Our first hack recovery
It appears to be that someone gained access to both our FTP and our Host Panel and was in the process of deleting and replacing all of our files. Fortunately we caught the problem early – changed everything as quickly as we can and are now in the process of securing access to all our websites and databases. Everything was affected, and Jina is now in the process of uploading all our latest backups. Not everything is up yet, so please be patient. If you witness any problems with the site please inform us so we can be aware of our exact problems.
We would like to direct this official response to whoever is responsible for the mess -
Dear hacker,
You’re an asshole!
Sincerely,
Everybody
Hopefully our secure alternatives will be better and much harder to hack. If you disagree with our principles, please just express it in the platform we’re making available to everybody, no need to go out of your way to ruin what we worked so hard on for the past year.
Join the Conversation
Glad you are on the case. Sorry for all the hassle and time to repair and replace. Thanks for your reporting to us the problem, and thanks for fixing it.
A word on the language of your message to the hacker. Asshole is not what i expect to read on this blog, which has a fantastic Comments Policy and Code of Ethics. Careful choice of language is sometimes hard in tense moments. Yet we are especially careful during tense moments to use language that is civil and clean.
Hi tamar, thanks.
Asshole is a body part, so I don’t consider it extreme. We also stated in our comment policy that we are young; and for that it is normal for us to swear just as long as it’s not done often. It’s not the best thing to do but we never claimed to be the ideal teletubbies either, there’s a lot on this site that proves that we are average and not super formal. We don’t want this place to be formal and we’d like anyone and everyone to be able to relate to it. I don’t really like word restrictions to be honest.
I apologize if you found that offensive. It’s not meant to be for anyone but the hacker himself (whom we are tracking now to find out what his intentions were and if possible, why he or she did this.)
Shoot THEM! KILL THEM! HANG THEM! STAB THEM, AND DE-GUT THEM! DIE A**HOLE!
7amdillah 3al salameh!
Thanks for your reply. Perhaps it is a cultural thing. “assohole” in my language is not a first choice when expressing ideas and feelings, especially in print and to a global audience (not just my closest friend) we don’t know. All languages use specific body parts as curses, insults, and put-downs. We can think of many examples. So i avoid if possible using body parts to convey strong emotion. It is usually an invitation to respond disrespectfully. And usually at this point. the conversations goes on a downward spiral.
Civil discourse is not a formality, I think. It is a matter of respect. Young or old, it’s always a good policy to follow no matter whom we are addressing. i wouldn’t necessarily point out all this if the site didn’t have the fine Comment Policy and Statement of Ethics. We all slip. Whether we get up is our choice. Thanks!
Josef wallah kint khayfa ina binakhsar kil shee! Albi 6aaaaaaaa7. Bas khalas il 7amdilla, kol shee mnee7 hala2.
I agree with you tamar, but in all honesty, when something you’ve been working on constantly for an entire year gets wiped out – the first thing you do is lose your mind and resort to insults, especially if you know that someone did this out of spite. It’s not something to handle easily and “respect” to be honest again is really not the first thing in your mind to try and maintain when addressing such a crucial and important problem like this one. This is a hard period for us when hate mail from all over has become a must and hackers are trying more and more to destroy this work, which we invested not hours, days, or weeks on, but an entire year.
You see, it’s all good and wonderful in theory. When you get punched in the face, first thing that comes into your mind is either to, run away or punch the person back. You are not going to stand there and think the whole situation through with rationality.
The hacker basically took out all of our sites, that’s 15+ sites. I spent the whole day bringing it back online. Asshole seem like a very lenient way to insult this mother fucker. We spent almost all our free time to work on this site and the other campaign websites. I’ll not be nice if someone does something not so nice to them.
PS: Still not done recovering, the sites are up but almost everything behind it is fucked to say the least. Gona take few more days probably to have them all up and running without any issues.
And I am really really pissed right now, so don’t say anything that might get me going.
Thank you.
THANKS HACKER GUY. What a lovely surprise on such a busy month for us.
hey Esra’a, don’t be so sad!!
The web surgeon is here, she sounds like she’s a good surgeon, Please save MEY! Operate God damn it, Operate well!:P
I have read that Hackers are sexually insecure and mentally unstable people who terrorize for the sake of terrorism. People who often feel they have no respect for their worthless lives, and who have to harm people simply for the sake of harming people. At least, terrorists in the Middle East, for example, use violence to achieve a goal. Hackers are just unstable people — usually schizophrenics and bi-polar unsociable people — who do it for their own bizarre entertainment. They hate free speech from people they dislike, and they think that by damaging something, defacing something, a violence against physical existence (ultimate terrorism) gives them joy.
The other thing is that when these social outcasts do target you, it is because you have become something very big, very important and with huge influence. So, being hacked is a great credit to the site.
Thanks hackers!
Ray Hanania
That explains why I could not access the sight last night.. I got worried for a while.. I’m glad MEY survived that.. thanks to your efforts guys.
MEY survives everything Rasha!
Ray, yeah goes without saying that whoever did this is a sore loser with nothing more productive to do in their lives rather than destroy the hard works of others.
Josef, thanks, but Jina is actually a man! And yes he’s an excellent web surgeon. Wait till you see his petition plugin tonight!!
Wow, man! , MEY would have been a great loss to the blogosphere, thank you very much Esra’a for all the efforts your paying to preserve it.
Dammit I know something wrong, I couldn’t access the web site, I thought it was just a simple “Massive Attack” in which they send a lot of data packets just to take the whole bandwidth, but it seems it was way more than that! JINA ROCKS! all hail to Jina and Esra’a and even me!
P.S.
MEY loads very slowly here in Iran, and as I said earlier it’s kinda incompatible with mozilla firefox, I though it would be a good Idea to get a .ir domain, I can do it for you.
It would be great to get a .ir domain! Do you think it would somehow make the site load faster in Iran?
You’re the best Pouyan!!
That’s odd, MEY is compatible with Firefox and not so with IE 6 and below, I had to do bunch of hacks to make it compatible with IE6. Only on Firefox it appears as I want it to appear.
Sorry to hear about the problems caused by the hacker.
Good job for the quick reaction, Jina.
I still can’t access the FORUM!
Esra’a:
I think it would help but before you have to ask Jina’s opinion! but I can do it for you anyway! cause you have to be an Iranian to buy a .ir domain.
I recommend you to reconsider your phrase: “You’re the best Pouyan”!
Jina:
thats kinda odd, I use IE6, I’ve no problem except that I cannot select text! it would select the whole page.
but with Firefox, I can login, I can publish posts, but when it comes to leaving comments, it seems that I don’t exist! it seems that I haven’t logged in!