Ten months on the attack site list for TAG

[R.G.]

Only two months to go for a full year not getting off the attack list.

[sluckey]

Been a full year now.

[xtian]

Wow! Happy FUBAR to us!

It's just us shriveled, half-blind mole people, now!

[R.G.]

As I opined a ways back, it ain't gonna get fixed.

Whomever has the admin keys to the site either doesn't want to spend the effort to fix it, or doesn't really have the keys to the site, as was put forth in an earlier "it'll get fixed Real Soon Now" post.

What you see is what you're going to get. The site will limp along until it hits a massive meltdown, or will really be hacked because the underlying software isn't being updated.

It may be the world's slowest motion trainwreck. Hard to look away from.

On another front, has anyone looked at what ransom ware is up to these days? Spreads by malware email and ... compromised web sites... and when you get it, it quietly encrypts all the files on your computer until it can lock you out and demand the bitcoin equivalent of $200-$1000. It's not just for hospitals any more. The target market is just plain folks who have no other option but to pay up or let their files be gone.

[rp]

http://forum.metropoulos.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=45486

Any mods here friends w/ George? Maybe TAG can do whatever he did?

On another front, has anyone looked at what ransom ware is up to these days?

I cleaned up after the OSX Transmission keranger malware that almost got me. I'm backed up and pretty lean, nothing I can afford to loose - I hope. Forcing me to rebuild would be a good thing, speed this damn MBP up.

Anyone know if you get hit with one of these ransomwares if you can boot into OSX recovery and just reinstall the OS from the partition and web? I assume so, that the Malware doesn't go that deep into root functions?

[xtian]

The accounts I've read just talk about file encryption, nothing having to do with root access nor OS corruption.

[tubeswell]

Ah well, I'll keep gassing' until doomsday I guess

[rp]

The accounts I've read just talk about file encryption, nothing having to do with root access nor OS corruption.

Duh, of course. I keep thinking virus for the hell of it, but ransomware has to let the computer function to let you browse and pay them, and then if there is honor among thieves they have to set everything back to normal. Bummer that it affects Time Machine, if Apple addressed that it would go a long way to ameliorating the problem, at least for those using TM.

I've had all my stuff in one folder since OS6 for the last 25 years! I wonder if password protecting the folder would prevent the ransomware from affecting it? What I should do is rebuild my dang computer, create a user account rather than using as administrator as I do now. As we should all do.

I googled OSX ransomeware to stay updated. FYI This is interesting, just installed it, if it's truly silent and doesn't hog my system in the least I might leave it. So far a few firewall-like pop ups asking permission for things like Dropbox, not at all constantly annoying like most s/w firewalls. The team here seems on the ball.

https://www.onthewire.io/new-tool-detec ... e-on-os-x/
https://objective-see.com/products/ransomwhere.html

[rp]

BTW no updates by anyone anymore on the TAG malware/google issue? Is anyone flying the plane? Pilot had a heart attack and the cabin door is locked? RG is right, death spiral. No search and rescue, cannibalism in the Andes. Sad end to a good community.

[Omar]

Hey Guys,
As the original owner of this site, it's sad to see this issue still continue. I tried to contact Allynmey hoping to see if I could take back the site and resolve the issue but never heard anything back. That's been a couple of months back.

There are a lot of great people on this forum who have contributed so much over the years. Would hate to see it go to hell in a hand basket.

Omar

[R.G.]

As the original owner of this site, it's sad to see this issue still continue. I tried to contact Allynmey hoping to see if I could take back the site and resolve the issue but never heard anything back. That's been a couple of months back.

I wish you luck.

There are a lot of great people on this forum who have contributed so much over the years. Would hate to see it go to hell in a hand basket.

Sadly, it already is in hell. The hand basket has burned. It's not clear whether the door is still open behind it or not.

Allynmey either doesn't have the ability or time to fix it. Otherwise, given the posts we've seen, it would be.

At this point, the way to save the site is to write a bot that will laboriously read, then save, every post from the beginning. This could be used as the basis for a new version of the site. But this one is not going to change until some cataclysm happens.

The only remaining question is whether the cataclysm destroys the past content or not.

I find myself unable to look away from the oncoming crash.

[martin manning]

At this point, the way to save the site is to write a bot that will laboriously read, then save, every post from the beginning. This could be used as the basis for a new version of the site.

Seems like this should be a purchase-able service.

[Bob S]

I'm sure we could come up with the funds to do what is necessary.
An image of the site shouldn't be too much of a problem.
What we need is someone at the helm.

[R.G.]

I tried to download all the public pages once before with HTTRACK, but it was always stopped on the first page. I figured out that it was encountering the same "reported attack page" issue.

I figured a way to make my browser iterate through the pages. Firefox has an add-on called "Scrapbook" that saves web pages in a "scrapbook", but can be told to go visit all the pages on one web page. That seems to be working. The web browser session is being "me", perusing each member-accessible page in turn.

It also explains why the web page is still being listed as an attack page. There have been multiple links from this web page to external pages that my secondary shields block as malicious. While it may be true that no attack stuff is on TAG, it contains links to external stuff that is also malicious. So you really (probably) could get infected by clicking on a link to an external page from a link in TAG. I obviously didn't follow the links to verify that it's suicide - no reason to kiss someone with ebola to find out if they're infected.

This may take a while. It's about 3K files into the forum after 12 hours, and there are many thousand messages, so it could go on for a while.

Luckily, computers are patient.

[martin manning]

I applaud your effort and charity, R.G.!

Is there a way to upload these scrapbooked pages to a clean php BB? Would the malicious links land the new site on the blacklist again, or have they been deleted in the scrapbooked pages? I know little about BB apps, but it seems they are organized by threads and posts, with a lot of other attributes included. Can all of that be reproduced from the information you are compiling?