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AVSIM wiped out

S

Spikehughes

Charter Member
Don't know if you have heard but AVSIM has been hacked and obliterated.
See Flightsim.com for a note from Tom Allensworth.

Despite some negative postings, this is a huge loss to the freeware community. I only hope that things can be rebuilt and that Tom and others have the will to do it

Spike Hughes

Whoops, missed the other post - sorry for that
 
Another tragic loss to be sure. First MS Flight sim demise, now this.

AVSIM is one of just 3 FS sites I visit regularly. It is hard to imagine how they will be able to come back to its previous condition without backuups.

It is doubtful the hacker will ever be found, much less made accountable for (it's) criminal behaviour. The real concern is that this lowlife is still on the loose, and able to strike again.
 
What a fricking shame........:a1451:


I bet Tom is beside himself ......
 
:frown:Just saw this over at FlightSim.com


AVSIM Hacked Tom Allensworth, CEO and Publisher of AVSIM, today issued the following announcement; "We regret to inform the flight simulation community that on Tuesday, May 12, AVSIM was hacked and effectively destroyed. The method of the hack makes recovery difficult, if not impossible, to recover from. Both servers, that is the library / email and web site / forum servers were attacked. AVSIM is totally offline at this time and we expect to be so for some time to come. We are not able to predict when we will be back online, if we can come back at all. We will post more news as we are able to in the coming days and weeks. Update: A temporary forum has been set up to provide updates
 
Oh my God, this is the worse news that I have heard for quite some time!!!
This is even more tragic than, well just about anything.

God, Damn that hacker to hell. Amen<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" /><o:p></o:p>
 
incredible. I have no idea why anyone would do such a destructive thing?

I do hope they can get it back up, their library was such a wonderful resource and the forum too. Maybe if everyone shares their files back with them, i certainly am willing to do that, and will let Tom know that. oh my. what a world. maybe they had back ups ..i hope so.
 
I am an ex-staffer at AVSIM and it feels like seeing your old house being burnt down. A black day for this hobby indeed.
 
Just heard about this elsewhere.

Tom Allensworth, CEO and Publisher of AVSIM, today issued the following announcement; “We regret to inform the flight simulation community that on Tuesday, May 12, AVSIM was hacked and effectively destroyed. The method of the hack makes recovery difficult, if not impossible, to recover from. Both servers, that is the library / email and web site / forum servers were attacked. AVSIM is totally offline at this time and we expect to be so for some time to come. We are not able to predict when we will be back online, if we can come back at all. We will post more news as we are able to in the coming days and weeks….”.
Click to expand...

and later...

Tom Allensworth of AVSIM wrote us “…..We have set up a temporary forum in order that we can provide status reports on our efforts to bring AVSIM back online. I would very much appreciate it if you could post the link to our temporary home and help us get the word out. You can find the forum here….”.
Click to expand...

and from that forum...

Some have asked whether or not we had back ups. Yes, we dutifully backed up our servers every day. Unfortunately, we backed up the servers BETWEEN servers. That is, GREEN, our library server, would be backed up to PURPLE, our WEB/Forum server. That way, if one or the other failed, we would have a back up on the remaining active server. The hacker took out both servers, destroying our ability to use one or the other back up to remedy the situation.
Click to expand...

I've been frequently annoyed with Avsim due to unreliability and what I always considered ancient and questionable design/functionality but despite that, I really feel for them and hope they can get something going again. Somehow.
 
BOOM said:
Incredible!!! Why in the world would people scheme to do harm like this?
Click to expand...

That's as hard to understand as is why the avsim guys wouldn't be keeping off-site backups to protect against this sort of thing. Lesson learned I guess.
 
This are terrible news. All the reviews and files, so many peoples work of one decade destroyed. The older stuff probably lost forever. :(
 
Antoninus said:
This are terrible news. All the reviews and files, so many peoples work of one decade destroyed. The older stuff probably lost forever. :(
Click to expand...

Well, some of it might be fished out using the wayback machine if they were that desperate. Strangely enough, the site hasn't change much over the years... which is likely part of the reason it was targeted.

Avsim in 1999
Avsim in 2008
 
This is sad news for sure. It's obvious that Avsim won't be the last such site to get attacked. The questions is why? Who in the hell finds it so satisfying/gratifying to destroy the hard work of so many people and deprive many more the enjoyment of all those works? It is beyond me how anyone could enjoy doing such a thing and furthermore use such extensive skills to commit what amounts to petty vandalism(destructive nonetheless) when those kinds of skills MIGHT be better used or profited from in a good and legal way. No instead the hacker(s) in this case chose to join the ranks of other cyber-vandals and ruin the work and enjoyment of many people. I hope they are tracked down and dealt with either by legal means of dealt the same blow they have inflicted.
 
Its been a real stretch of bad luck , still at this point as i understand the situation the data itself is still on the disks and can possibly be recovered.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" /><o:p></o:p>
Tom was getting someone on site and we will see what’s what , we need some good fortune at this point to get it back online and more hardware in the loop to backup the data so as to prevent it happening again, but Avsim was built by a volunteer army and supported by a dedicated group who don’t give up easily , that is its strength and that hasn’t changed.

<o:p></o:p>
 
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