How well is DU protected?

[Iwasthere]

I've never felt as helpless as I did during those awful days when it was hacked. I hope there are redundant and highly secure systems/servers in place now.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Boy, me, too. High anxiety times.

[byronius]

2. One hopes. That was an awful time.

A harbinger.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

3. When did that happen?

How long was it hacked for?

[MustLoveBeagles]

5. On election day

I don't remember how long this sight was down. Maybe a few weeks? Maybe someone else can give a more specific answer.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

15. Eeeek.

As if the HRC robbery wasn't enough. Liddle scary there.

[nolabear]

25. And there was some horrific image up. Is there a shot of that?

Terribly 1984. I am hard to impress and...damn.

Did Skinner ever have any clue?

[MustLoveBeagles]

32. Very scary

I'd been a lurker for many years. I had been thinking of signing up right before the hack happened. It took me another year to get up the courage to actually do it. I missed all the awful things the members saw. Along with the Pepe images there was a troll video people were subjected to. This may be the God Emperor reference mentioned by Hekate. While DU was down a kind of place holder page was set up so members could vent and grieve. When DU was up and running again that page disappeared. I don't know what happened to it or if anyone archived it.

[GP6971]

30. I'll have to look it up

but I think it was for 8 or 9 days

[MustLoveBeagles]

33. Your probably right

It just seemed a lot longer.

[Brother Buzz]

36. It was if you didn't own a star

[Generic Brad]

6. It happened election night 2016

DU was down for what felt to me like a month. I'm sure it was only a few days, but the moment was so surreal that it felt like forever.

[onecaliberal]

8. It was at least two weeks. It was horrible. Went down on the Day democracy died.

[Hekate]

22. Can't remember exact time elction day. I logged on for the first time that day & got the message

... that the board was down. I assumed it was heavy traffic that did it, but was surprised because Skinner, Elad, and Earl Grey had been updating us on the extraordinary measures they had taken with the site in order to handle the traffic.

I missed out on what a lot of others experienced: Pepe the Frog all over the place and something about Trump being the God Emperor. Apparently it was pretty vile.

The thing is: somebody wanted our community dead. This well-run board was targeted very personally and vandalized so badly it took at least two weeks to get it up and running again.

Periodically someone on DU "demands" to know what legal case was filed and what exactly has been done since then to protect DU -- the absurd reason usually given is because "it's our board." Actually, it is not our board: it belongs to the Three Admins. As for divulging all that information, they would be fools to do so, and they are not fools.

What stays with me is: somebody wanted our community dead.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

24. I've said it before to guffaws,...

You'd be surprised who reads these posts. Famous people even. I've seen things and specific verbiage used here in an afternoon and by evening the almost exact words coming from someones mouth on the news channel, or a web news site. I've often wondered if it isn't some form of folly to tease out scenarios from a 'here's the argument from both sides" position, that only helps the other side figure out their own dilemma. They do it most everyday on cnn and msnbc and it's maddening. If left to their own devices, these fools would have imploded many months ago on several topics I think.
Note how many views each page has, and how many comments. Lurkers abound, and some are parasites here to follow our train of thinking. Amongst other things.

[nolabear]

26. Alan Greyson used to send messages a lot. We've had nods now and then.

And been quoted now and then. I don’t know that individuals are targeted but the community is known.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

27. Alan Grayson "The gop healthcare plan is to die first" Greyson

Good to know. Dudes a solid communicator.

[Frustratedlady]

34. Were similar sites also hit during the election, or was DU the only one?

I'm sure there are other Democratic sites for people to cleanse their brains of all things Republican, but I don't have any clue who or where they are.

Between the OMG/WTF realization that Trump won and that I had no place to go scream/cry, it was a nightmare, for sure. I'm sure the hackers had a glorious night.

[monmouth4]

4. It was awful. I truly felt like a homeless child..nt

[mainer]

7. I was JUST thinking the same thing tonight.

Election night. Desperate for comfort. And DU being down seemed utterly planned. It WAS the Russians, wasn’t it?

[Hekate]

23. Me too. I also felt desperate for comfort that night, and was alone. It was planned to a T...

...and so malicious.

