Macintosh Garden login Problems

[ClockWise]

Anyone have any trouble logging in at Macintosh Garden? I having been trying for the last few days (if only to clear out some of the spam... I have mod privileges), but logging in simply sends me to an empty page, which persists until I delete my cookies/cache.

[Silent Flamer]

I just logged in fine.

[ClockWise]

How strange! Are any mods active right now? Big build-up of spam at the moment.

[ClockWise]

Looks like no spam has been removed in weeks. Are any mods ever logged in there? Maybe the setup fell victim to an exploit that locks out people at mod level and above.

[mrdav]

I suspect the mods have been locked out accidently. The mods are nornally quite active and do a great job. I can't say the same for the admins. Yes, they pay the bills, but they rarely put in an appearance, and are never there when you want some input from them. I suspect they are blissfully unaware of what is happening, and the mods are gnashing their teeth wanting to get in.

[24bit]

The spammers have totally taken over at MG.
Clockwise, couldn´t you somehow get in touch with the guys down under?
(But you will have thought of that yourself. )

There was some talk about migrating the Garden to a European hosting server, lets hope the things we are observing right now is merely collateral damage.

[mrdav]

Just in case it is important in the future that someone knows, I have a copy of almost *everything* uploaded to MG and I keep it up-to-date. The only things I have not bothered with are the innumerable versions of system software CDs since at the time I made the decision to exclude these, there was someone who specialised in that, and I expected they would keep copies (but they didn't..and guess what... their file server deleted everything)

[24bit]

Good to know mrdav. Well done!
That solves the riddle how you restored an upload of mine. Thanks for caring, BTW.

Nearly all of the formerly well known Mediafire storages have been taken down meanwhile.
Mostly due to strange obscure copyright claims from some bulldogs. There is a thread about the long story over at MG.
Max has stored some System software soon enough and there still are the System Software Recovery CDs and the Anthologies.
Most System Software should be covered that way.

I think it would be wise to start collecting the 10.0 to 10.3 goodies as well, as they vanished from Apple´s servers already.
Preserving 10.4 to 10.6 stuff might be worth a thought too.
I started a thread about it at OSX86.net, maybe we shall see some proceedings soon.

[ClockWise]

I'll try to get a note to Maedi, though I don't think I would have any more success than another member...

[max1zzz]

Just so that you know - I did send a message to balrog several days ago, but i know he is very busy so i don't have much hope that he will act on it

I hope this isn't the downfall of MG, but it's getting really out of hand now...

@24bit: I do actually have a small ammount of 10.3 / 10.4 stuff archived (On a offline drive, along with some classic stuff that can't be shared) but i'm wary of actively collecting it (both on copywrite and space concerns)

[ClockWise]

I sent a message to Maedi this afternoon. He didn't respond to it... but it looks like he fixed whatever it was that was keeping me (and probably the other mods) out of the page.

I'm slowly deleting the spam posted in the forums right now. The mod tools in basic Drupal are horrible, though, so I am not deleting the spam accounts. As far as I can tell, deleting a user account requires that it be located in an alphabetical list that displays 20 user names at a time. And since there are tens of thousands of accounts on Macintosh Garden, finding a specific account takes ten minutes. The list isn't even searchable.

Anyhow... someone should get in touch with the other mods and let them know they can get back in.

[ClockWise]

Looks like the site issues are being addressed.

I spent half an hour deleting spam posts one at a time... about five minutes ago I noticed that a "report this message" prompt appeared as I deleted a message. Looks like someone was actually installing some moderation modules at that very moment.

And it appears as if the Drupal install was updated a couple of hours ago. So the site will probably be more secure now.

In this day and age websites require lots of love and care from administrators. Or they go to crap. Good to remember.

[ClockWise]

And the site is now offline. Hopefully for maintenance. Another good sign!

[max1zzz]

Seems to be back now and spam free

[ClockWise]

I deleted those suckers one by one. I'm hoping for some mod tools that are similar to what phpbb includes.

[adespoton]

Ack! It was using outdated Drupal? Likely the site was totally under the control of a botnet admin then; possibly part of a Blackhole TDS. Glad to see things getting updated, as otherwise, the site's likely responsible for aiding drive-by downloads of ransomware and the like.

Drupal and WordPress need to be continually patched, or they're quickly taken over (usually not visibly) for nefarious purposes. Link spam is only the tip of the iceberg.

[ClockWise]

Yeah. Like I said... websites operating any kind of CMS or message board a lot of tender loving care in this day and age, or they quickly go to pot.

Rest assured that this site will always be taken care of! We celebrate our fifteenth anniversary in May. Which means that I've been tending to the page for HALF OF MY LIFE. That is... sort of weird, actually.

[adespoton]

Wow... I remember first digging into the guts of the Mac architecture 25 years ago, after having written a few games and utilities in HyperCard and Turbo Pascal and being curious to see what was underneath. It's been 20 years since I wrote my first website (Go NCSA Mosaic!). But 15 years for a site that's essentially stayed the same with the same target audience is amazing!

Well done

[mrdav]

Thanks for your cleanup of MG, Clockwise. But, hmm, after humming along nice and clean again for a while, the site has gone off line, and has been so for a couple of days now. I wonder if the admins have forgotten to pay something important to keep the site up. This has happened before. One good thing to know from past experience is that it eventually comes back up.

[ClockWise]

Working now. But MG has a history of going on and off for periods of time.