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Saturday Musings – You’re not going to believe what happened…

Saturday Musings – You’re not going to believe what happened…

Just over a week ago I’d published an article, went to bed and enjoyed the peace that only comes when everything seems to be good. The next morning I awoke to discover that two things had happened in a perfect storm.

The first was that my personal server had been hacked and with laser precision all of my websites, backups, configuration files and system had been eradicated. Trust me when I say that I had a LOT of protections in place but seriously, this was like a guided missile.

Escrow

The second thing that happened was that the primary hard drive in my server began to fail. I say began to because sometimes it was there and sometimes it wasn’t. I have a second physical hard disk in my server that I keep all my backups on and that was working just fine except this was hit by the hackers.

Some people have asked me about offsite backups and I answer this in two ways. It’s a personal server….and have you ever had to restore a 500 Gig backup over the wire from your home? It will take about 3 weeks just to transmit the data. Needless to say, I’m exploring “other options”.

So what was the end result of all of this? I lost everything on my blog from about February onwards. I would like to apologise to all of you that have signed up and have to do so again…..sorry about that. I would like to appeal to anyone that has any of the articles on either the “Domain Association” OR “Selling high value domains” as I would love to get them back up as I think that they were really ground breaking.

So what else have I done? I’ve reworked the site, updated the look and feel and I’m in the process of adding a lot more features. Despite the amount of work involved I’ve had a lot of fun rebuilding Whizzbang’s blog from scratch. I’ve also enjoyed learning about security, setting mail servers, database integrity, apache and PHP configurations. There’s nothing like getting your hands back on the tools. :-)

So thank-you to everyone that has been patient with me over the past ten days. If you notice anything not working then please let me know. In particular I would like to thank all of the sponsors. Each of you have been outstanding in your support.

Right now, I think that I’m going to take a rest and get back to finishing my science fiction novel…..it’s up to the fifth rewrite!

Revenue Leakage
A Domain Name Association - part 6

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Comments

whizzbang on 27 September 2014
Hi Michael:...

I enjoy reading your site. It'd be a lie to say I do it daily, but I often go there and visit. I am sorry to read about this crisis related to the hacking of your systems. I am also glad, that you are back up again and moving to a better position than before , kudos for that.

The only thing that gave me a bitter flavor from your post above is this: "I’ve also enjoyed learning about ...... PHP configurations."

PHP configurations !....

As a member of the domain community, I feel obliged to write my experience and opinion on this, hope it is of use to you in this situation:

With all due respect and here the words of experience come out: I have been there and done that, (hacked and had to recover).... After careful and really thorough research, assessments, evaluations, compensation to customers, etc. the most relevant conclusion was to GET RID and TRASH "PHP" as a technology, it is insecure, a huge patch over another, full of security holes, both, known and unknown, it is a very high risk to our business (FYI, we run SaaS apps, mission critical apps for our customers, with many many financial transactions going on through this infrastructure).

It is true that PHP is one, if not THE, widest used technology to implement web sites and that there are tons of applications written in PHP. That is one of its strong points, but it is also the weakest point, at the very same time.

With no further comments, I truly invite you to evaluate and analyze other technologies to substitute your PHP based software and applications. In our case, we use Python and Python based frameworks. Security has increased with no comparison to what we had with PHP.

Well, for what is worth, those are my 2 cents. Kudos for your site and that you are up and running again.

I enjoy reading your site. It'd be a lie to say I do it daily, but I often go there and visit. I am sorry to read about this crisis related to the hacking of your systems. I am also glad, that you are back up again and moving to a better position than before , kudos for that. The only thing that gave me a bitter flavor from your post above is this: "I’ve also enjoyed learning about ...... PHP configurations." PHP configurations !.... As a member of the domain community, I feel obliged to write my experience and opinion on this, hope it is of use to you in this situation: With all due respect and here the words of experience come out: I have been there and done that, (hacked and had to recover).... After careful and really thorough research, assessments, evaluations, compensation to customers, etc. the most relevant conclusion was to GET RID and TRASH "PHP" as a technology, it is insecure, a huge patch over another, full of security holes, both, known and unknown, it is a very high risk to our business (FYI, we run SaaS apps, mission critical apps for our customers, with many many financial transactions going on through this infrastructure). It is true that PHP is one, if not THE, widest used technology to implement web sites and that there are tons of applications written in PHP. That is one of its strong points, but it is also the weakest point, at the very same time. With no further comments, I truly invite you to evaluate and analyze other technologies to substitute your PHP based software and applications. In our case, we use Python and Python based frameworks. Security has increased with no comparison to what we had with PHP. Well, for what is worth, those are my 2 cents. Kudos for your site and that you are up and running again.
mgilmour on 28 September 2014
RE:Hi Michael:...

Hi Filipe,
Completely agree with you about your comments on PHP. That's why we use Java in ParkLogic for about 99% of the coding. PHP is insecure and is full of holes that can be exploited.

Cheers!

Hi Filipe, Completely agree with you about your comments on PHP. That's why we use Java in ParkLogic for about 99% of the coding. PHP is insecure and is full of holes that can be exploited. Cheers!
DomainBELL on 27 September 2014
About the lost files..

Suggestion...

Each time you write an article -- eMail it to yourself on an outside eMail service such as Yahoo.com that way even if your computer or servers go down -- you can always access your eMail from anywhere and get files back up...

and maybe - some of what you posted might be in captures on Archive.org

~Patricia K. Ohio USA
DomainBELL.com DropGrabs.com BarkingPost.com

Have you written any other books ??

.
.
.

Suggestion... Each time you write an article -- eMail it to yourself on an outside eMail service such as Yahoo.com that way even if your computer or servers go down -- you can always access your eMail from anywhere and get files back up... and maybe - some of what you posted might be in captures on Archive.org ~Patricia K. Ohio USA DomainBELL.com DropGrabs.com BarkingPost.com Have you written any other books ?? . . .
mgilmour on 28 September 2014
RE:About the lost files..

Hi Patricia,
As well as having an offline copy of my articles I'm also doing exactly what you suggested. Great minds must think alike :-)

I've written a lot of technical books and for a number of magazines. This is my first novel.....having a great time writing it!

Hi Patricia, As well as having an offline copy of my articles I'm also doing exactly what you suggested. Great minds must think alike :-) I've written a lot of technical books and for a number of magazines. This is my first novel.....having a great time writing it!
Guest - Joe Alagna on 28 September 2014
Sorry Michael

Hi Michael,

Wow, sorry to hear that. I just had to have a bad drive read by a data recovery company. I don't want to list how much it cost me. Just another example of the importance of back up.

Bummer

Joe

Hi Michael, Wow, sorry to hear that. I just had to have a bad drive read by a data recovery company. I don't want to list how much it cost me. Just another example of the importance of back up. Bummer Joe
mgilmour on 28 September 2014
RE:Sorry Michael

I imagine that you're feeling my pain Joe.....it's never a good thing to have happen.

I imagine that you're feeling my pain Joe.....it's never a good thing to have happen.
KINGdotNET on 28 September 2014
Best wishes.

Hi Michael,

I hope you catch up soon.

Cheers,
Emil

Hi Michael, I hope you catch up soon. Cheers, Emil
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