thomas_collins1

For those of you that are curious, the incident in which my portfolio was hacked has been narrowed down to a physical security breach that was NOT in anyway related to Photo.net. In fact there is sufficient evidence that should a repeat of this occur the specific individual will be in all likelihood identified - and they probably know this. I want to thank everyone here for your incredible display of support and generosity of kind words. May the rest of 2005 be a bright spot in our lives!

Thanks Jay!

I've just spent the last hour reading this thread (there goes my lunch time) and I still didn't finish it completely. Can you imagine trying to administer and reply to this flow of forum postings along with the stream of e-mails that Brian must recieve? Information overload, or in this case, complaint overload. Brian, if you ever need help, let me know. :-)

Yep, just around the corner from you! What a gorgeous day it is today! I refuse to let this ordeal cloud my outlook on life! Smile, life is too short to worry. :-)

Wow, that is quite the scary ordeal that you lived through. Something right out of a stalker movie. I am cautious by nature of being scammed or taken advantage of but I'm also not ignorant enough to think that I am impervious to such things. This individual stated that I was just one of their "crusade", though they did state that they would just delete my work again if I posted. Yo, Hacker - if your reading this (great, now I have to look over my shoulder thank you very much), note how the FBI did catch P.G.'s stalker. Be warned! Thanks for the time and concern P.G.!

Thanks! I've got a 10 minute delay on forwarding my listed e-mail to my office e-mail. When I receive your response I'll reply in real-time from my office e-mail.

Both systems that I use to access PN are heavily protected with firewalls, anti-virus, and spyware blockers/detectors. All of these are continuously kept up-to-date. I am pondering over the physical access approach to my PC's as a posibility, but it's pretty slim and I can't come up with a motive or suspect. One never knows though...

I log into PN primarily from two places - from my home office using a dynamic IP address assigned from Sprint Earthlink DSL, and occasionally from my office at The Seattle Times. Brian, if there are suspicions that something may have occurred from The Seattle Times, I will need to take this conversation off-line as it relates to security issues. You have my e-mail. Thanks!

Thanks everyone for your overwhelming support and good ideas to pursue. The e-mail address I use is valid and I wish to keep it, but I have changed my password. Brian, the last time that I saw my portfolio intact was Sunday evening. Your help is greatly appreciated. If you recommend changing my login e-mail to a bogus one, I can do that as well.

 

Anupam - That's one of the nicest things anyone has said about my work. Thank you! :-)

Wow, I can't believe it. Someone hacked into my portfolio, deleted

every last one of my images and then left a very nasty message in my

personal biography. Someone is on a crusade. Has anyone else been

hacked by this individual? Can my portfolio be restored or will I

have to upload each pic all over again? Geez, I just can't believe

that someone would go to the trouble of hacking into my portfolio. Of

course I changed the pswd immediately, but how did they get it in the

first place? My PC is fully secure with several layers of digital

condoms for safe surfing. If whomever hacked my images is reading

this, your petty and childish actions will not result in anything.

You won't upset me, nor will you cause me a second of lost sleep.

Keep it up and you will however be discovered and dealt with.

Walter, here is the verbiage:

 

If you do not have a credit card (or don't trust PayPal), you can subscribe by sending a U.S. Postal Service Money Order or personal check for $25 (for one year) or $68 (for three years) to:

photo.net

PO Box 545

Carlisle MA 01741

U.S.A.

 

Please WRITE your user ID, which for you is 767988, in an enclosed note or directly on the check to ENSURE that your account will be credited. If we can't identify who sent the check, i.e. we can't unambiguously match your name with a registered photo.net member, we can't do anything with it. We may have several members registered with the same name, so we need to know your user ID. If you are currently logged into the site, we can retrieve it from the database - and that's where the number quoted earlier (767988) came from.

 

Note that subscriptions sent via mail will require more time to process than subscriptions sent via Paypal. Paypal subscriptions are usually acknowledged in a day or two. Subscriptions sent via mail are batched and processed once per month; so depending on when you send your check, it may take several weeks.

Well, I'm already starting to feel better and the twitching in my left eye is subsiding. I'd feel a lot better with some sort of verification that PN recieved my check though! The emotional scars this could cause me through life are just unbearable... ;-)

Because I loath and don't trust PayPal as far as I can throw an

Elephant, I sent in my yearly subscription renewal via personal check.

I just read that you only batch process checks once a month. I sent

mine in about two weeks ago and my subscription is up on 11/24/04.

How can I verify if you received it and if not is there another method

in which I can make payment before my subscription expires? What

happens if you don't process the check in time and my subscription

expires? Do I loose my entire portfolio? Am I banished in disgrace

with my head hung in shame from PN? Will I have to recreate every

last image? Will I survive the emotional damage this will cause me?

Slugs. Can't forget the slugs... :-)

Some thing is happening with me using two different PC's, either on Internet Explorer or Opera's latest versions. Looks like PN's server is choking (timing out) on delivering the thumbnails. Glad to see that it is happening to others and not unique to my environment.

Brian, Matt's opinions are not unanimous, but I would like to see a return to the white background. Thanks! :-)

Brian,

 

I just wanted to let you know that there are some of us that really do appreciate everything you are going through to make the site better. I work in a very professional organization and we often have the unforeseen "gotcha's" during roll-out of new code. It the inevitability of our high tech environment. So don't let the negative feedback put too much of a strain on you. Kick back, slam one down, and smile. I sure am... :-)

Well, now that I have actually taken the time to read many of the responses, I feel that I may have been too tunnel-visioned myself in my previous posting. I can agree with many of the comments for keeping the rating system "as is". Primarily the argument that sways me is that of knowing the value of a given rating by the skill of the rater. Yes, this does have a lot of value.

I've been an active member of Photo.net for about nine months now and I must say that your recent change in separating ratings from the user names is probably one of the best things you could have done. I believe this will help towards creating more realistic ratings, as people will no longer feel "obligated" to rate an image high just to maintain a friendship, nor will there be as much incentive for traditionally low raters to gain satisfaction from their now anonymous ratings. Additionally, I think that it will spur people to be more descriptive in their comments. Well done!

PN Slowness is really an issue. They have become so popular that they are their own worse enemy. I get so frustrated with not being able to respond to people's reviews and ratings in a polite and timely manner. I have a finite amount of time each day and I don't have the time to be wasting waiting for PN to open a requested page. I believe that on average, I spend more time waiting for PN page updates than I actually spend commenting, rating, etc. BTW, as a comparison, I am running a DS-3 (45mb) on my end and it is still maddening slow! The bottleneck, ladies and gentlemen, is PN, not your end.

I've just spent the last hour reading most of the threads on this forum, and my sides are splitting from laughter. Herr Beckert, I respectively hope that you can accept the fact that "art" is a personal and individual definition and no amount of argument can change this, as is evident by the vast majority of participants in this forum. However, have you ever considered a carreer in politics?