Post by Schmleff on Jul 31, 2011 1:04:16 GMT -5
Many of you have been surprised to find yourself here at this site after trying to go to Sonerai.net. Here is how the final hours went.
A little background first. Years ago when Scott put up the site he asked me if I would be an administrator in case something happened to him. I have some background with web forums and agreed to help. Scott gave me full administrative privileges but I rarely used any of them. Every once and a while I would move a thread that was out of place but that is about the extent of what I did.
When I heard about the wreck of a Sonerai two weeks ago, I made a post asking if anyone knew of this accident. I posted a link to the news article about it and linked the picture from that article to see if anyone recognized the plane. Nobody had any further info than the article. Hans took a look at the picture and made some assumptions, which I am sure we all did, but in respect, we have in the past refrained from public speculation. Hans was not aware of this and made some observations. No biggie, Hans did not know our unwritten policy. Scott removed it and explained why, Hans had no problem with the deletion of his post. He understood.
A member challenged Scott on his decision to delete one post over another. At this point Scott posted "I quit"
Shortly after, Scott got this email from the Sonerai.net member:
"Just be consistant. I don't know how good of friends you and Jeff are, and I don't know either of you, but be consistant or have any particular reason to dislike either of you.I don't want to be the one that caused the fall of Sonerai.net. I guess I should have said it in a message rather than a post. Forgive me.
But, be consistant.
I don't want to be exiled from the Sonerai community, either, but I struggle with some of the things I see on here.
A link or reference is one thing, but to put the picture up? Here's my question. Did he get permission to post the picture? You should be asking and probably be glad you are not in a lawsuit by the family. Be consistant."
Scott then took down the majority of Sonerai.net leaving only a note that he intended to take the site down this weekend. He also left the forum active. He explained why (the threat of a lawsuit). I don't have the full note from Scott because of what happened next.
To make sure we all had a place to land if Scott did take it down, I went to put together another forum as a temporary location for us to decide what to do next. I had totally forgotten that I had made this forum 6 years ago before Sonerai.net. Once S.net started, I supported it. I went to open a new forum only to find that the name was taken (by me, but I forgot about it). I logged back in and made a post to Sonerai.net that we could meet here to figure out what to do next.
Not more than 1 minute later I noticed that threads were disappearing from Sonerai.net. I assumed that it was Scott taking it down. Moments later it went away all together and when I went to Sonerai.net it directed me to this site. I got an email from Scott asking me why I was deleting threads. I explained that I was seeing the missing threads but had not touched a thing. He had seen my post and the shady behavior and redirected Sonerai.net to this board to protect Sonerai.net.
I asked Scott to confirm that my account was being used to delete posts (including the one that directed us here to regroup). He confirmed that the logs show it was my account. Somehow, my password had been compromised and my account hijacked.
Scott has assured me that he had a full backup of the site before the malicious activity began. He is working on a way to keep the last 6 years of data available to us.
That that takes us today. I am not going to draw conclusions but provide the facts. I will keep you up to date when more details become available. For now, lets continue on and work to figure out a solution.
Nothing I can do here would even be close to what Scott did with Sonerai.net. It was the best aviation type club sites on the net. Even the Vans forum did not compare.
Many thanks to Scott. If you have his email address, please email him directly and thank him for what he has done for us.
Regards,
A little background first. Years ago when Scott put up the site he asked me if I would be an administrator in case something happened to him. I have some background with web forums and agreed to help. Scott gave me full administrative privileges but I rarely used any of them. Every once and a while I would move a thread that was out of place but that is about the extent of what I did.
When I heard about the wreck of a Sonerai two weeks ago, I made a post asking if anyone knew of this accident. I posted a link to the news article about it and linked the picture from that article to see if anyone recognized the plane. Nobody had any further info than the article. Hans took a look at the picture and made some assumptions, which I am sure we all did, but in respect, we have in the past refrained from public speculation. Hans was not aware of this and made some observations. No biggie, Hans did not know our unwritten policy. Scott removed it and explained why, Hans had no problem with the deletion of his post. He understood.
A member challenged Scott on his decision to delete one post over another. At this point Scott posted "I quit"
Shortly after, Scott got this email from the Sonerai.net member:
"Just be consistant. I don't know how good of friends you and Jeff are, and I don't know either of you, but be consistant or have any particular reason to dislike either of you.I don't want to be the one that caused the fall of Sonerai.net. I guess I should have said it in a message rather than a post. Forgive me.
But, be consistant.
I don't want to be exiled from the Sonerai community, either, but I struggle with some of the things I see on here.
A link or reference is one thing, but to put the picture up? Here's my question. Did he get permission to post the picture? You should be asking and probably be glad you are not in a lawsuit by the family. Be consistant."
Scott then took down the majority of Sonerai.net leaving only a note that he intended to take the site down this weekend. He also left the forum active. He explained why (the threat of a lawsuit). I don't have the full note from Scott because of what happened next.
To make sure we all had a place to land if Scott did take it down, I went to put together another forum as a temporary location for us to decide what to do next. I had totally forgotten that I had made this forum 6 years ago before Sonerai.net. Once S.net started, I supported it. I went to open a new forum only to find that the name was taken (by me, but I forgot about it). I logged back in and made a post to Sonerai.net that we could meet here to figure out what to do next.
Not more than 1 minute later I noticed that threads were disappearing from Sonerai.net. I assumed that it was Scott taking it down. Moments later it went away all together and when I went to Sonerai.net it directed me to this site. I got an email from Scott asking me why I was deleting threads. I explained that I was seeing the missing threads but had not touched a thing. He had seen my post and the shady behavior and redirected Sonerai.net to this board to protect Sonerai.net.
I asked Scott to confirm that my account was being used to delete posts (including the one that directed us here to regroup). He confirmed that the logs show it was my account. Somehow, my password had been compromised and my account hijacked.
Scott has assured me that he had a full backup of the site before the malicious activity began. He is working on a way to keep the last 6 years of data available to us.
That that takes us today. I am not going to draw conclusions but provide the facts. I will keep you up to date when more details become available. For now, lets continue on and work to figure out a solution.
Nothing I can do here would even be close to what Scott did with Sonerai.net. It was the best aviation type club sites on the net. Even the Vans forum did not compare.
Many thanks to Scott. If you have his email address, please email him directly and thank him for what he has done for us.
Regards,
