Ron let them work it out.Yes I think some thing is fishy to.I have talked to people in Key West and they tell me a different story.

How is Alberto related to the RC boat community? Does he have rc boats? Does he know someone with them? Credibility???

As for Alberto. He was an IT guy who offered to step up to the plate a couple years ago to help us out. The server was moving from Shane Morse's machines in Oklahoma and he offered to host the site from his location. He ran boats down in Florida but was not an active racer. Mainly a weekend guy who would run now and then but he did really enjoy the hobby.

We ended up buying new gear,back up drives, new licenses, etc... to enable the site. It was going well until about a year ago when the site was hacked by a "Team Egypt". I'm not sure if they really are from Egypt but that is what it said on the residue left on the site. More here:

www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/...am-hacker-egypt

I cleaned up the site and Alberto managed to restore the site so it could at least run. Problem was the site was never 100% after the hack. You guys who used it were aware that certain photo loading services and things like that were not working properly. Anyway in the process of trying to fix the site I ran some tools to check the files on the server to see if any were recognized as foreign or not part of the forum software. Several infected add on's were found. I removed them but there was still a very nasty and hard to remove embedded add on. If I hit any of the help buttons in the admin control panel a pop up window would come up showing every setting on the site and had the ability to re-direct the sittings to hacker enabled site and files. Obviously the hacker had installed some code to allow them to hijack a site at will if once infected.

So a month or two ago i asked Alberto to see if he could do something about updating the software for the site so that it would not be susceptible to hacking. Apply a security patch. Sounds simple but that set off a series of events that took the site down. After a number of tries to fix it i think Alberto got ticked off and essentially all the content was gone. Several weeks passed with no communication at all from him.

So just last week Dom tells me he got a text from him. I wrote an email asking him what he intended to do. He said he still would like to get the site up and running but money is tight due to his divorce. I responded back that it certainly would be nice to have the site back but without access to the machine my help is essentially just moral support!

I just tried to call him a few minutes ago but again no answer. I left him a message i need to get the site at least back up and working even if the old files are not restored. We can try to retrieve old files later on. If I don't have a response in a couple of days then I know what needs to happen. I have been in contact with several well connected individuals and we can get something done one way or the other.

.ps I think it was Chris (DasBoata) who was trying to raise funds on Facebook. I told Chris to not send ANY money to Alberto as we have not seen anything positive out of him yet. He tells me a story about a divorce and low on funds but until I can get to the bottom of this do not send any money to anyone. Including Chris.

It's so sad Jim. This has turned int a real drama/mystery. The impact this has bestowed on the R/C boating community will never be forgotten. And one person could end it if he had the courage to step up and do the right thing or at least pass it along to someone else. You can't for a second think that our buddy Alberto is clueless as to what he's doing after this amount of time. I sure hope things work out for the good when this is done. Brian

I will always be someone who supports everyone in this hobby and specifically JRCBD. However, I don't feel comfortable sending any money at this time. Thank you for telling everyone to not send money just yet. I'm curious to know what our donations only a few months ago were used towards? Just a side note, Alberto actually posted his email on Facebook so everyone can send him PayPal.

Hopefully the member can be reassured precautions have been set in place to not allow another hacking. Like how secure are the servers?

I have limited experience with website design, but wouldn't it be as simple at paying $12 a month for hosting at Godaddy, Doteasy, etc and having the webpage redirect to the VBulletin site? Why are all servers and licenses involved? At least at that point you know those company's are secure and you only have to watch out for hacked files on the uploader's computer...am I missing something?

Any one can have a server "farm" with optic cable to give bandwidth. The cost of a server, the monthly cost of bandwidth, cost of security software. then its just a mater of up keep. This may sound simple but it is. I knew a guy that had multiple websites on his server farm and it was in a closet. The problem is when things go wrong who can you trust. If Jim has serial numbers the hard ware might be able to be traced, but he will need people to help him trace it. He needs to get hold of a few "white hat" hackers to trace the hardware. JMO Gordon

Been there, done that,bought the t-shirt with the home/closet based host. Never again, I would only use a professional host.
I had a business website never backed up by my former host and was lost.

Is there anything new going on, have not heard anything lately?

Ron

Not a word. Facebook was abuzz for a while but it looks like people got tired of holding their breath waiting for its return.