All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part VI

[Bob Schroeck]

Initiating the new thread.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

You know, I think I'm just going to take a vacation from ATT for a few weeks to let things settle in, because the serial malfunctions are just aggravating. I created a page today for the band GrooveLily. I just realized I inconsistently capitalized the band name, so I went to edit it -- and when I saved I got the "Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data" error that shows up every once in a while.

No big. I just resave. No dice. Again. No dice. And no luck for the next ten times I try to save. So, like an idiot, I take the error message's advice and log out. Except now I can't log back in. Apparently, my browser no longer accepts cookies from the wiki. Even when it's set to accept all cookies regardless of origin. So now I'm stuck, logged out of the wiki. Argh.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[robkelk]

At least you got in - I've been getting 504s for the last three hours.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

I get that every once in a while, too.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[GethN7]

Got an explanation for that. Apparently, whoever has been trying to DDoS Miraheze will not give up, and the 504s, based on what I've been told, are likely the DDoSer switching proxies every time an attack got nullrouted, hence the brief breaks where you could use Miraheze and when you couldn't.

Note, ALL of Miraheze got hit, not just ATT. Also, both Miraheze and Orain may now have a line on the parties responsible for instigating the attacks or information connected to the attacks on both, as one of them posted some crap about doing to Miraheze what was done to Orain (and have been globally blocked from Miraheze and its GitHub), and another tried bringing unsubstantiated evidence against John Lewis (that effectively amounts to "take my word for it") despite the fact that, as this evidence was being delivered, Miraheze was getting relentlessly DDoSed in the background.

Documentary evidence of both incidents exists and will be provided for law enforcement investigative followup when and if needed.

Also, (and this is just my take, but I've had info on all the attacks so far so I'm crossreferencing) it's likely whoever this prick is, they are coordinating these strikes from Tor node centered proxies, as the parties mentioned above have confirmed the attacks on Orain and Miraheze originate from the same source and that they likely based on the deep web, doing these attacks for what appear to be reasons of revenge.

[DHBirr]

I really, really wish I had the kind of connections who could track these jerks down, fit them with some lovely new overshoes, and take them to meet some fish....
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[Black Aeronaut]

TOR Nodes... Tough nut to crack.

[robkelk]

... doing these attacks for what appear to be reasons of revenge.

Against whom?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[GethN7]

... doing these attacks for what appear to be reasons of revenge.

Against whom?

For one, ATT is in the clear for now, go ahead and post.

Second, Orain staff in general and all connected entities. We have a good line on the parties claiming responsibility, and the good news is that whoever is responsible, the worst they can do at this point is annoy Miraheze and little more (John is very careful with his security and the hacker seems pissed he can't find a way in), and the good news is that they may have just recently tipped their hand way too much (can confirm proper authorities are already on it).

[Black Aeronaut]

But the modus operandi doesn't fit the motive. If all they wanted to do was kill Orain, then they should be happy enough with that. Why go after ATT when all Orain did was host the wiki? Why should they care if ATT goes to another wiki farm?

[robkelk]

ATT was the largest wiki on Orain, so it's reasonable (whether or not it's correct) to assume some of the ATT "staff" are also Orain staff.

Everyone here knows who the ATT "staff" are - there are none in the sense that a server farm has staff, just content admins - but that isn't really public knowledge even though it isn't a secret.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[GethN7]

ATT was the largest wiki on Orain, so it's reasonable (whether or not it's correct) to assume some of the ATT "staff" are also Orain staff.

Everyone here knows who the ATT "staff" are - there are none in the sense that a server farm has staff, just content admins - but that isn't really public knowledge even though it isn't a secret.

 

True enough. I have no staff power on Miraheze, but I am former Orain staff., which has been public knowledge for some time now.

[GethN7]

WARNING: EDITING WILL BE KINDA CRAPPY FOR AWHILE!

The reason is due to the DDoSer who has been haunting Miraheze going absolutely rabid. They are so mad they can't just kill the place they are launching nonstop DDoS strikes.

