I've wondered too-- haven't heard from the Rayvenhaus people in a long time on here either.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

me, too...

> Is this site working? Did their address change? When I type in
> www.lbworld.org, it takes me to a solar flare site. . .is this just me?

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.766 / Virus Database: 513 - Release Date: 9/17/2004

It seems to be loading some kind of placeholder page for the Mambo content
management system. My guess is that Steve just needs to adjust some settings to get
lbworld working correctly again. He posted to another group I'm in that his site's been
down for a few days and he's working to get everything back up again.

Czeltic Girl

--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "Susan Alexander" wrote:
> me, too...
>
> > Is this site working? Did their address change? When I type in
> > www.lbworld.org, it takes me to a solar flare site. . .is this just me?

To all....

I received this e-mail this morning. Think it answers the questions....

The World of Letterboxing Community wrote:

> With RayvenMom, Iron`Bear and Pandora, we'd like to take one moment to
> share some inportant news: I'm sure that most of you have noticed that
> the World of Letterboxing website has been down for almost a solid
> week now. Briefly, on Sunday, the 19th of Sept 2004, the website was
> hit by two things. The first was a MASS flood of robot generated users
> to the tune of almost 5000 of them. Yes, 5000! Concurrently, an
> exploit announced on Sept 16th, at the Unix Bug Tracker, was used to
> gain root level access to the machine that runs the entire WoL
> website. From that point we spiralled into oblivion. I have been
> working into the wee hours of the mornings for the past several days
> to try and recover and get the system back to where it was before this
> happened. However. it was not to be. Almost everything was destroyed.
> Not enough was salvagable to be able to bring the sight back online as
> it was. If you can imagine being a builder and building a home for you
> and your family only to have it burned to the ground by arsonists, not
> once, but twice now. We shall survice. I for one and not going to let
> anyone push me around and tell me I can't do something. This community
> shall rise from it's ashes like the phoenix and return better than it
> was before. We're still recovering but I invite you to log back in and
> let's show them that this community is stronger because of the sum of
> our members. I look forward to seeing you again my friends. P.S.
> Rayvenmom sends her love and asks that, perhaps sometime in the near
> future, if her husband could perhaps spend one or two nights in bed
> with her, she would be deeply grateful!

Have fun,

Jim (aka Blax)

aine_42 wrote:

> It seems to be loading some kind of placeholder page for the Mambo
> content
> management system. My guess is that Steve just needs to adjust some
> settings to get
> lbworld working correctly again. He posted to another group I'm in
> that his site's been
> down for a few days and he's working to get everything back up again.
>
> Czeltic Girl
>
> --- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "Susan Alexander"
> wrote:
> > me, too...
> >
> > > Is this site working? Did their address change? When I type in
> > > www.lbworld.org, it takes me to a solar flare site. . .is this
> just me?
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/letterbox-usa/
>
> * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> letterbox-usa-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service .
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Wow. I didn't really care for the site that much but they seem like really nice people trying to do something they care about. It's a lot of work to get a site up and keep it running. I hope they get it up again.
missmoon

----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Plouffe
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 9/24/2004 12:18:55 PM
Subject: Re: [LbNA] LB World


To all....

I received this e-mail this morning. Think it answers the questions....

The World of Letterboxing Community wrote:

> With RayvenMom, Iron`Bear and Pandora, we'd like to take one moment to
> share some inportant news: I'm sure that most of you have noticed that
> the World of Letterboxing website has been down for almost a solid
> week now. Briefly, on Sunday, the 19th of Sept 2004, the website was
> hit by two things. The first was a MASS flood of robot generated users
> to the tune of almost 5000 of them. Yes, 5000! Concurrently, an
> exploit announced on Sept 16th, at the Unix Bug Tracker, was used to
> gain root level access to the machine that runs the entire WoL
> website. From that point we spiralled into oblivion. I have been
> working into the wee hours of the mornings for the past several days
> to try and recover and get the system back to where it was before this

