Author Topic: The future of TI-BANK compromised  (Read 53507 times)

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Offline Deep Toaster

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #75 on: May 30, 2011, 05:35:25 pm »
Wait... what happened? I was just on TI-Bank... it still works...

Not the TI-BANK forum though. That's gone :(

Jim, that be awesome.




Offline critor

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #76 on: May 30, 2011, 06:25:51 pm »
Thanks Jim...
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #77 on: May 30, 2011, 06:30:07 pm »
I hope no legal actions are taken or anything x.x. I'm a bit scared considering what was said on the thread on TI-BANK before it was deleted :/

Offline ztrumpet

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #78 on: May 30, 2011, 06:32:30 pm »
Jim:  Thanks. :)
Critor:  I hope you and the other high-ups at TI Bank can get everything back online.  It's a great site, and I hate to lose it. :-\
Mic (if you read this):  Good luck. :) I'm not sure what happened to cause this, but I sincerely hope that everything you're involved in goes well.

Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #79 on: May 31, 2011, 01:53:15 am »
No matter what Mic is trying to make people believe, there was no password hacking at all. Mic sent the passwords a while ago ;)

I guess that the password was changed about 2 weeks ago, after Mic started behaving silly, in order to prevent Mic from keeping damaging the main site. One of his silly actions was suppressing the news where he unambiguously announced that critor became the main admin of the site and would lead it from now on. He cannot suppress the screenshots of the news that have now been distributed by e-mail, though...
The fact is, the changed password control access to other passwords, and thereby to highly destructive actions. And Mic found about it precisely when trying to connect there - something which, as far as I understood, he has no business doing unless he was up to no good - thereby justifying, a posteriori the usefulness of protective measures against his ongoing madness.
There was, however, no way to prevent him (with founder rights) from deleting the forum - and sure enough, he went as far and as mad as doing it. 110K posts spanning many years, the largest and most helpful (to high-school / university users) French-speaking forum... gone, and during the yearly peak of activity due to the Baccalauréat, the exam gating the exit from high school / the entrance to higher education. Similar exams exist in other countries.

I know that Mic is not welcome on yAronet: his main account, and the clones he created over the years (but were usually detected due to the content of his posts) were banned. I've been attending yAronet since 2001, with a hole in 2003-2004: my experience with moderation on yAronet is that it's very lenient, but only occasionally unfair, and user bans are exceptional events. Chances are therefore significant that Mic really behaved wrong on the yAronet TI-68k section.
Mic keeps despising yAronet beyond reason: after becoming a moderator on the TI-68k section of the forum a couple weeks ago, and gaining access to the moderator section, I found a fairly recent interesting topic there. But I don't remember saving it...

Some people in the community don't like him at times, but the fact is, DJ is much more reasonable than Mic is: at least, DJ can listen to others and get a bit of a breather when something has set him off :)

[EDIT: seems like there's a single changed password, so "password(s)" -> "password".]
« Last Edit: May 31, 2011, 04:09:21 am by Lionel Debroux »
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #80 on: May 31, 2011, 02:29:15 am »
On Omnimaga, the main password gives access to the following: Hosting account+payment method+support ticket center+tutorials and Cpanel. Since the password is the same as FTP, this gives FTP access too. I am sure it's the same on other hosts too, or close. In Omni's case, access to FTP/MySQL is to update or add files or repair stuff, but it can also allow to delete stuff. Admins here generally only access those places to add things on the servers such as the post statistic graph. Everything else is done via the forums or upload forms. Since I am personally not mentally stable, during hard times I considered deleting the site before too, like during the nDoom invasion incident, but admins prevented me from doing so and locked my access down. However I understood they did that to protect the site, myself and the community, and thus, to help me, not to steal the site or something. The only time where I got pissed at such thing was due to someone wanting to undo every IRC ban set on trolls and spammers, but that was a long while ago. I wish Mic understood Critor and others only wished the best for TI-BANK... :(

Anyway I'M not really one to talk, given what happened to Omni a few years ago (although the 2nd time it was pretty much inevitable Omni was doomed no matter if the site content remains or not, since back then the entire TI community turned against us for banning rude/troll members), and I prefer to not say too much about other people in public (although given the behavior from the person that deleted the site, it brought me back some memories of another person on yN that got banned in 2004 and 2007 who got the same first name as myself, when that person kept falsely accusing others of all kind of things), considering their past contributions in the community, but I still wish he saw Critor's move as nothing malicious and only to protect the french TI community. Now we all wonder what is gonna be the future of TI-BANK... :/
« Last Edit: May 31, 2011, 02:36:12 am by DJ_O »

Offline Stefan Bauwens

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #81 on: May 31, 2011, 05:39:52 am »
This is very sad. I hope that there is a way to fix this all, and that Mic will understand that it's for the best.