All traffic has been heavily cached to deter this fool, but this means editing several pages at once (batch editing) is basically a no go, and doing more than one manual edit at a time will be SLOW.

Apologies from Miraheze staff on this one, but it's the only way they can keep us up without shutting off edit access entirely.

[Black Aeronaut]

My god, I hope the police get this guy soon. You gotta have some special kind of damage to keep on like this.

[GethN7]

Alright folks, we seem to have weathered the storm pretty well for now.

In the meantime, I've made some improvements to the site CSS/JS and our gadgets. Our site theme will load better and you'll notice a few minor improvements here and there, nothing too major, except it loads much more cleanly and in less time. I also threw out a lot of old site gadgets that didn't work, made the trope/YMMV Trope highlighter and the purge page gadgets default to ON due to their usefulness (they can be turned off if you so desire), and added a few that should be of further help, like a combination of watchlist scripts that should make RC patrol a lot easier.

I will be adding some more as time permits.

In other news, bad news, a lot of our images just didn't make it. Good news, many of the ones acquired from TV Tropes can be easily reacquired from the source, check the file pages. For the ones that isn't an option for, you'll have to reupload them. I suggest looking at the file list special page and filling in any image with a blank thumbnail, those are the missing images.

I'm working on getting the rest of our extensions and other features restored ASAP, and I will continue to keep you guys posted on this lunatic who keeps thinking his life will improve if he DDoSes a wiki host.

[robkelk]

This is happening a lot lately... this time to the freebie wiki.

A database query error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software.

Function: SearchMySQL:earchInternal
Error: 145 Table './poserdazfreebieswiki/searchindex' is marked as crashed and should be repaired (IP SUPPRESSED)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[GethN7]

This is happening a lot lately... this time to the freebie wiki.

A database query error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software.

Function: SearchMySQL:earchInternal
Error: 145 Table './poserdazfreebieswiki/searchindex' is marked as crashed and should be repaired (IP SUPPRESSED)

 

DB issue. Let SPF know on IRC.

[robkelk]

I have to install an IRC client?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Black Aeronaut]

robkelk: Try IRCCloud. It's web-based and nifty. Even if you navigate away from the page you'll still be logged into the IRC network (though you won't get alerts) because the client runs on a cloud server. You only get logged out if you want to be. (Although, if using a free account your session does get terminated after two hours of being idle, but you get to try the full no-disconnect service for free for five days.)

GethN7: you might like to try IRCCloud for yourself, because even if you can't be at your computer, they have a smart phone app for Android and iOS.

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay, as folks may have noticed, I've finally got WonderBot up and running -- using DotNetWikiBot and my own code. I'm getting odd errors every once in a while -- invalid tokens, mainly, when trying to save, but I think that's something in DNWB and not the wiki itself.

Oh, and Geth or Brent, I just noticed that the Useful Notes menu bar has a broken "main page" button. At least on my system it's coming in as "[[main]".
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

Is Miraheze under attack again? I've been working on stuff all afternoon, and it all suddenly started slowing down about 20 minutes to half an hour ago, to the point that I'm getting various 500-class errors every once in a while.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[GethN7]

Is Miraheze under attack again? I've been working on stuff all afternoon, and it all suddenly started slowing down about 20 minutes to half an hour ago, to the point that I'm getting various 500-class errors every once in a while.

 

Yep, it's the DDoSer. Apparently, guy just refuses to give this up, but don't worry, Miraheze is aware this happened and is mitigating it.

Good news is that there are plans to further frustrate this idiot already in the works.

[robkelk]

It would be nice if those plans were implemented sometime soon. I've been getting nothing but 502s for hours...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

Did we have a brief attack of butthurt hacker there for about an hour? I'm working from home today and was running Wonderbot, and noticed it had bounced out about 1:00 PM EDT with 502s. But things seem to be fine now.
Edit:  And it's back as of 2:39 PM EDT.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[GethN7]

We're good now.