be bring back online, or repairing to bring online, our existing three severs, GREEN, PURPLE and WHITE
• We will also bring our NAS back into operation as our primary storage device for the system array.

SYSTEM SOFTWARE AND FUNCTIONALITY:

I am going to put my neck on the line here a bit based upon a briefing I received today, and say that our confidence is building about the state of the library. It is my hope that we can have our legacy library back up and running on Sunday. Our email system would also be back in operation.

We will have a Web site back and operating sometime over the weekend. If we can get the old system up and running, great. If not, we’ll create a redirect page for all three domains back to this forum system. In the meantime, the design team continues to work on the web and library redesigns and we will bring them online as soon as the team gives us the go ahead.

As for the Forums system; our confidence is increasing in that there may be something retrievable there. Again, we won’t know until we can inspect the material that we have since recovered and placed on WHITE for storage. More on that later.

Every one keep there fingers crossed 

Gents;

One thing is absolutely sure - Avsim needed new servers - as those they had were a complete mess ! and the site was rapidly falling down - in pieces !

the conclusion is your !

ray

He was negligent and that's all.

For sure - - !

and also they waste lots of money organising the Fancon - money that could be used to buy the required hardware - rather than continuosly ask donations from simmers.

It would all have been much plain and clear if :

avsim cecked the server first - and report on their forum the state of the boxes ! as apparently from what is reported on their forum - surprise - surprise -  this is the case now.

Yes - we can recover all data and put the site back online - that is the statement it should have been made first.

Statement 2 - - We at avsim would like also to welcome donation to purchase 2 or whatever extra servers at the cost of $$$$$$ - to expand / improve the site - and make it ready for the future - therefore we welcome your kind donation !

it is very simple courtesy and respect to their users / benefactors - that a site of such caliber own to their daily visitors.

Instead - panic - worry - that the site was lost forever was created - by the director - putting urgency to their users to open their wallets and fork out the money for it ! with the assistance of some people closely involved in avsim operations !

Do not forget that many of avsim practices defenders are commercially involved with them - and therefore have a kind and angry interest on it as their monthly income is dependent from that site - they use their forum to support avsim even when they get it all wrong.

ray

Personally, I don't think he set out to scam anyone.  I think he screwed up, yes, but not intentionally.  I think that once it happened, he might have panicked and needed someone to point to and then when the donations started pouring in and everyone started screaming for this hacker's blood and the great outpouring of affection occurred, he might have felt himself painted into a corner and forced to continue the bs.  Now he needs that money to get his site back up again, and couldn't back down now if he wanted to.  Why donn't we watch and see if any criminal charges ever really do come of this.  That'll prove me wrong and if it happens, I'll apologize in full but I don't think they will.

Get this straight, it's true that someone as established in the FS community as Tom and Avsim were would have no reason to scam people, that doesn't mean he can't make mistakes.  

Fly2e wrote on May 22^nd, 2009 at 2:05pm:

Pardon me