The PPC Roleplay Board - Latest posts

I assumed the 4chan livejournal page (i.e. 4chan(dot)livejournal(dot)com) was the extent of it all. I didn't realise there was more to it. is an intarnetz noob

I'm pretty good with stylesheets. Let me know what you need tinkered with.

Because of my interviews of various authors for my university essay - I included a bunch of obvious badficcers (some of whom never responded), including a Legendary Badfic author (who did respond).

It wouldn't have been hard for any one of them to google my penname and find both my livejournal (which does link to the PPC, as I archive my missions there), my FFN account, and the Board, all three of which appear in the first two pages of a google search.

I don't think I said anything offensive to anyone, but the very fact that I went out and interviewed some cough 'Highly Sensitive' authors about their work, while being part of a community that so blatently mocks it, could have offended them. (I'm not inclined to suspect the Legendary Badfic author, though, as his tone in the emails was quite satisfied, but then again, I could be wrong.)

If this is the case... guys, I am SO sorry. I considered using a second (little used) penname to send my interviews to the badficcers and other random writers (as opposed to the people who know me by this name), but figured that it would be all too easy for them to be connected (how many people do the same project at the same time?), so I didn't bother.

Until now, I didn't really think it was connected, but from what you've said above, Dann... well, the timing is just too close.

I really, really hope I'm wrong. I'm even hoping that the offended spammer (if that is indeed the case) found this through another link just so I can stop feeling guilty. It wasn't even a foolish choice on my part, but if this is the result... damm, I'm sorry.

I'd be flattered beyond belief, and twice as much if the PPC went after the badfic.

As for reading the fanfic, it's hard not to remember what happened to MZB. I'd love to read what they wrote -- but I wouldn't dare. People like OTW would make me twice as paranoid as they already do, since it would be my work they'd be trying to stake a legal claim on.

Ah, yes, I misunderstood which logs you meant. I really should be doing my sleeping somewhat more horizontally.

If you want to discuss this out of view of the perpetrator, contact me via the Pit or GAFF and I'll give you my email. For obvious reasons I don't want to post it here; I'd rather not find it being used to solicit ypur pics in some other forum.

The first attack came from an IP belonging to a web hosting website, cyrtexhosting.com. I E-mailed their abuse line, and they agreed that flooding our forum was most definitely abuse worth terminating the account that was responsible, but they needed the logs from yourwebapps.com to work out who it was. I E-mailed yourwebapps.com's abuse line, and while they deleted the spam posts, they didn't send the logs to either myself or Cyrtex.

You are entirely correct, though, there is something about this that definitely does not add up. I'm still trying to work out exactly what it is...

You're not going to get the logs. 72.167.203.129 traces back to a proxy server. Several, actually, including unblockedspace.com. I don't have the IP from the previous attack, but I wouldn't doubt that it was another one. Kind of by definition, they don't have or won't hand over logs, and getting their host's logs will generally require a court order.

What's intersting is the binservices connection. That's the email address listed on binservices.com ... are they the targets of a joe job? Why are we getting flooded with something that is apparently trying to get them spammed or abused? If it's someone who has it in for us, which is certainly possible, why not flood us with some suitable PPC-targeted insults?

There's something about this that doesn't add up. Something missing.

We have you to thank for alerting Techno-Dann in the first place, July. We also have you to thank for helping spread the word so people could find this new haven.

May be that someone who got their fic sporked is taking it a little too hard...

Perhaps the author of Cbn?

My anger at this thing knows no bounds.

Meaning that I can see a particular story or situation going several different ways. I also sometimes have the characters in one place at one time, and then somewhere else a week later, and I don't write what happened between.

So I'd be really pleased if people read my books, liked the stories, and then tried to write stories explaining what might have happened in the interim. Or if they wrote AUs of the books. Or if they wrote stories that could fit in alongside mine. It shows that they like the books and want to read/think more about the characters.

I'd hate badfic, though, because I'd be heartbroken to see the lack of understanding.

at people until someone knew how to fix it.

That counts as 'doing something'

Who the hell did we piss of this time?

The logic of that does look about right.

It's also possible they're using friends for server access as well, whoever is doing this, instead of shelling out the cash to do it themselves.

I didn't do anything though!

Could I get an up-to-date E-mail address from you?

Thanks!

(I'm Techno.Dann(at)gmail(dot)com, just so you know)

and for keeping us all up to date. Without you, hS and July we wouldn't even have a temporary Board going.

-Trojie, appreciatively

So, the flooder switched servers for last night's bombardment. The new server seems to be coming through GoDaddy, although I'm really not sure - the IP is a good bit harder to trace, to the point where I don't want to start bothering admins.

The MO is still entirely the same - most likely a script that posts the same thing over and over, as often as it can get away with it.

Now, I've E-mailed back and forth a few times with the original host, and they really can't do anything about it without logs, which will tell them a whole ton more than the IP address can - that IP address is the address of a server running more than three hundred website accounts, so finding a single script running what's really a commonplace request is nearly impossible to track down.

So, I E-mailed the server.com people, and while they removed the first set of spamming, they didn't even E-mail me back to say that they really can't give me (or the first host) the logs needed to axe the spammer's account.

And then the flood came back from a different IP address last night...

That's all I know for a fact. What comes after this is just speculation.

The flooder seems to be out to get us. The first server he used was not a free (or even terribly inexpensive - $100 per year) service, and I suspect the second was the same. Furthermore, he didn't stop after the first banning and go after easier targets.

Also, try googling for phrases that he used - the only hits you'll get are from our board. This wasn't a mass spamming of server.com forums, this was a rather precisely targeted attack.

As a correlary to that last point, note that the PPC board is rather hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for. All the Google searches I could think of to find an active server.com forum don't bring us up for ten pages or more, after tons of other forums, including some rather controversial political ones. If our flooder was just looking for a good target, we really aren't it.

So, where does this leave us?

We can't get the logs we need to get the flooder's server space killed. Thus, at least for now, we can't get the attack to stop.

On the plus side, the server.com people responded very promptly to my E-mail by removing the flood and quite probably banning the IP address as well. Reporting to them seems to be, at least temporarily, the best option.

I'm sorry I haven't had more time to spend on this - work is absolutely crazy, I'm working nine hour days, and expecting closer to twelve on Wednesday.

-Dann

Mainly because it'll probably stop for half a day or a day or two, then come again. I vote we just go here. le sigh