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The Center for Artificial Indifference

Hack, Hack, Gasp, Gasp,…

March 17th, 2006 | Category: Blogarrhea, Whatever

Damn! What a royal pain in the ass! Of course, that’s probably what the hackers had in mind, so I s’pose I should smile, say how much I enjoyed the screwing over, and maybe they’ll move on to someone else. Anyone except all of you, my wonderful and caring friends! The outpouring of sympathy, anger, disgust, and support on my behalf has been overwhelming. Your emails helped me through the night, and then the day, and here we are back in business, kinda, sorta, almost…

More on this later, but Dreamhost believes the breach occurred through a known vulerability in the old version of WordPress. They indicated that upgrading to the latest version should prevent recurrence. Guess where I’m headed now…

12 Comments so far

  1. Joel March 17th, 2006 10:19 pm

    It would be a joy were I able to track down the types who do this manner of thing. I would bring them to a psych ward and have them carefully analyzed over the course of six months — visits with psychotherapists lasting for two hours, regular recitations of the Twelve Steps (”we admitted that we were powerless over our pointless destruction and that our lives had become pointless, too”), hypnotherapy designed to bring out imaginary past traumas, and maybe — just maybe — a little ECT, maybe thirty or so sessions.

    Of course, this is imaginary and I would not subject any person to it. But I would chew them out royally and put any doubt as to the petty and stupid nature of their maliciousness completely out of their minds.

    If you find them, Winston, let me know. I’ll fly out and we can tie them up together….

  2. CGHill March 17th, 2006 11:59 pm

    I think of them in these terms:

    Rope. Tree. Some assembly required.

    I have a WordPress blog on DH (wendex.net); it was pretty simple to upgrade.

  3. Joe Goodwin March 18th, 2006 12:09 am

    One of the benefits of a Dreamhost setup is that they have automated upgrades on the Goodies panel. It takes about 10 minutes, and it even archives your current setup in a directory marked “old” in case you want to backtrack.

  4. aldahlia March 18th, 2006 2:13 am

    You’re back!

  5. Jennifer March 18th, 2006 9:05 am

    So glad it all worked out and nothing lost but a little sleep. What a nightmbare!

  6. Stu Savory March 18th, 2006 10:39 am

    Welcome back to the blogosphere, Winston!

  7. MaryB March 18th, 2006 10:45 am

    You’re back! Boy, I thought you’d gone to the dark side when I pulled up your blog the other day. I figured they’d go after your meek commenters next! Glad it’s sorted now.

  8. Rain March 18th, 2006 11:29 am

    glad to see you back. That was certainly an ominous hacking page they left. It’s hard to understand why anybody would get enjoyment from doing such things :(

  9. bonnie March 18th, 2006 11:31 am

    Welcome Back! What is that old saying about you can determine the character of a person by observing the way they handle small frustrations? You did fine and have found the remedy. It could have been so much worse.

  10. PaulaO March 18th, 2006 9:15 pm

    Dude!

    Way to go! DH did good for you?

    If you need help with the upgrade, let me know.

    And about the DH auto update, I did it with one site and it totally screwed it up. But that’s just my experience, ymmv.

  11. Frank Paynter March 18th, 2006 11:30 pm

    Glad you’ve recovered! I have a conspiracy theory if you’re in the market. 8-)

    Otherwise, hell… blame it on the bossa nova.

  12. that girl March 19th, 2006 8:15 am

    Welcome back - we missed you