MER MIA -- What Happened?

[TampaYankee]

Our servers were attacked by hackers and effectively destroyed. We have moved to new servers and we are restoring the site from backups. We are working as quickly as possible to bring the site back up to full effectiveness.

So far a cursory review indicates profiles, reviews and messages, as of the morning of Feb 26, seem to be back online. However we are still evaluating the extent of the damage and the progess of recovery as it proceeds. Some intermittent anomalies may remain in login and forum access. Please try a couple of times if necessary. What looks like a failure is actually success. This is seen after using the back button from the error page to reveal your login message on the home page.

Please bear with us. It will take us time to achieve a full

port of all services to the new servers and a complete

recovery. Thank you for your patience.

The MER Management Team

[Guest Riptide]

TY, before throwing the switch, make sure none of the red wires are touching any of the green wires. :-)

[Guest CTDick]

Blaagh. That picture gives me heartburn. x(

Dick

[xenophile]

Guess they disapproved of the subject matter... Rud3 azz teenage boy 'phobic script kiddiez... x(

Any idea of what exploit they used? Hope you guys can patch it up and harden things a bit, cause I'm guessing they'll be back (or are back already...)

[Guest BostonGuy]

Sorry you were the victim of this crap... I never will understand the mindset of people who pull this kind of stuff. Congrats on a pretty speed recovery.

One note: I cannot access any post by clicking on them -- the only way to view or reply is through the "View All" links. I'm not complaining -- just providing a piece of information that may help resolve any remaining problems.

Again, good recovery; I'm glad you're back.

BG

[Lucky]

Ditto to Boston Guy. This dastardly deed is sickening. I hope there is a way to track them down.

[Guest twinklover]

I'm with BG and Lucky. It was a very speedy recovery, just a day or two. I must say I missed MER when it was MIA. So that must mean something. It means a lot in fact. Just think about things you miss when they're gone. Suddenly you have a moment of consciousness and appreciation for them when they are gone and then again when they reappear. Such things are desirable things. I can think of no other or better litmus test for such things.

QED: MER is a desirable thing.

[TampaYankee]

>Congrats on a pretty speed recovery.

>

Thanks but that may be a bit premature. We do have one oar in the water but several things are not back yet: email issues, new reviews, featured persons, etc... We have to go through the system from the ground up.

To add to the load, our sister site GayThailand.com was also taken out. Both sites are under recovery by our software team.

>One note: I cannot access any post by clicking on them -- the

>only way to view or reply is through the "View All" links.

Thanks. We are aware. But we appreciate the heads up.

We are still evaluating the damage and disconnects. Any helpful comments about performance issues are greatly appreciated.

[Guest StuCotts]

This just a test. I tried posting a reply a little while ago. When I clicked on Post Message the message didn't go through and I was logged out without wanting to be.

[Guest StuCotts]

I'll try again.

FYI as of now, I can access the forum in the threaded mode, but none of the individual posts. No access problems in the linear mode, but posting seems to work only sporadically.

Because of the alphabetical order I can't tell fast whether all the NYC escort profiles are there. Thanks to the chronological mode, it's obvious that all NYC escort reviews dated after 2/2/07 are missing. Is the same true in other cities? Would it help Management to know?

Mostly because one of them was mine, I know that all reviews in the Latest column dated after the morning of 2/22 are not there.

Note to TY: I have already forwarded you my review that is missing from the Latest column, in case it's helpful. There is another that I submitted, but that you had not posted when the hackers struck. I will forward it only if you say you want it. Tell me when you have a minute.

[TampaYankee]

>FYI as of now, I can access the forum in the threaded mode,

>but none of the individual posts. No access problems in the

>linear mode, but posting seems to work only sporadically.

>

Thanks. We are aware and will get to this as soon as other priorities are taken care of. Our email is back up including client emails to escorts initiated from profiles or reviews. We are still recovering some of our admin software including featured persons display, new reviews posting, and photo upload management.

>Because of the alphabetical order I can't tell fast whether

>all the NYC escort profiles are there. Thanks to the

>chronological mode, it's obvious that all NYC escort reviews

>dated after 2/2/07 are missing. Is the same true in other

>cities? Would it help Management to know?

>

>Mostly because one of them was mine, I know that all reviews

>in the Latest column dated after the morning of 2/22 are not

>there.

>

The last reviews posted for Bryan_NYC and ScottAdler survive. However they were posted after our backup. They will be reposted when our review management sofware is fully functional.

We believe we have all reviews posted as of Feb 26, the date of our last backup. We have all reviews received up through at least mid day Feb 26 as well. Any reviews received after that are lost. Fortunately our backup was a day or so prior to the crash so few, if any, items were lost.

>Note to TY: I have already forwarded you my review that is

>missing from the Latest column, in case it's helpful. There

>is another that I submitted, but that you had not posted when

>the hackers struck. I will forward it only if you say you

>want it.

Stu, we are all set with you. In addition to Bryan, we have another review for you in the queue.

Thanks to everyone for your patience and understanding.

[Guest Riptide]

The only two things that I have observed still out of whack outside of what you have mentioned are 1) the chat function and 2) the photo gallery.

I'm sure you're already aware, but in the event you're not.

[TampaYankee]

Yes, we are aware but it slipped by me to mention. Thanks for pointing that out. These will be restored after the other items.

[Guest Riptide]

Indulge - Go Crazy - OPEN BAR! for you guys. Just don't go touching any wires after your first one. :+

[Guest comment]

I just want to add how bad I feel for you and Oz that someone would be so vindictive toward your sites. I know aside from my support there is not much else I can do ... so please be aware you have my total support..

I know this comes late but I had been unable to access this thread prior.

[TampaYankee]

Thanks for the nice words.

TY

[Guest StuCotts]

Further to comment's remarks, there is somebody out there who badly wants you out of business. I'm afraid they will be as persistent as they are malicious. I'm sure I speak for all your well-wishers in hoping that you're taking all available measures to prevent a reocurrence.

More to the point, is there a way to track this kind of offence back to its originator? If so, is legal action a possibility?

[xenophile]

I feel bad for you guys having to fix code on a running site but this little gem showed up in a profile listing...

SELECT m.*, ep.*, c.*, ct.*, s.* FROM member m, country c, city ct, escort_profile ep LEFT JOIN states s ON s.states_id = ep.states_id WHERE m.status = 'active' AND m.member_id = ep.member_id AND ep.photo_uploaded = 'yes' AND ct.city_id = ep.city_id AND c.country_id = ep.country_id AND m.member_id = '106040064' GROUP BY m.member_id ORDER BY m.username

Maybe we can lend you our Jonathan, one hotshot young php guru.

[TampaYankee]

Thanks for the concern. Much appreciated. We prefer at this time not to comment on what measures we are undertaking other than to say we are working the recovery. Thanks again.

TY

[TampaYankee]

>Maybe we can lend you our Jonathan, one hotshot young php

>guru.

>

Maybe...

Hot, young, guru... what's not to like!! }(

Thanks for your conern. :7