[cerebio]

As a long (very long) time lurker and past (very long past) submitter and fun bags subscriber, I see the following:
- The people currently working to get VW back online have provided this BB, answered questions openly (despite being probably very busy right now) and have not discouraged open discussion of the issues at hand or censored the messages that point at Igor's new site. Kudos.
- The analysis elsewhere on the board (about Igor hit and running in a weekend) seemed spot on and is now confirmed by current vwAdmin
- The feel of the whole thing from an IT point of view (my business) is indeed that hard work is being done behind the scenes to set up a clean new site and I can just imagine the damage a single disgruntled powerful admin can do.

I do agree with the dislike of MFF people have expressed. It bugged me no end that some fun bags archive entries were taken away because they got 'promoted' to MFF.

All in all a sad turn of events indeed, but I hope it will work out and will wait patiently in the mean time. If you guys need assistance in coding, feel free to drop me a line as well, as said IT is my business, I can engineer in most programming languages.

Cheers!

[cerebio]

By the way, fun bags is still working properly for me even though it was not update for a while. With 16 years of history to play with it's a good place to be if you get bored of this BB

[rugrollers]

By the way, fun bags is still working properly for me even though it was not update for a while. With 16 years of history to play with it's a good place to be if you get bored of this BB

That's interesting. I noticed the wiki is still working too, but it is now labelled by the other site instead of VoyeurWeb, so Igor must have control of it. What about Funbags? Maybe if VW still has it and it works they should give all paid members access to it until they get the rest up and running. I'm sure that would help keep people here instead of drifting off to the other site. (If it can be done easily of course -- not to put more work on their plate. Maybe cerebio could pitch in and do it for them.)

And I agree that MFF does not belong on VW, although I haven't so far seen any evidence as to whether that was Igor's idea or one of Igor's gripes. (Asking what his gripes were on the other site has so far generated no answers, but if I get any I will report them over here.)

[cerebio]

That's interesting. I noticed the wiki is still working too, but it is now labelled by the other site instead of VoyeurWeb, so Igor must have control of it.

Most WIKI implementations are fairly self contained, so copying a folder and changing some banners here and there is a breeze. Easy enough to steal that if he is in control of the domain name.

I can't find out the registration for the wiki, but all the other sites are registered to Domains By Proxy, LLC, including Igor's new pad. So that is a bit disconcerting, but the domain registration may not be fully up to date yet if the hijack is in the process of being reversed.

[rugrollers]

I can't find out the registration for the wiki, but all the other sites are registered to Domains By Proxy, LLC, including Igor's new pad. So that is a bit disconcerting, but the domain registration may not be fully up to date yet if the hijack is in the process of being reversed.

Good info, cerebio.

You seem to understand this stuff, so is it possible to steal a domain name? Does owning a domain name mean you own the website that operates on/with/under that domain name? You can tell I'm out of my depth here. All this drama just has me curious to understand it better.

[vwAdmin]

I can't find out the registration for the wiki, but all the other sites are registered to Domains By Proxy, LLC, including Igor's new pad. So that is a bit disconcerting, but the domain registration may not be fully up to date yet if the hijack is in the process of being reversed.

Good info, cerebio.

You seem to understand this stuff, so is it possible to steal a domain name? Does owning a domain name mean you own the website that operates on/with/under that domain name? You can tell I'm out of my depth here. All this drama just has me curious to understand it better.

Domains By Proxy LLC is owned by GoDaddy and is the blanket used to cover private domain registrations.

[achristopher]

When should things be back up and running? Can you give us a real explanation of what happened? I've been an RC member for over 7 years, and I think I deserve a real answer.

[cerebio]

Rugroller, technically you could 'steal' a domain in the sense that you can get the domain registration when the current lease expires. This can also be prevented (blocked) for a fixed period after the lease expires - you just pay a little extra for that.

However, getting a domain registration does not make you the owner of any content that was available under that registration previously.

In this case however as I thought it through a bit more it is not that relevant, as Igor made off for another domain and only stole the content and subscriber database. Clearly he was not able to appropriate the domain registration (thank goodness!). That would have been even more hassle and VW would not be able to get back on its feet for a much longer time. The legal battles would have to take place first instead of during the rebuild of the site.

In this case they only need to make sure that they have clean servers in place (no backdoors or accounts that Igor can get into) and replace the software running the site and replace the content.

And from the pretty look of the BB today, I'd say they are making nice headway :-)

[Mark34]

They are making head way.

So maybe we should give them a little room to get it done?

I understand we all have questions and concerns, but they are doing their best to keep us updated and working tirelessly at the same time.

Keep up with the good work admin

mark34