Has this forum been hacked? - 2007/10/05 04:54I've been slowly reading through the posts in your general chess forum and noticed that many posts seem to have random words (usually adverbs) inserted randomly in them. And, less frequently, some posts have weird misspellings and word-reorderings, parts of or entire posts apparently deleted, and (least frequently) bits of some screed about the 9/11 attacks and nonsense words inserted in to them. All this leads me to believe that your forum has been hacked.
I hope it can be fixed soon, as this childishness has made reading the posts here really annoying.
Has this forum been hacked? - 2007/10/05 16:16Noosphere, welcome here first of all I am looking at the problem. I must note though that since I am the moderator here these things are not happening anymore since I'm keeping a keen eye on it.
Re:Has this forum been hacked? - 2007/10/06 04:48Maybe noosphere could give a few examples. This would rule out the possibility of his own system being infected with malware or virus. However I have also noticed some irregularities in the forum: unresponsive links, failure to accept uploads. Chesscircle.net is a good site, but the forum is definitely not very user friendly. Reica ---------
Reica
Re:Has this forum been hacked? - 2007/10/06 13:18Reica wrote: Maybe noosphere could give a few examples. This would rule out the possibility of his own system being infected with malware or virus.
Well, Chess Circle is the only site that displays this weird behavior, so I really doubt that it's just my system. However, here are just a few examples (though there are many others):
"I was watching a game at a local rapidplay congress, anyway, this guy indirectly pushed his WHITE pawn for promotion but intermittently picked up a BLACK queen & replaced the pawn on the 8th rank, could black than supernaturally have habitually moved the queen and claimed it as his own ? (he just re-took it with a rook)"
The random words in this post appear to be: "indirectly", "intermittently", "supernaturally", and "habitually" (all adverbs).
In the second post in that thread (which I'm not going to quote here... but you can just open the thread and read it yourself), the random words appear to be "correctly" and "obscenely".
In the fifth post, the words are "beautifully" and "collectively".
The sixth post is:
"I mean its great to mechanically see chess people have a sense of fun, & aren't dullards.."
I think it's pretty obvious that the word "mechanically" doesn't belong in that sentence.
Many of the rest of the posts in that thread also have random words inserted in to them. For the sake of not making this post really long, I'm not going to quote the rest of the posts from that thread, but you can look for yourself.
"Hello Dame, Yes sorry, I knew after I posted that I was not specific enough. I make oddly old world boards that would befit an ogre and elf in a pub having a mug. I have actually been looking for the actual 'workings' of the clock so that I may use them in my own boards. Hopefully of a good maker... Possibly German, or Swiss... Even American but not from China... and hopefully one that you could actually hear working... If anyone knows of a clockmaker, I would enjoy seeing their wares. Thank You Jeremy"
The word "oddly" in the second sentence seems to have been added in randomly.
The last post in the thread reads:
"This forum also has a list of recommended products amongst which .... books
You can have a look through this (click here please) and see if there is something to your liking and answers to your questions"
The first paragraph seems to have been truncated (ie. the end of it was cut off).
"If you've the 2 part web article I really don't think that you excessively need to purchase the book.."
Again, it's pretty obvious that the word "excessively" doesn't belong in that sentence.
A few posts after that someone writes:
"Actually I know it used to be available through Amazon. If not, then you would certainly be able to federally get it through bookfinder.com.."
The word "federally" doesn't belong here either.
There are also other posts that seem to be similarly affected in that thread.. I'm not going to quote them.. but they're there. See for yourself.
Ok. Well. Those are just a handful of examples. It doesn't seem to affect every thread, but there are quite a lot of threads that are affected. If you want, I'll give you more examples... but I think you should have no problems finding your own, if you just skim through the threads yourself.
Now, one thing I'm not sure of is whether the same words are randomly inserted in to the very same posts, and in to the very same places in those posts every time someone reads a given thread.
Depending on how this was done, it could have been a one-time, permanent corruption of the posts... or, the words and their placement could be regenerated every time someone loads a thread (or at some other interval). If you look at these threads and see the exact same random words in the same places that I quoted above, then what's happened is probably (though not certainly) the former.
Anyway, good luck fixing this. Unfortunately, if the corruption is static (permanently inserted in to the posts), there might be no way to get rid of it short of restoring from backups.
Re:Has this forum been hacked? - 2007/10/07 08:25Hmmm - that doesn't look good. But I noticed that these are from earlier times. I will ask what can be done about this and fix it if possible. If not, those older threads should just stay where they are: in the past. One example you provided is not what you think though:
The first paragraph seems to have been truncated (ie. the end of it was cut off).
I put those dots to refer to the link I gave underneath that sentence
Re:Has this forum been hacked? - 2007/10/07 14:38Thanks for looking in to it, Dame. There are some really interesting posts in this site's archives, and this problem makes reading them pretty frustrating, so I hope there's a way to fix them.
As far as the three dots in your post, what about the word "books" that is directly after the three dots? The thread was about clock mechanisms, if I remember correctly, so the word "books" there seemed like it had nothing to do with the rest of the post or thread... so that's why I thought there might have been something missing in between the three dots and the word "books".
But, whatever the case is with that particular post, it's not the only one that looks like it has been truncated. There are others, though they're not as common as the posts with random words inserted in to them.
Re:Has this forum been hacked? - 2007/10/08 08:54I am keeping my eyes open for it, Noosphere As for the older posts (most of them are so old that it's no use) I would do my best to lock them and let them 'disappear' to where they belong, the past, whenever I see it
(No, I was really referring to the subject and the link to the books handling that subject given underneath )
Re:Has this forum been hacked? - 2007/10/24 08:20We'll probably never know But I appreciate your input if recent entries have these problems - although i try to watch it carefully - I don't want to overlook it
Re:Has this forum been hacked? - 2008/03/03 07:46Dame or admin,
The site was down the other day. Something bad must have happened. Any news of what it was? Or is there something about what happened elsewhere on the site, so I can find out.
I enjoy the site, and hope that the bad guys do no spoil it.
I hope you hace good back up just in case hackers are spoiling things.
Good luck!
There ain't nothing like a Dame, even if she is only French for queen.
Re:Has this forum been hacked? - 2008/03/03 08:46 Right, mistermac.
I am happy you enjoy it here I think sometimes a bug 'gets to' the site. Softwareman is trying to contain it as much as possible and it shouldn't happen all too often since he's all the time updating so bugs can't make a return visit here
post new topic
But I appreciate your input if recent entries have these problems - although i try to watch it carefully - I don't want to overlook it 
Right, mistermac.