• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

Where did the .com name go?

Dangerousdave26

Dangerousdave26

Admin
Staff member
The process to move back to the .com name has been messy and more complicated that it should have been. Before I give you the update and where we are and our options for moving back to .com let’s have a little History Lesson for everyone who might not have been around in the early days of SOH.

There used to be a thread here at SOH that detailed our history pretty well. I can’t find it right now. It may have been lost in the 2008 crash. What follows is our history as I remember it using Canelo Kids “SOH History” from our home page as a general guide. If anyone remembers details differently, please add them. I will gladly be corrected.

1995 Air-America with Warbirds Library opened up on Geocities. I am not sure what they supported or what files were made available. What I do remember is being told they got kicked off for using too much bandwidth in the downloads. They bounced from host to host for a few years.

November 5, 1998 CombatFS ‘CFC’ opens including the Warbird’s Library. The original owner of this site started it and then went offline. During the time he was gone CK, Ickie Tekworm, Henry and a few others not noted here ran the site. They continued until the original owner figured out he had a successful website that he could make a profit off of. He returned and promptly kicked off all of the members who were currently running the site. Leaving himself as the only person in charge.

This took us to Septer 6th 2001 when Tekworm, CK, Ickie, Henry and the other admins setup Sim-Outhouse.com. They made an agreement with each other that the hostile takeover they just went through would never happen again. CK purchased the forum software and maintained the licensing, Ickie purchased the server and found our hosting location, Tekworm bought the domain name. The other Admins were the new admins of the new site.

By separating out the site no one person could gain full sole control.

This worked well for many years. Then the inevitable started happening. Ickie was the first of the Founding Fathers to pass away in 2016. Tekworm died in 2021. CK has not been on the site for a few years and his status is unknown.

Ron partially prepared for his departure. I had been taking care of the server for a number of years prior to his death. He was working on the financial side of things. Only weeks before he died he requested that when something happened to him that I take over the financial side as well.

We knew we would have an issue with the domain name as we had been trying to contact Tek for years. Email addresses and phone numbers at this point were all dead ends. I actually had the .com portal login credentials given to me by Ickie but found out they did not work after his death.

This year we started looking for Teks family. Thanks to Tom Clayton’s work we found his daughters. I was able to talk to Katelyn Tek’s daughter. Things were looking up, we could finally get the domain name issue resolved. What we needed is Tek’s death certificate and a letter letting us gain access to the control panel. There were some concerns on her part that we might not be who we said we were are so she was checking us out. I understand that completely.

Meanwhile as time goes on the domain name is due to expire September 7, 2024. Our plan prior to contacting Tek’s family and it was not a good one was to let the domain expire. Wait out the 70 days of grace period and then hope to purchase the domain name before anyone else did within the next 1 to 7 days which is when it would randomly and suddenly appear available for purchase.

Having made contact with Katelyn I renewed the domain name for another year.

Now comes the more complicated part. Kately lives in Ashville North Carolina. It was effectively wiped off the map from the Hurricane a number of weeks ago. I have not gotten word if she is ok or any response from her cell phone. At this point I am not concerned about the domain name just primarily want to know she and the rest of her family are safe. I know they are probably going though some really tough times right now.

This is where we currently are.
 
Honestly, IMHO, the suffix doesn't matter. It's the place and the members that count. I can relate completely to you guys feeling that it is important, but it's the place and the members that count for most of us probably.

Cheers,

Jan
 
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I hadn't even noticed the .org. The name is of little consequence to me.

Re-guarding your statement that Tekworm's daughter resides in the Ashville, N.C. area.......that place is a disaster.
For those not aware, most of southwestern N.C. , and eastern Tennessee were hit back in September with the remains of Hurricane Helene. It stalled and dumped nearly 30 inches of rain in some places. This was on top of over 5 inches several days prior. Ashville and other mountain towns were devastated by flash flooding that wiped out all power, and many roads. Cell phone reception was very spotty. Power won't be restored in some areas for another month or more. Whole towns were washed away. Interstate 40 between North Carolina and Tennessee is cut in several places and will be shut down for a year. At first, the only way into some areas was helicopter. It may be some time before Tek's relations can be reached.
 
Ooofda what a story. Yeah some sort of drive or gofundme thing would be cool! I really hope they're okay!
 
I'm a a member here since old CFC days in 1999. I didn't hear about the domain hickup before. Hope all turns out well both for us here and moreso for Tec's family.
 
Hello,
I am also one of the old timers. Been around since the early 2000s.
The change in domain name caught me a little by surprise since I have been offline from flight sims for a couple of years because of a bunch of computer failures all in quick sequence. I thought the board had died.

Am working on recovering data at the moment. There are some places where I have found that I may have some better downloads than what is currently being hosted here in the CFS1 / Freeflight Site areas.

- Ivan.
 
