wicked sims & hosted sites temporarily offline

[Captain Berg]

When one thought they couldn't go any lower...  :cry:

(with "they" I mean paysites, of course. Sure, no proof, but who else..?)

[MizzKitty]

It sucks so bad. And at this time when some people (me) have blown all their money on their vacation plans so they (I) can't even afford to help  :cry:

[Paden]

Is there not a way that her company can trace these attacks? Someone long ago told me that while hard, it could be done. Once traced and identified, legal action would certainly follow and charges brought up... And maybe, just maybe, some dumb son of a bitch/stupid cunt paysite owner would be going down... I would so love to see that... I hate hackers... Pass the rum, please... I mean, pass the rum NOW!!! Arrrrrr!

[nostalgicpaty]

I am still very confused on what the attacks are. And why the attacks are making the memory go up. I am from Nostalgic Sims one of the sites that are being hosted by Wicked Sims.This stuff all sucks. once jessica gets a pay pal donation button ill try to donate cause i just want this all solved.

[missangelica]

I am still very confused on what the attacks are. And why the attacks are making the memory go up.

http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+DOS+ATTACK

A type of attack on a network that is designed to bring the network to its knees by flooding it with useless traffic. Many DoS attacks, such as the Ping of Death and Teardrop attacks, exploit limitations in the TCP/IP protocols. For all known DoS attacks, there are software fixes that system administrators can install to limit the damage caused by the attacks. But, like viruses, new DoS attacks are constantly being dreamed up by hackers.

[atgnat]

**Bugger**.   :evil:
So THAT's what happened to our sites. I never dreamed that something like this could happen. Count on me to donate, payday is in a few days' time.

[Nokomys]

Hello all. I come to you from WickedSims- but I don't really know anymore than anyone else...

I think that an aforementioned post eluded to the fact that this attack comes directly after notice of Wicked Sims policy change to include pay meshes/objects in their uploads.

Yep, exactly that.

all I can say is someone must be making a hell of a lot of money, to go to these lengths to protect their 'business'

Who makes that much money? TSR.
I've done some math and have realized that if even 1/4 of their membership spends even $10 with them during the course of a year they're making $2 million dollars or more per year.
And they're making it off of artists donating their items to their site and some even paying them for the priviledge of donating their work.
Sucktacular.

(I know, I sound like a broken record on that fact but it really ticks me off...)

[calalily]

Sucktacular.

(I know, I sound like a broken record on that fact but it really ticks me off...)

Not with new and improooved words like that - the more inventive the insults, the more the fun.  Plus there's like 200+ pages devoted to particular sites - it's not as if we don't go round and round like broken records every time, trying to categorise our rage  :lol:

[Apsalar]

ZOmg! I can't believe how low some people will go...!

Arrr! If I wasn't such a lazy pirate, I'd use a couple of tricks I know and let vengeance have its say! Yarrr!


-----
How Ironic - I am moderator on a security site, and I felt like linking to  some sims2 sites I really love in my sig - but I refrained from it and didn't link, because I know many sims2 sites don't really focus on security - and the site I am moderator on draws many vicious teenagers. LOL

Actually, it might be that someone is just doing this because they can, not because they care about the paysite vs freesite discussion. Although, it is more likely some paysite owner has recruited some black hat to do some work - they certianly have the money. And I wouldn't be surprised if they have the connections aswell. Pffft! I hate black hats.

[simminggramma]

I'm mostly just a lurker.  I find the discussions on this forum quite revealing about the Sims community.  And yes, maybe I do tend to watch to many conspiracy theory-related tv shows--but just to put out there for consideration:

There has been one site owner who did threaten black hat activities.  Of course, now everything on her site is free-but she did jump into bed with the TSR "community" project. Could her going free have been a play to defer suspicion while she continued to plan and plot in the background with other paysites?

Oh well, my two cents.  Back to my corner to lurk more.

[Zazazu]

Oooh! Who? Inquiring uninformed minds want to know!

I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, and I think pointing a big ole' finger at one person/site without evidence is too much of a leap, but the likelihood of this not being done by a paysite or someone(s) associated with a paysite seems quite low. Things have most certainly been coming to a head this last month.

[MizzKitty]

The link is this: http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org/hate/retailsims.html


As for the black hat bit:

What is a black hat?  It is a type of hacker that does not operate within the boundaries of the law.  A black hat is often a malicious hacker who seeks to tamper with and / or exploit a program, file, server or other media (hardware or software) for personal gain or just for the fuck of it.  White hats, by comparison, are "good guy" hackers (who work to improve security).  Grey Hats fall in between.  

 

The leader of the group who is stealing files suggested to me that I did not know what a black hat was when I mentioned (repeatedly) that I would love to find one to fuck up the files he's serving with some very nasty viruses.  Unfortunately for him I know very well what black hats are.  My husband, depending on your perspective, is one. If my husband did not have a high security government job this would not be a discussion and the files on that site would have been infected with a series of viruses designed to destroy a computer - not merely correctable by a format and reinstall.  Once he went legit I had to remove myself from any and all contacts with 'undesirable' types and most foreigners.  J.M. Pescado and everyone who downloads those stolen files should consider themselves lucky that this didn't happen a few years earlier  Than again, you never know when an old friend may crawl out of the woodwork or when a bunch come to town for a Black Hat Convention (I can damn near throw a rock at that hotel from my balcony).  I can't stop J.M. Pescado or those like them but I can fuck with stolen goods all I want.  Consider yourself warned.  

My take on this particular person, however, is that she's full of shit and the threat is empty. Heck, her hubby probably works at McDonald's.

[nostalgicpaty]

thanks missangelica  i understand now. i cant believe someone would take time to do this.  :evil:  :evil: i hope we can find out who orginized the attacks.

[Zazazu]

Who was the one in control of Retail Sims?

And sheesh, what a rant. I love these sorts of things, especially since it's they who are doing the illegal thing, and we who have received official word from EA that redistributing paysite content in a free manner is fine.

I've never seen a PMBD/similar supporter get as self-righteous or generally pissy as a paysite owner who has been thwarted.

[sherrie]

Thank you for visiting

 

Unfortunately, we are experiencing some major problems.

We are trying to work on a solution at this time, and our host is investigating the issue.


I am waiting to hear from the host to figure out if they can solve the problem or not. It appears that even though all of the sites have been down and redirected to this page for the past two days or so, the databases (for the forums) are still being queried an insane amount of times, and ramping up our CPU usage. In addition to that, random IP's from around the world were trying to access pages/files that never existed continuously (several files per second) which seems to have finally ceased earlier today. Banning/Blocking those IP's did no good, I tried to do that for several hours Monday afternoon, it was pointless.

Even with all of the sites down, our CPU usage peaked today at 15%. So the tech support team is now investigating -- I finally got through to a live person lol he sounded pretty cute too, anyways, I am waiting to hear back from them. I am hoping they can resolve the issue and block whoever is causing the problems so that things can go back to normal.

I am still working on Plan B just in case, but at this point in time there really isn't anything you guys can do. I appreciate all the emails of support and assistance, and I am completely surprised by how many emails I've gotten. You guys are amazing.


For more information, keep checking this page for updates, email me: jessica@wickedsims.com, or check PMBD. In the meantime, please visit other great free sites like Noukie Sims, Betsy's Little Sim Shoppes, Parsimonious, and MTS2.

Update from wicked sims, quoted incase the page gets brought down again