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Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #82 on: May 31, 2011, 06:00:31 am »
"charognard", whom I'd categorize as a "gentle troll", has created a board at the same address pretty soon after Mic's destruction.

In case Forumactif keeps a backup of the contents of a forum for a little while after its deletion (we don't know), if this new forum replaces the backups of the old one (assuming they exist), creating a new forum at the same address can do more harm than good.


EDIT for making my previous post more precise: Mic has the passwords for the FTP and SQL server, they weren't changed; what he cannot do is to change them at will, because he doesn't have the password for the appropriate page. But he can damage the site - and unfortunately, given his behaviour in the past few weeks, he cannot be trusted not to do so...
Should the FTP and SQL passwords be changed ? Almost certainly not, since he'd attack critor through legal means for doing so.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2011, 07:55:13 am by Lionel Debroux »
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Offline Stefan Bauwens

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #83 on: May 31, 2011, 07:43:04 am »
Now when you go to http://ti-bank.fr you don't get linked to http://ti.bank.free.fr but to a dictionary describing the meaning of the word "usurpation".
Mic is probably really upset because his website is "stolen". I can understand this, but he must know we just don't want that he does anything bad to the website.
Also, is the reason Mic deleted the forum because of the occasion when he was defending someone with an nspire: http://ourl.ca/10944/213901 , or has it to do with other stuff.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2011, 07:44:11 am by Stefan Bauwens »


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Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #84 on: May 31, 2011, 08:00:10 am »
It's now official that after Mic's destruction of the Facebook page, the ongoing Facebook contest, where TI-Bank partnered with the Jarrety TI retailer for offering a 84+SE and a Nspire as prize, is suspended: http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1140 .

Mic is completely destroying the site's reputation and usefulness. That's mind-blowingly stupid, childish and destructive of him, and will only lead to his complete eviction from the entire TI community...


Stefan: his site is not stolen, since he has full access to the FTP and SQL servers, and can modify the contents at will - I edited my previous post shortly after you wrote your own, not knowing you had posted ;)
Therefore, for now, the others who have the password can still undo damages that Mic may perform.

Mic started to be out of his mind precisely after he attacked one of his teacher colleagues, which could have been bad for his own career as a teacher. critor and Levak moderated him for his own good. Then Mic announced unambiguously, on the front TI-Bank page that critor would now lead the site; but Mic soon reneged his post and actively sought erasing all traces thereof. Things went downhill from that starting point, and reached the bottomless pit everyone can now see for themselves.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2011, 08:08:33 am by Lionel Debroux »
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Offline ruler501

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #85 on: May 31, 2011, 08:17:34 am »
This seems horrible. I feel sorry for mic, but he should not have done what he did. I hope he doesn't get hurt too much since he seems to have been a great member of the TI community
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Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #86 on: May 31, 2011, 08:23:21 am »
Attached is a screenshot of the state of the TI-Bank portal around 2 p.m. CEST. As you can see at the bottom left, the moderation team has basically been destroyed.
And it's pretty fishy that the number of readings on the http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1140 news has decreased (it was ~20, it's now 7)... that would indicate ongoing direct action in the database.
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Offline Lionel Debroux

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #87 on: May 31, 2011, 08:27:54 am »
Mic, sole owner of a zombie site...


Oh, and http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1140 was, in fact, outright erased. It's now http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1141 . This explains the drop in readings count I mentioned above.
Who knows how many iterations of this news will be deleted...
« Last Edit: May 31, 2011, 08:38:46 am by Lionel Debroux »
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Offline Stefan Bauwens

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #88 on: May 31, 2011, 08:28:46 am »
This is very sad. All I can say is: Mic, PLEASE don't do it.


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Offline critor

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Re: The future of TI-BANK compromised?
« Reply #89 on: May 31, 2011, 08:41:18 am »
Stefan: his site is not stolen, since he has full access to the FTP and SQL servers, and can modify the contents at will - I edited my previous post shortly after you wrote your own, not knowing you had posted ;)

Can't the FTP password be changed through a "passwd" command in the FTP console?
« Last Edit: June 01, 2011, 03:23:28 am by critor »
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