Dangerousdave26 said:
There used to be a thread here at SOH that detailed our history pretty well. I can’t find it right now. It may have been lost in the 2008 crash.
Click to expand...

Never know who knows what so I am going to ask what may end up being a somewhat inane question.
Did you see if the Internet Archive had saved a version of the thread?

https://web.archive.org/web/20080215000000*/https://sim-outhouse.com/


Wheels
 
Dave, that's pretty much the history of SOH as my old vacuum-tube brain remembers it.
I didn't know Tekworm had passed away. :cry: He lived in Newport News not far from me and gave me the 50-cent tour of FSX at his house when it first came out, animated elephants and all. If we are able to contact his family in Asheville, NC I'd be happy to donate to a GoFundMe account to help them.
 
The update on the dot com name is we missed the window to buy it. The information I was given on when it could be purchased was wrong. By the time I started watching it to buy it again it had already been bought.

I was told it would be in suspension for 30 days during which we could renew it at a penalty. That of course would still not have given us control of the control panel. It only would have renewed it in Frank's name.

After 30 days there is another 40 days we had to wait until it would hit a random 1 to 7 days time where it would become available at midnight.

At day 70 I started checking every day until I figured out it had already been bought.

The truth is 30 days to 75 days is the random time when it would have posted for sale. It sold a little over a month after it expired. I was rather pissed that I was given that bogus information. I don't know if it was bogus or if the rules changed since the time I was told how it worked.

Creating the .org name was the plan to continue the name and it has worked out well so far. We will just have to let the .com name go.
 
Warning to all members.

It has come to our attention that our old domain name is now prompting for a username and password. If you went to the old .com name and entered your username and password change your password here now!

If you use this password anywhere other than SOH change those passwords also. And for the love of security do not use the same password you use here anywhere else.

You also have the option of activating 2 factor authentication. Please see your settings to turn it on.
 
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Dangerousdave26 said:
It has come to our attention that our old domain name is now prompting for a username and password. If you went to the old .com name and entered your username and password change your password here now!
Click to expand...

Have you reported them for spoofing this site?
Code: 
abuse@godaddy.com

I used these whois sites to find out the information regarding the new (dot) com website.
Code: 
https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?itc=dlp_domain_whois&domain=sim-outhouse.com

https://lookup.icann.org/en/lookup
domain_registration_info_2026.png

To report a spoof site to its hosting service, you will need to identify the host and then use their specific reporting mechanism, typically an "abuse report" form or email address [1].



Step 1: Identify the Hosting Provider

You need to find out who is hosting the website. You can do this by performing a WHOIS lookup. This service will provide registration details, including the hosting provider's name and contact information.

  • Use a WHOIS lookup tool such as ICANN Lookup or whois.com.
  • Enter the domain name of the spoof site into the search bar.
  • Look for details listed under "Registrar," "Hosting Provider," "Abuse Contact," or similar headings.

Step 2: Locate the Host's Abuse Reporting Mechanism

Once you have identified the hosting provider (e.g., GoDaddy, HostGator, Amazon Web Services), visit their official website and look for information on how to report abuse. Most providers have a dedicated page or email address for this purpose.

Common places to find this information are:

  • Dedicated "Report Abuse" page: Search the provider's website for terms like "report abuse," "terms of service violation," "phishing report," or "copyright infringement."
  • Abuse email address: Look for a contact email, typically formatted as abuse@domainname.com.
  • Contact/Help page: Check the general contact or help section of the website.
  • Terms of Service/Acceptable Use Policy: The specific reporting procedure is often detailed in these documents.

Step 3: Compile Your Report

To ensure your report is taken seriously and processed quickly, provide clear and concise information. You should include:

  • The URL of the spoof site.
  • A clear description of the issue: State that the site is a "phishing site," "spoof site," or "scam site" designed to deceive users.
  • Evidence: Include screenshots of the site, URLs of specific problematic pages, and any relevant communication (e.g., the spoof email that led you to the site).
  • Your contact information (optional but recommended): This allows the host to follow up with you if they need more information.

Step 4: Submit the Report

Submit your report using the mechanism you identified in Step 2. You may need to fill out an online form or send a formal email.


Additional Reporting

While the hosting service is the primary target for taking the site offline, you can also report the site to other authorities to help protect the broader community:

  • Google Safe Browsing: You can report the site to Google Safe Browsing to have it flagged in popular web browsers.
  • Microsoft: Report unsafe sites via Microsoft's report a website form.
  • Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG): Report the incident to the APWG eCrime Exchange (eCX) to contribute to global data on cybercrime.
  • Federal Trade Commission (FTC): If you are in the U.S., you can file a complaint with the FTC to help them track fraud trends.
Click to expand...

Wheels
 
It's not spoofing. They own the site. What they do with it is not under anyone's control. There isn't any content on the site. Just pops up a login prompt and an error message when that doesn't work.
 
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