More Glitches in the ATS Matrix

[Encia22]

The only confusion I have is about Darko and a separate tech guy. I knew per SO, that the original tech guy disappeared. Then Darko took over. I was under the impression Darko was the second tech guy. Is this not the case?

No, as far as I know, Darko is neither the owner nor the tech guy, although he seemed to enjoy taking credit for fixing some things early on, but the tool-man was someone else.

[KKLoco]

No, as far as I know, Darko is neither the owner nor the tech guy, although he seemed to enjoy taking credit for fixing some things early on, but the tool-man was someone else.

So the douche had no value, and was simply paid for his opinion. 

I watched one of his videos of himself on Facebook. Let’s just say that everything about him 100% personifies all of our feelings about him.

Whoever the new owner is, they certainly are morons for hiring Chris to run ATS. The prick expedited the downfall.

[l0st]

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QUESTION ... The members list there since June 2 has all the new accounts last activity being in 1969.  Does this mean there is a glitch and all new accounts are screwed up and people can't post from them?

That would explain why it's been so quiet for the past week and a half.  The serial returnee trolls haven't been able to get through.

ATS runs on forum software called XMB. It's typically run on Linux. All linux dates are based off of what's called a Unix Epoch which starts at time code zero or January 1, 1970. If the field in the DB that contains this data is blank(null) some software will show the last day of 1969. That's probably what's happening here.

In other words, the column in the DB with the timestamps in it isn't being updated properly, likely because the DB is corrupt and the column can't be read at all.

Sadly, DB corruption has a tendency to just get worse and worse if its not addressed, as we are observing live.

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That would be NO ONE.  
No one on ATS has admin credentials.

And, AFAIK, passwords cannot be reset as of about June 2, 2024.

The person who sql injected their way back into ATS could probably do a lot more with the exploit... in terms of fixing the DB, if they chose to do so.

I'm not going to pretend I know what the backend is, because I don't, but given that it runs XMB which typically runs on a LAMP stack I'm going to guess it MySQL/MariaDB(same thing really). Given the age of the site, its fairly likely that the tables are MyISAM format. If that's the case, the sql injector might be able to run a "repair tables" command, which might fix it.

Probably something like this:

flush tables with read lock;
check table <table name> extended;
unlock tables;

Would need to be repeated for every table. If online repair fails someone would have to exploit their way in to running commands at the shell.

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I believe that Darko, in his arrogance, ignorance and spitefulness, took deliberate destructive action on the three amigos’ accounts. He was probably afraid they may have had backdoor access; so, instead of simply banning them, he reset the accounts, thus defaulting them back to that epoch date.

In his paranoia, he even removed admin permissions from DTOM and took over the admin account himself, possibly only giving the same privileges to the tech guy, who has also disappeared.

He was so callous that for some upstanding Moderators, he completely nuked their accounts, making it impossible even for Ghost to bring them back to life.

I stand corrected if I’m wrong.


  

I suspect its all intentional as well. However, I wouldn't necessarily jump to conclusions. If the user DB is in fact corrupt(sure sounds like it) then the results of that corruption could be literally anything, or as we would say in programming "undefined."

[Encia22]

ATS runs on forum software called XMB. It's typically run on Linux. All linux dates are based off of what's called a Unix Epoch which starts at time code zero or January 1, 1970. If the field in the DB that contains this data is blank(null) some software will show the last day of 1969. That's probably what's happening here.

In other words, the column in the DB with the timestamps in it isn't being updated properly, likely because the DB is corrupt and the column can't be read at all.

Sadly, DB corruption has a tendency to just get worse and worse if its not addressed, as we are observing live.

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I suspect its all intentional as well. However, I wouldn't necessarily jump to conclusions. If the user DB is in fact corrupt(sure sounds like it) then the results of that corruption could be literally anything, or as we would say in programming "undefined."

I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis and solution, l0st.

Just over 30 years ago, I used to look after a Unix based server in our smallish office. I was required to backup daily/weekly/monthly on TR3 tapes and ran disk and DB maintenance once a week. Such a strict regime for a DB with only 30k+ records.

I agree also about the DB becoming ever more corrupt over time, but the scenario I described about Darko's apprenticeship happened shortly after maintenance had been done, registration and pwd management had been fixed and a mass cleanup of the sub-forums was in progress.

As you said, any undefined event could have affected some accounts, but, imho, the admin/mod blitz was intentional and malicious after he encountered resistance to his utopic vision of what ATS was to become.

[midicon]

I'm not sure it's the same thing but occasionally I find myself logged out and have no idea of my password. I never log out intentionally, I just close that window and whenever I go back on I'm still logged in.

Anyway, this has happened a couple of times recently and I just choose the option to receive a temporary one via e-mail, which I do. I just copy and paste and stick it in.

[Encia22]

I'm not sure it's the same thing but occasionally I find myself logged out and have no idea of my password. I never log out intentionally, I just close that window and whenever I go back on I'm still logged in.

Anyway, this has happened a couple of times recently and I just choose the option to receive a temporary one via e-mail, which I do. I just copy and paste and stick it in.

What you describe has been a normal occurrence due to a certain cookie that expires after X amount of months. It could also happen if the site is down for maintenance... which hasn't been applicable for quite some time and has resulted in the glitch we are experiencing since June 2. The cookie I mentioned expired around the end of May, beginning of June, so that's why you were logged out.

BE AWARE that you need to find and save the last password you received because if you logout of your account and can't remember your password, you will NOT be able to reset it, you will NOT be able to create a new account, and the Moderators WON'T be able to send you another password as the automated mailing function no longer appears to work.

[MykeNukem]

Fight fire with fire.

Hack the cookie, k?

*wink wink

[Encia22]

Fight fire with fire.

Hack the cookie, k?

*wink wink

Way ahead of you, Myke... yep, already done. Don't forget to do it across all the PCs and browsers used to access the site.

 

[MykeNukem]

Way ahead of you, Myke... yep, already done. Don't forget to do it across all the PCs  used to access the site.

 

Yessir, indeed.

[KKLoco]

I'm not sure it's the same thing but occasionally I find myself logged out and have no idea of my password. I never log out intentionally, I just close that window and whenever I go back on I'm still logged in.

Anyway, this has happened a couple of times recently and I just choose the option to receive a temporary one via e-mail, which I do. I just copy and paste and stick it in.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you will be locked out the next time your password recycles. This is exactly what happened to me on June 3rd. My ATS days are officially over.