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Lb World isn't hurting anybody, the folks who use it aren't hurting
anybody, and they're happy. I don't know why it's been destroyed
twice, but I wish it would stop. I don't know who's responsible, or
even if they're related to letterboxing, but it's time to put an end
to it. There's enough room for LB World to exist alongside all the
other groups about letterboxing.

catbead




--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, Jim Plouffe wrote:
> To all....
>
> I received this e-mail this morning. Think it answers the questions....
>
> The World of Letterboxing Community wrote:
>
> > With RayvenMom, Iron`Bear and Pandora, we'd like to take one
moment to
> > share some inportant news: I'm sure that most of you have noticed
that
> > the World of Letterboxing website has been down for almost a solid
> > week now. Briefly, on Sunday, the 19th of Sept 2004, the website was
> > hit by two things. The first was a MASS flood of robot generated
users
> > to the tune of almost 5000 of them. Yes, 5000! Concurrently, an
> > exploit announced on Sept 16th, at the Unix Bug Tracker, was used to
> > gain root level access to the machine that runs the entire WoL
> > website. From that point we spiralled into oblivion. I have been
> > working into the wee hours of the mornings for the past several days
> > to try and recover and get the system back to where it was before
this
> > happened. However. it was not to be. Almost everything was destroyed.
> > Not enough was salvagable to be able to bring the sight back
online as
> > it was. If you can imagine being a builder and building a home for
you
> > and your family only to have it burned to the ground by arsonists,
not
> > once, but twice now. We shall survice. I for one and not going to let
> > anyone push me around and tell me I can't do something. This
community
> > shall rise from it's ashes like the phoenix and return better than it
> > was before. We're still recovering but I invite you to log back in
and
> > let's show them that this community is stronger because of the sum of
> > our members. I look forward to seeing you again my friends. P.S.
> > Rayvenmom sends her love and asks that, perhaps sometime in the near
> > future, if her husband could perhaps spend one or two nights in bed
> > with her, she would be deeply grateful!
>
> Have fun,
>
> Jim (aka Blax)
>
> aine_42 wrote:
>
> > It seems to be loading some kind of placeholder page for the Mambo
> > content
> > management system. My guess is that Steve just needs to adjust some
> > settings to get
> > lbworld working correctly again. He posted to another group I'm in
> > that his site's been
> > down for a few days and he's working to get everything back up again.
> >
> > Czeltic Girl
> >
> > --- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "Susan Alexander"
> > wrote:
> > > me, too...
> > >
> > > > Is this site working? Did their address change? When I type in
> > > > www.lbworld.org, it takes me to a solar flare site. . .is this
> > just me?
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> > ADVERTISEMENT
> >


> >
> >
> >
> >
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> > * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/letterbox-usa/
> >
> > * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > letterbox-usa-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >

> >
> > * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> > Service .
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> I don't know who's responsible, or even if they're related to
> letterboxing, but it's time to put an end to it. There's enough
> room for LB World to exist alongside all the other groups about
> letterboxing.

I'll second that motion! I'm not a big fan of the website, but
hacking into it is just criminal. Literally and figuratively.

-- Ryan

The destruction that keeps happening to WOL is sad and despicable. I got here too late to understand what the bad history is, but if it is due to someone affiliated with this group or letterboxing in general, it's even more nasty and sinister. That people have tools like that and use them for such destruction is unbelievable. Does anyone know why we suddenly stopped hearing from the Rayvenhauses on here? --lunaryakketyact

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "Anna Lisa Yoder"
wrote:
> The destruction that keeps happening to WOL is sad and despicable. I
got here too late to understand what the bad history is, but if it is
due to someone affiliated with this group or letterboxing in general,
it's even more nasty and sinister.

