...under attack. Please read.

[admin]

Forums worldwide are under attack from hackers (seemingly with no other goal than max destruction). I have spent lots of time lately keeping them out, and continuously banning access attempts from the most obscure countries. All well so far, but have no certainty as to what can happen. These hack programmers are as clever as they are evil.

A security fix is under development from the originators of the forum software. Up until then, some functions may be temporarily disabled, ie posting of pictures (attachments), uploading avatars and possibly registration of new members (the origination is scanned before acceptance, but one may slip trough).

In addition I (very seriously) ask everybody here to evaluate the strength of their password, as a hacked member account could give an attacker a foot in the door. If anybody uses a password looking something like 111222 and similar, fix it asap, please !!, and (goes without saying) regularly check your pc for keyloggers, viruses etc.

Lots of forums have gone bust lately. Too much good stuff here to risk loosing it all, although most should be recoverable in case of crisis, as I do daily backups these days, but I'd rather be spared the hefty work of having to restore everything, and the forum going offline.

Thanks for your help.
e

[admin]

Forum software has been updated today, and this should fix the recent security issue.

The request for everybody to use a secure password still stands.

Everything seems to work well.

e

[flatdeck]

I think I would be speaking for everyone here when I say we really appreciate the amount of time and effort you put into this. All of us would be a lot worse off without this little community that provides me for sure with a daily dose of interest. Thanks again.

[admin]

Thanks. Much appreciated.
e

[69Bonni]

Yes here! here! this is one of the best forums i have ever joined!

Thank you for all your hard work, it is much appreciated, although i guess often not shown!

Many Thanks and Kind Regards

Steve

[admin]

Thank you very much. And thanks to the members here for making the forum come alive trough it's content, I just do my best to try to take care of the frame around it all.

e

[rocket man]

thanks for all your hard work this is a superb forum
and very helpfull all my thanks
dave

[raymo]

second everyones thanks.. am new here and had a warm welcome and hope to use the help and expertise here

thanks fro a job well done.

cheers

Ray

[admin]

Thanks very much for these comments.

(Ray, about the T500, in days long gone past I dreamed of owning one, and somehow still do)

[rocket man]

your a jem mate well done i love this site im on it most nights

dave

[62a10]

thanks lj. without the forum, there might well have been an innocent a10r victimized by my idiocy with bsas. your work is greatly appreciated.
 cheers,
 barefoot ed

[LJ.]

Whoah! I can say that Erling is the man whom all the credit should go to, I am mearly just a watcher for in case he misses anything. I occasionally have a snip around just to keep things tidy and clean. But really... you guys... the membership are a good bunch who keep the forum great with lots of really interesting posts, rarely we have to delete anything.

LJ.

[admin]

LJ., you've been a great help in getting the forum going, with advice and positive input since the beginning.
Looking back, f.ex.  june 2006: 18 posts, june 2007: 50 posts, and tons of problems with spammers etc all along, I nearly ditched the whole project. But due to the presence of the dedicated few, like LJ, it's been growing steadily, and looking at the stats now, june 2009: 900+ posts so far, it's been worth the work and time, lots of members and visitors have been finding friendly help over the years, to keep, or get, their bike on the road.

e

[raymo]

can I add my thanks too..

this is a great site. I have had BSAs for a long time
 and learned more from this site in the past few weeks than could ever realise
that is down to the folk on the site, but with out your dedication it would not happen..

I was a member of a transalp site a few years ago, that was a wealth of information..
some Turks hacked it and it was completely lost.. it restarted but never fully recovered..

[Richard]

I would like to add that this is a very pleasant site with a lot of helpful and tolerant people taking part who between them can agree to sometimes disagree with certain things and stay friendly and civil and debate them as it should be. I am never worried about writing something that may not be quite correct as it is always debated and pointed out without any agression.
Earling you are a credit to any forum site and I hope that all that use this site show it the due respect that it and you deserve.
Thank you
Richard (minety uk)
ps I am adding the above to my signature name as LJ told me that he gets confused  sometimes as there are a few Richards on site it must  be an age thing keep, up the good work LJ
Rich

[admin]

Thanks for the support !

[rocket man]

your very welcome you deserve it

[admin]

And let me explain further. The whole idea about new members restrictions on the full use of the forum is to let people present themselves as 'real' BSA owners trough the first posts. As mentioned earlier, a few months ago 1000's of forums got severely damaged\destroyed\offline by some elusive hack.

But this needed a registration + full permissions to perpetrate. This hole is plugged, but be sure some are working hard at new hacks this very moment, and some are even paying people in third countries to do manual registrations in forums, and pose as valid members. Therefore the need for all these membership startup restrictions in addition to updates to forum software, increased server security and more frequent backups. It's all part of the joys of supervising a forum  

The steps to secure the forum itself could lead to being looked upon as some elite club for the chosen few, which is not the intent at all. I rather hope new members will appreciate that they are coming to a website that do take security seriously.
e

[rocket man]

theres always someone who wants to spoil it for others have they nothing better to do
with there lives i hate them and i wish someone would turn the table on them so they
know how it feels, i must say you do a great job and i thank you very much for all
your hard work


dave

[admin]

Lately, lots of attempts have been made to crack forum passwords. 'They' (it's infected pc's) harvest usernames from posts, and then try to login, to be able to post \ get access to memberlists\emails etc.

The password strength needed to accept a registration here during the last few years should be safe enough, but if you registered some long time ago, you may still be using something like 111222 or johndoe, please change it.

And, of course never use the same pw on several different sites.

Thanks
e