THE OFFICIAL "Is Simtropolis down?" THREAD

[un1]

It is only the forums that arre down currently...
Either than that there is no information! 

[nsst_368]

well now the entire site is just down, Ugg

[swat-medic]

The entire site is down again 

[Zaphod]

lol me and un1 are just hanging out in the chat which is still functioning

Nobody else can get in because the site is down

[xmike1991]

possible to get a direct link to the chat?

[Zaphod]

no, I tried

it says "authenitcation failed" when you try to do that

[Hamish]

I wouldn't say the site is down. Its not a "404" or "can't find server" problem. The site is showing, its just that all its showing is "Simtropolis is temporarily unavailable."

And, if you highlight the whole page, you get some crafty white lettering on a white background.

So far it is saying "Status: OK"

[dedgren]

OK, I'm locking the thread, and want everyone who's posted to go back and read the rules.  This isn't a chat thread about ST.

Oh, and I will personally suspend the next person's SC4D membership who starts a new thread on this topic.


David

[dedgren]

I just arrived back at home from my brief trip this weekend and found a PM from Meg (SkiGeek) over at ST.  As of about five hours ago, the site was still down as they worked to deal with some sort of attack.  I will PM her back and invite her or any other staff member at ST to post updates here, as I will unlock the thread for that purpose.

Please, posts only from ST staff from this point until the situation is resolved.  Thanks.


David

[Meg]

Thank you, David.

I'm not going to say too much about the attack since I don't want to give any press to the bleeps who created it.  Suffice it to say it is a wide-spread attack and, if you google it, you will find a variety of sites that have been hit including sites involving family farms, herbal teas, newspapers, canoe trips, and at least one city government and one university. 

In addition to eliminating the malicious code, Dirk is working to plug the security hole, which is apparently a weakness in the software.

Sorry for the hassle, guys.   We are working diligently to clean up this mess.

Meg

[Vandy]

Hello, Everyone.

I wanted to let you know that as of 2245 hours Eastern Time (here in North Carolina), SImtropolis is back on-line along with the STEX and the Forums.  The following message has been posted under the "Latest News" link at the bottom of the main page banner:

Welcome back! This is what happened... - 05/25/2008 10:36 PM

Welcome back, everyone.  We apologize for the site being down for the past few days.  The site was attacked and malicious code was injected via some exploits in the forum software. We have tried our best to restore the data from backups, and remove malicious code, but there was a semi-catastrophic loss of data. 

A large portion of the posts are intact, however, some posts that are especially long may have been truncated.  We have tried to restore these the best we can but they have not been restored 100%.   If your message was affected, please feel free to edit and restore your post the best you can.  We have done our best to patch up the exploits in the forum software and have notified the forum software developers.  Thanks for being patient, and thanks to those who have offered to help.

- Simtropolis Administrators -

I am posting this in my official capacity as a Simtropolis Moderator and by the fact that I have successfully logged on to the Simtropolis site, STEX and Forums.

Regards,

Vandy
Simtropolis Moderator

[dedgren]

Thanks, Meg (SkiGeek) and Gary (Vandy)!

As far as the rest of you recent commenters- I can delete 'em about as fast as you post 'em.  Why don't we just save each other the work?


David

[dedgren]

This thread is back open again for ST staff ONLY to post as it appears ST is back down again as of 9:00 p.m. AST (GMT -9) on May 26, 2008.

EDIT:  Back up on May 27, 2008.


David

[Vandy]

Hello, All.

I wanted to be sure that everyone has the latest news from the Simtropolis "rebuilding".  As of today, the following has been posted in the Latest News link just below the banner:

Repairs underway... - 05/27/2008 04:33 PM
A big thanks to Simtropolis helpers who are currently restoring and merging some of the lost posts from an older database backup.  There may be intermittent timeouts, so please bear with us over the next few days.  Thanks for all the help and support!

Regards,

Vandy
Simtropolis Moderator

[penguin007]

I do know only simtropolis staff are supposed to write here but on going on simtropolis about 10 minutes ago almost imediately my anti virus program AVG jumped in telling me that 2 trojan horses had infected my computer. It did put them in the virus vault. I thought I should alert the comunity because well no one wants to get a virus do they?

However this maybe a false alarm although at the time the only programs open were msn messenger and itunes so well I think its probably simtropolis which is a great shame. Also I suspected this because of the goings on in the last few days.

Heres a screenshot from my virus vault showing what came in when I went on Simtropolis



I only wanted to post this to warn people so if Im wrong can someone delete this post so as to not cause confusion.

[freedo50]

Hi Will,
It looks like that was a coincidence, if you look at the path to Trojan's in the screenshot you'll see that they are on your PC and therefore cannot be from ST, unless you were downloading from the STEX at the time, in which case you should warn the mods there that they have an infected file.

EDIT: Seems like you might be onto something there as the files are in your Temp files (only just noticed) I would get onto the staff there about this asap.

Fred

This thread is still an ST-Staff only area.

[Vandy]

Hello, All.

It has come to my attention that Simtropolis is having a bit of trouble recovering from the attack on the site.  Many of the threads that had been repaired and data recovered have been damaged again.  I don't have any estimate as to when the site will come back on-line.  We will all have to wait for news of that event.

As I receive more information, I shall post it in this thread.

(Thanks, Craig.)

Regards,

Gary (Vandy)
Simtropolis Moderator

[dedgren]

Hi folks.  Please read and heed the previous post.


David

[Vandy]

Hello, All.

As of 0045 (Eastern Time in North Carolina) Simtropolis is back up.  I've been able to successfully log in, access the STEX and Forums.

Here is the message that was posted in the Latest News link below the banner in the forums:

Some repairs accomplished... - 05/30/2008 12:01 AM
Hey all, welcome back and thanks for being patient.  Our goal was to try to restore as much of the great, years-in-the-making legendary threads and City Journals and Omnibus articles.  A lot of them have been restored, but there are still some gaps.  We will try our best to continue to restore them, so if any of your threads are affected, please feel free to try to patch them up yourself, if at all possible.  Thanks again for all the support, we'll keep your updated!

Enjoy.

Regards,

Gary (Vandy)
Simtropolis Moderator

[beebs]

Thought I'd give a little update.. having been down for most of today, it looks like the forums have returned for now.. going to the STEX, main page and chat redirect to the forums.

Edit: And just as I post this, they go back down... hrmf. Bad timing on my part.
Just a temporary out I guess.