This assumption that it's coming from some rival faction here is just
as despicable. There is indeed a lot of history that I won't and don't
want to recall here but perpetuationg what has only been an opinion
and/or speculation that the attacks come from here serves no purpose
unless that purpose is to promote divisiveness and suspicion. There
are thousands of random attacks on web sites every day and leaping to
the conclusion that someone is out to destroy WOL out of some
malicious intent only fuels factionalism and suspicion. Pillory the
offender when and if one is found but don't bandy about erroneous
speculation and false accusations.


That people have tools like that and use them for such destruction is
unbelievable. Does anyone know why we suddenly stopped hearing from
the Rayvenhauses on here? --lunaryakketyact
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "catbead1" wrote:
> Lb World isn't hurting anybody, the folks who use it aren't hurting
> anybody, and they're happy. I don't know why it's been destroyed
> twice, but I wish it would stop. I don't know who's responsible, or
> even if they're related to letterboxing, but it's time to put an end
> to it. There's enough room for LB World to exist alongside all the
> other groups about letterboxing.
>
> catbead

I could not agree more. In fact, a little bit of competition is
almost always a good thing... keeps everyone on their toes! My heart
was crushed when I learned what happened to their site. I certainly
hope that it was not done by someone involved in letterboxing. But,
considering that their second build was done using a different
database package from the first, it certainly looks like someone is
specifically targeting them.

I've met the Ravenhaus clan personally, and I found them to be
wonderfully friendly people who are very enthusiastic and positive
about the hobby of letterboxing. I think it's a shame that their
efforts to create new resources for us all have been met with such
hostility and negativity.

The archives of this list indicate that there were a few people who
made some very personal attacks against them in the past. The
Ravenhaus clan didn't react very gracefully to these attacks (though
I can hardly blame them) and apparently got themselves banished from
this list as a result. How does something intended to be all about
fun and friendship get so twisted up in hate and jealousy? It is
very sad.

The site they created still needed a lot of work... it was certainly
no threat to the LbNA site, or any other letterboxing site I've
seen... but it had its good points, too. Criticism is one thing...
malicious destruction is another. My involvement in their project
has been very minimal up until now. But, upon seeing the kind of
adversity they are determined to overcome, I fully intend on giving
them my full support in the future... no matter how many times they
are destroyed and have to rebuild. I would like to encourage others
to join me in helping to restore their collection of clues, once the
site is online again.

Well this will probably get me banned from this group
and I don't care if it does. I think this was a attack
on a website that was only doing good and getting
better. This is way it was attacked I think some of
the powers to be around here think they own
letterboxing. I had my computer attacked lately and
need my password from the LBNA website and have yet to
hear from anyone there. As soon as I do I am pulling
all of my letterboxes off that site. I have had it
with this stuff happening.


--- Der Mad Stamper wrote:

> --- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "catbead1"
> wrote:
> > Lb World isn't hurting anybody, the folks who use
> it aren't hurting
> > anybody, and they're happy. I don't know why it's
> been destroyed
> > twice, but I wish it would stop. I don't know
> who's responsible, or
> > even if they're related to letterboxing, but it's
> time to put an end
> > to it. There's enough room for LB World to exist
> alongside all the
> > other groups about letterboxing.
> >
> > catbead
>
> I could not agree more. In fact, a little bit of
> competition is
> almost always a good thing... keeps everyone on
> their toes! My heart
> was crushed when I learned what happened to their
> site. I certainly
> hope that it was not done by someone involved in
> letterboxing. But,
> considering that their second build was done using a
> different
> database package from the first, it certainly looks
> like someone is
> specifically targeting them.
>
> I've met the Ravenhaus clan personally, and I found
> them to be
> wonderfully friendly people who are very
> enthusiastic and positive
> about the hobby of letterboxing. I think it's a
> shame that their
> efforts to create new resources for us all have been
> met with such
> hostility and negativity.
>
> The archives of this list indicate that there were a
> few people who
> made some very personal attacks against them in the
> past. The
> Ravenhaus clan didn't react very gracefully to these
> attacks (though
> I can hardly blame them) and apparently got
> themselves banished from
> this list as a result. How does something intended
> to be all about
> fun and friendship get so twisted up in hate and
> jealousy? It is
> very sad.
>
> The site they created still needed a lot of work...
> it was certainly
> no threat to the LbNA site, or any other
> letterboxing site I've
> seen... but it had its good points, too. Criticism
> is one thing...
> malicious destruction is another. My involvement in
> their project
> has been very minimal up until now. But, upon
> seeing the kind of
> adversity they are determined to overcome, I fully
> intend on giving
> them my full support in the future... no matter how
> many times they
> are destroyed and have to rebuild. I would like to
> encourage others
> to join me in helping to restore their collection of
> clues, once the
> site is online again.
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> --------------------~-->
> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
>
http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/60TolB/TM
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
> letterbox-usa-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>



