That really wasn't well handled was it MNHQ?

[ASorcererIsAWizardSquared]

Yes, this is a telling off.

Your communication over the Calm Down Jeffrey incident was atrocious.

I find it shocking that you can be sat there, posting to us that all is well and under control when we can see, in front of our very own eyes, that someone was hacking MNHQ posts and editing them, and also posting under posters names and editing other posts as well as deregging and banning other users who insulted them.

The response from you was seriously lacking, on top of your coquettish rubbish about not putting 50p in the meter when you went down over night.

Its not on.

You have a duty to your posters when these things are happening to keep us all informed, we're not stupid and we deserve to be treated with a little more respect. Not fobbed off with half truths and blatant lies.

Thank you Sarah, that helps - may I ask you to confirm for sure that no ones data was subject to a breach?

I know you have said as much as far as you knew at the time but a confirmation would be really appreciated I think.

Any need for that Eve?

So its ok for there to be thread, after thread of people yelling at MNHQ over the tech changes for the site, but i can't come on here and tell them i think they made a mistake over their handling of this?

Its why site stuff is here. I'm sorry you don't agree with me, but there was no need for you to be quite so rude about it.

I think there has been, uhh, some rudeness on both sides perhaps

Maybe they didn't say much because... there was nothing to say? What exactly would you have done with a exhaustive list of MNHQ's every thought and action during the time when they were, y'know, getting on with solving the problem?

The site's back up, everything is working as it should be - can't really see what there is to be angry about? Am I missing something?

Tbf to MNHQ they did'start a thread about the outage.mthey explained what had happened.
RebeccaMN remained on the thread responding to posters. It became apparent during this time that Jeffrey had hacked HQ functions when he started to change and edit het posts. I'm not really sure what you can expect HQ to do then? They can hardly keep posting.

And OK, the 50p in the meter thing may be patronising to some but sometimes not allowing hackers to know your aware you've been hacked gives you an advantage.

I think MN handled it really well. I don't want them explaining all the tech stuff for the hacker to read.

'50p in the meter' is the sort of light hearted tone I like from MN, with all the piss taking of the hacker it was quite entertaining.

I come here to escape from work not to read a boring corporate load of guff.

I disagree with OP that MN has any sort of duty to its users at all. It's not like I pay to use it.

Blimey I thought I was on MN toooo much but not knowing any of this happening makes me think not! need to schedule in another 2 hour window a day to post on here!

Ok, so how about I future instead of MN joke about 50p in the meter they ask this

I think they handled it well.

The hacker was obviously after attention and eventually had to resort to editing other people's typos in order to get any. :)

Anyone would think its a rainy day in the school holidays with all this snippiness.

The site was already buggered about with, after heartbleed I would've expected MNHQ to be smoother on the ball this time.

Some posters were concerned and upset on the thread, and were largely ignored by MNHQ for quite a while.

More good was done at this point by the posters linking to Dadsecs Twitter pointing out he was a bit of a numpty bum with an over inflated sense of his hacking abilities.

And that editing facility hack could have been used much more maliciously across the boards than it was against vulnerable posters. That it wasn't was down to the hackers integrity rather than Mnets control of the situation.

I do think these shenanigans will happen more and more rather than less though.

i prefer this one kidding ;)

Thanks everyone.

Fflightattendant, on the question of data: we can say for certain that the hacker didn't get hold of anyone's passwords, as he claimed on Twitter, since we don't store them in plain text. We at MNHQ don't know what your passwords are; all we see in our system is something along the lines of @!£^$£(U(*&$£.

We can't guarantee with absolute certainty that the hacker didn't manage to look at some users' details, but as you know, we keep very few details on users, and he'd only have been able to look at as many as he could sit down and read in the time he had access to our administrative tools. We can say that he didn't gain access to the database itself; only to the screens we use on a day-to-day basis to manage the site.

We're really sorry we can't be more definitive than that. Unfortunately, it's just not possible to offer a 100% guarantee of online security; hackers will find ways round even the tightest of systems (the Pentagon confirmed last week, in fact, that they'd been successfully hit by a cyberattack) but we do our very best to protect our users, and be transparent about any breaches we find.

Really hope that helps clarify matters, insofar as we're able to clarify them, and thanks again

MNHQ

oh god, i just spotted trending too.

ignore my thread, THAT is much more pressing issue!

What is this place? TOWIE?

It wont the Discussion of the Day, it'll be "Totes Amazeballs Writin, innit!"

Trending I fear is set to stay Maryz: we're at the point now where the word's entered the lexicon on social media sites, and we felt we needed to move with the times (I remember a similar wrench when people started calling them blogs instead of web logs ).

On the logging off issue - we thought we'd cracked this one but apologies if not. Could you let us know which device and browser you're using, and whether you're on the site or the app? Thanks

badooby

I'm kind of with Eve on this tbh. HQ were trying to sort stuff out, posted and kept folks updated while the admin tools were being used by some dickhead with too much time on their hands.

I'm not sure exactly what it is some folks want. You're on a free site that has a much better forum than pretty much anywhere else and you're obviously prett invested in it, so why be so snippy?

Maybe all the changes led to a window for Jeffrey to sneak in? Even geeks get lucky sometimes.

Is it safe to go into customise now?

I need to go and untick a box but don't want to lose classic.

@usualsuspect333

Is it safe to go into customise now?

I need to go and untick a box but don't want to lose classic.

If you are in classic now and you go into customise, make sure classic stays checked and then uncheck the box you'd like unchecked and then hit save.

You should keep classic.