Pescado, your help is needed!

[Paden]

The fee has been paid up for the next three years and that was done three months ago. It's not that. It is something else and first thing that comes to mind is hacking, at least for me. And it is in the hands of the hosting company.

[Pescado]

Looks like someone didn't pay their DNS bills. Expires 2008 Jun 29. Says you're registered through Siteground. Are you HOSTED with siteground? NEVER REGISTER YOUR DNS THROUGH YOUR WEBHOST!

[Saraswati]

  this is a good, although painful lesson to learn.

[chemistrycourtney]

indeed.  much screaming is in order, and a new dns provider, i'd say. 

[Saraswati]

we're looking at a temporary fix to try to sort this til Skadi has a chance to get home.

[Dita]

Hehe, we HAVE a temporary fix - at least we can get back on. And one particular host should be glad they are very far away from any of us right now.

[Skadi]

One host should be glad it's 2am in the US and I can't talk to someone.

btw pes, can you recommend someone to register another url with?

[Saraswati]

Thankfully they've apologised for their monumental fuck-up and are going to fix it.. But it would have been better not to have the stress at all.

[Pescado]

I suggest you transfer your DNS to a dedicated DNS registrar afterwards. You DID notice that the first thing they did at any sign of trouble was to immediately hijack your DNS for themselves, rather than simply expire it? These are DODGY PEOPLE. THEY WILL STEAL YOUR WEBSITE. Do not use them as a registrar!

[Saraswati]

that sounds like good advice Pescado.. Dita and I noticed when we were grabbing the site backup today that they go to EXTRAORDINARY lengths to hide the name of the folder you point the domain name to.

[Pescado]

Can you edit your DNS contact information normally? If so, I'd suggest you initiate an immediate transfer to a different registrar, so that your host cannot seize your name and turn it into a trap to spam your users if your hosting deal falls flat for whatever reason. It seems like these guys do this as a standard practice, given how often I've seen THAT particular dodgy piece of DNS spyware.

[Dita]

THEY WILL STEAL YOUR WEBSITE.

After a night of blindly digging around servers for a valid path to something that was present and paid for, I feel inclined to make that my personal motto.

The extraordinary lengths thing is certainly true - this has to be the first time yet that I see a host not providing an alternative point of access that is not tied to the domain name.

[Hecubus]

Now that your stop gap has been fucked over, it is pretty clear you're getting DNS attacks. Someone doesn't like you, and too many people have backdoor access. Time to close up the holes so Sublime Sims and Calalily Sims don't die, and bail.

You should have stayed at SMBD. Pescado doesn't let shit like this happen.

[chemistrycourtney]

Yes.  This is a big ball of phail.  And it's time for Iron Fist rule.  And I'm not going to keep my opinion to myself this time.  There are people.  They are untrustworthy, and they have accesses they shouldn't have.  And now our backupsite is down too.  Iron.  Fist.  Time. 

[Paden]

So far, I can reach it all, and am hoping that it stays that way because my sims need new bedding. I had one crawl out of the game and scream at me, "Hey! This EA shit has GOT to go! Gimme Calalily bedding, I like that!" So, you can guess what I am doing with part of my attention.