=====
The Maplines
themaplines@snet.net

Mary & Paul

P 41 F 608 X 116 HH 53 E2 V7 PL 1


I am a personal friend of Linus Van Pelt of the Peanuts cartoons and his trusted friend.
766

Steve of Rayvenhaus was involved in some very clever, very funny
threads here. Other instigators have come to the fore and the
wackiness continues............but I still miss Steve.



y-nought

--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, Mary & Paul The Map Lines
wrote:
> Well this will probably get me banned from this group
> and I don't care if it does. I think this was a attack
> on a website that was only doing good and getting
> better. This is way it was attacked I think some of
> the powers to be around here think they own
> letterboxing. I had my computer attacked lately and
> need my password from the LBNA website and have yet to
> hear from anyone there. As soon as I do I am pulling
> all of my letterboxes off that site. I have had it
> with this stuff happening.


This is exactly what I was refering to, I know you enjoyed the WOL
site and were a frequent poster there so I understand that your upset,
but could you please offer evidence instead of saying that you "think
some of the powers to be around here think they own letterboxing." The
implication in this can hardly be denied. The fact that you don't
explicitly make an acusation doesn't make this any less an accusation.
As I said earlier you can pillory the offender when they are
identified but this speculation will never help heal any wounds.

This group and letterboxing.org is open to everyone. Thousands of
people. Good people, bad people. Good people who want to find our
boxes and share theirs. Bad people who want to destroy. And anyone
who just wants to read.

We don't know who those destructive people are, so lets not start
hinting around that we do. Just because there was some animosity in
the past is no reason to point fingers in accusation. There is a huge
jump from angry words, to willful destruction of property. And I want
to suggest to those who are thinking just that, to stop and ponder for
a moment all the implications. Suppose you had harsh words with your
neighbor and the next month their house burned down under suspicious
circumstances. Does that make *you* automatically guilty of arson
because of those angry words? No.

So lets not get our grunts* in a twist over flying accusations.


catbead

*grunts = have you ever watched John Wayne walk, especially in his
younger movies? He looks like he has a massive wedgie. We always
called him "Grunts" or "Old Grunts", although I can't remember why.
So undies became "grunts".

I don't know who 'anyone' is. I didn't see that you'd written to me
personally, written to me via the webmasters address, or left a
message on my phone. That said:

Here's how you can get your password:

a) use the 'send my password to me' feature on the login page
b) check your spam folder if you set your spam catcher level high
c) enjoy the game however you want

-- wg

--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, Mary & Paul The Map Lines
wrote:

> need my password from the LBNA website and have yet to
> hear from anyone there.

