What happened?

[Brel]

I live in the UK and will gladly donate some USD $ or GBP

[frizzen]

July 2023, i've been getting this error

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This page isn't working

www.rctruckandconstruction.com is currently unable to handle this request

[ddmckee54]

Oh GOOD, it's not just me it's happening to. This has been going on every couple of days for me where it's off then on, you the same? I sent a PM to fhhhstix asking about this when it first happened, but I never got a response. I feel kinda like SGT Shultz here - "I KNOW NOTHING!" Can anybody shed some light on what's been happening? I'm just hoping that the site isn't going to permanently go dark one of these times.

frizzen - if you want, send me a PM and I'll get you my e-mail address just in case the site does go dark again. I usually check in every day - at least when things are working I do.

Don

[Zabco]

I have found the site to be incredibly slow for several months now. Over a minute just to open a page. I also got 2 or 3 days with no action what so ever, just a blank screen, a few weeks ago. When I logged in this evening there were two members listed as being present, me and someone who I'm sure is not a real member. In fact the opening page stated there were over 16,800 visitors currently looking at the site. I know the site is open for anyone to come and look around but no way is there 16k visitors. As a member I can click on your names and get your member info. If I click on any of these other supposed members I get a screen that says I don't have permission to see that information. I'm no internet guru but I think this site has been hacked and seriously compromised. But since facebook seems to be the main attraction today, no one seems to care anymore about maintaining this site. Absolute shame that literally decades worth of experience and knowledge is about to just disappear.

[ddmckee54]

Zabco:

I don't know about hacked, but I think it is under attack when we can't get in - like what has been happening to frizzen and me. And the site has ALWAYS seemed slow for me. But I usually get impatient after 30 seconds of so and just move on to something else. When I try later it seems like things are back to normal.

I usually see that there's a small handful of members, sometimes only me, and a few hundred guests - which doesn't seem too far out of line considering it's the Worldy-Wide-Web. (At least I think that's what they called it in Gnomeo.) But yeah, 16000+ guests does sound like the site was under attack by somebody.

Don

[frizzen]

Ddmckee, you have a pm.

Zabco, are you possibly using an old link that's not secure the version with. Https
Yeah 16,000 visitors to a zombie board sounds like a DDOS attack, but why would someone bother pointing one at this place?

I was getting a "Database Error" screen earlier today, so i gave it a few minutes and it reloaded alright.

[ddmckee54]

Originally Posted by frizzen

Yeah 16,000 visitors to a zombie board sounds like a DDOS attack, but why would someone bother pointing one at this place?

Probably for the same reason that we were getting those spam printer ads for a while - they think there's a buck in it somewhere.

[Blender]

As far as I know this version of the forum software, vBulletin, is end of life. No security updates to keep the latest bots/spam out. The badguys always get better at being bad.

[ddmckee54]

So.....
1) What needs to be done?
2) Who needs to do it?
3) What can the rest of us do to help?

I know that if you throw time and money at a problem, said problem can usually be made to go away. I know just about enough about this stuff to almost be dangerous, so I wouldn't be of much help - even if I did have the time. But I am more than willing to contribute a few Sheckels to the pot if it would help.

Don

[frizzen]

Currently gettiing this fault:

Your connection is not private
Attackers might be trying to steal your information from

[ddmckee54]

Frizzen:

Like Blender said in Post #28, this place is running on outdated software. Your browser is just confirming that the outdated software is vulnerable to outside attack.

What probably needs to happen is vBulletin needs to be updated to the latest version. This will probably not be cheap. Just the software itself will be anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars. If I remember correctly this forum is funded by one guy, out of his own pocket. Since this a "free" forum I can understand why the upgrade hasn't happened for that reason alone.

Add in the possibility that the "new" version of vBulletin, and our older version may no longer be compatible, and you add in the cost of having someone re-build the forum. That would probably take days at least of somebody's time - if not weeks.

I usetawas a programmer, but not for anything like that. Right below the RC Trucks and Construction logo it says "gFx by MadMax", I'm assuming he built the forum originally?

Bottom line - we're probably screwed if/when this place goes belly-up. A LOT of good information will be lost, just like when Photobucket shot themselves in the foot - only worse.

I don't know if this site's information will be available in The Wayback Machine or not. It looks like ANYBODY can archive a single page to The Wayback Machine at no cost. That's a single page of a site, not the whole site. They offer a subscription service that will archive entire websites - no idea what that would cost/year to archive this site.

Don

[Blender]

I will say the forum has been running like a champ recently. Now we just need some content.

[ddmckee54]

Blender:

Yup to running like a champ, lately. It also has had its' ups and downs, and I don't like the idea that one day it could just go the way of the Dodo.

If we are running on outdated software as you said, one of these days one of Microsoft's many "fixes" is going to break this place. There's just too much accumulated information here that will be lost. Information that's only interesting to us crazies, and not available from many other sources.