[Amishman]

41. I highly doubt it was Russians. With the video they put up I'm thinking it was some alt-right punk

Some 4chan troglodyte is far more likely. DU for all it's fun, isn't that big to attract attention of a state sponsored attack

[kentuck]

9. Was there once a back-up site?

That some DUers would gather if the site went down for whatever reason.

Does that site still exist?

[teach1st]

12. There used to be a DU panic room on Yahoo groups

It's long gone.

[Iwasthere]

13. What do we have to do to get that group back up?

[Hekate]

17. DU has a Face Book link and that was of some help tho very problematic for me in its own right

I'm on FB under my own name, expecting to talk only to family and friends, so I was exposed to full on trolls for the first time with no anonymity.

[TheBlackAdder]

10. That's a question Skinner should not answer in detail. Never disclose architecture and software.

.

At Tom's Hardware, folks always ask how to reset a laptop's password, and it is always met with the same answer:

Questions like that should not be asked, because it is tantamount to aiding a hacker or laptop thief.



That being said, the only relatively secure computer system is a three-tier architecture. One server is classified as open, two-tiers is classified as semi-secure. Three tiers is where things get better, but back doors, remote access, etc are all tools that open risk.

.

[Iwasthere]

14. Don't need details, just need comforting.

[TheBlackAdder]

38. Well, if they follow common practices, it'll be a risk. They need to mix OS and hardware.

.

Keeping things vanilla, or common, is asking to get successfully hacked. The more unique the better.

.

[lordsummerisle]

11. A night to forget

I can remember on election night waking up around 4 am, putting on the tv and seeing the results. I was sitting on the bed and in a flash saw a scenario with Trump as president and an enabling congress wreaking havoc on the country.

Then trying to log onto DU and seeing a pic of Trump giving us the finger.
Something I want to forget but I'm afraid I never will...

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

16. Whaaa..

Seriously? A picture of dt giving the finger?? Are you kidding me??

[lordsummerisle]

18. Not kidding

It was probably only up for a few hours before it was taken down. Look it up...

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

21. HAil no I'm not looking it up.

Ty though. Best not to click on fricken anything suspect these days. Good to know ahead of time. That certainly sounds like a coordinated attack. Tangelos time "in the barrel' is coming. The chickens are coming home to roost.

[Rhiannon12866]

42. Skinner explained exactly what happened in Announcements

It took me awhile to get up the nerve to click on the video, but it really was pretty lame.

About the hack
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10137748

[mopinko]

19. sad to see that ata has gone by the boards.

not an open forum for ??? anymore.

[PunksMom]

20. I'll never forget that night.

I was fairly new to DU, and wanted to watch the results with like minded people. It was so freaky, and boom it was gone. I was so scared, I stayed off for a few months.

[MadDAsHell]

28. Honestly, the crash is the best thing that could've happened that night.

For us as individual users, yes it sucked.

But let’s be real. As a collective group we don’t handle bad news well. With the outcome that night, DU would have basically melted down anyway. From a reputational standpoint, that cooling off period was probably the best thing for DU.

[Liberty Belle]

29. I think the hack was to stop info on election shennanigans from being shared here.

On past election nights we had lots of posts from people posting irregularities at the polls, voting machines not working or that seemed to be flipping votes, registrars not allowing observers for vote counts, that sort of thing.

I've long suspected the Russians actually did get into some voting machines with no paper trails, or possibly the Republicans did so. Just because there's no proof doesn't mean it didn't happen, since there are no paper trails and no way to audit the accuracy of elections on paperless electronic machines.

Someone didn't want that info shared, and took down DU for quite some time.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

35. hmm

interesting.

[uponit7771]

37. +1

[Meowmee]

39. Yep

That’s what I thought too. Plenty of fraud such as 58,000 or ballots with no vote for prez in Detroit I think. Who knows what happened that we don't yet about.

[Blue_true]

31. That stuff costs money to purchase. Getting a star membership helps in that area.

It is pretty inexpensive.

[briv1016]

40. Few private servers are protected enough to prevent a state sponsored attack.