I have taken care of it thank you very much



--- Wes wrote:

> I don't know who 'anyone' is. I didn't see that
> you'd written to me
> personally, written to me via the webmasters
> address, or left a
> message on my phone. That said:
>
> Here's how you can get your password:
>
> a) use the 'send my password to me' feature on the
> login page
> b) check your spam folder if you set your spam
> catcher level high
> c) enjoy the game however you want
>
> -- wg
>
> --- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, Mary & Paul
> The Map Lines
> wrote:
>
> > need my password from the LBNA website and have
> yet to
> > hear from anyone there.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> --------------------~-->
> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
>
http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/60TolB/TM
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
> letterbox-usa-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>


=====
The Maplines
themaplines@snet.net

Mary & Paul

P 41 F 608 X 116 HH 53 E2 V7 PL 1


I am a personal friend of Linus Van Pelt of the Peanuts cartoons and his trusted friend.
766

--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, Mary & Paul The Map Lines
wrote:
> Well this will probably get me banned from this group
> and I don't care if it does. I think this was a attack
> on a website that was only doing good and getting
> better.

This type of response is unfortunate, but not surprising.

Censorship breeds mistrust.

That's a shame. I doubt that it was a malicious letterboxer that caused the
problems at LB World. More likely it was a script kiddie using someone
else's program to exploit a known issue in the web site code.

This is probably a good time for someone who runs letterboxing.org to chime
in and inform the other users that they have good backup plans in case
something (heaven forbid) happens to their web site. Although hackers are
definitely one unfortunate occurrence on the 'net, a simple hard drive going
bad can wreak havoc on a web site without proper backup. Unfortunately far
too often, backup plans are overlooked until after the inevitable crash
occurs.

Good luck with the rebuild. From experience I know how frustrating it can
get.

> This is probably a good time for someone who runs letterboxing.org
> to chime in and inform the other users that they have good backup
> plans in case something (heaven forbid) happens to their web site.

I'll let Wes handle that since he knows more about the backup plans
for LbNA than I do.

For Atlas Quest, I run nightly backups of all the data on it. I store
backups for the last 30 days, so if somehow the data was corrupted
for a few days--or even up to 29 days--I'd still have the latest copy
of good, clean data. In theory, the hosting service it runs on is
supposed to be backuping up my account (including the backups!), but
I hate trusting someone else to do such a critically important thing,
so I download a copy of it every week or two and burn it to a non-
rewriteable CD at least once a month. Which I never throw away. I
can't imagine a worst-case scenario that would require me to use
backup data more than a month old, but heaven forbid if it ever came
to that, I'll be prepared.

I can't guarantee Atlas Quest is safe from hackers--in fact, nobody
can guarantee a website is safe from hackers. There are ALWAYS
vunerabilities. However, the hosting service I use is very good
about installing newly released patches with 24 hours of when they
come out. And because most hackers use already known vunerabilities
that any teenager can surf the web to learn about, the fact Atlas
Quest uses custom-made scripts is a great discouragement. It's a
*lot* harder to find a vunerability when you actually have to figure
it out yourself than it is to use one that's publically announced on
the Internet.

In addition, all sensitive information (such as passwords) are
encrypted before it's stored in the database, so if a hacker ever did
gain access to it, they'll still be left with a bunch of worthless
data.

All in all, Atlas Quest pretty darn solid, but I still look for
weaknesses and vunerabilities. It's a never-ending game, and you
lose if you get caught with your pants down. I've logged more than
one attempt at someone trying to hack into Atlas Quest, but so far
nobody has succeeded in the attacks which I wrote off to random
attacks that happen all the time.

Eventually, given enough time, someone will probably succeed.
Statistically speaking, it's guaranteed. Every website out there
will get hacked eventually. Depending on the severity and timing of
the attack, Atlas Quest might lose anywhere between one day to two
weeks of data. But I'll never have to start over again from
scratch. I'd rather throw in the towel completely than start over
again from scratch, so I've taken extensive measures to make sure
such an event will never happen to Atlas Quest.

-- Ryan

> This is probably a good time for someone who runs letterboxing.org
> to chime in and inform the other users that they have good backup
> plans in case something (heaven forbid) happens to their website.

Backups by ISP every night. I have a local copy of all the code, so
I just copy the database down every night. Shoot, I think I've got a
copy of every night since we've started in December '02.

Our ISP doesn't seem to have problems with hackers. Now, DNS servers
are a different story...

-- wg