Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

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|darc|
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Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by |darc| »

Not that the site was active for the past year or so anyway, but it looks like dreamcast-scene.com has been hacked? The domain appears to still be registered to the same owner it's always been, but the site now redirects to a spam site.
It's thinking...
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by MetaFox »

I was afraid that might happen. The site was operating on fumes as no one has had contact with Max for years.

I managed to grab the entirety of the site's SQL data a few years back. I tried to host it on Sourceforge but the SQL data is huge (over 1GB) and it caused the SF subdomain to be unresponsive.

I still have the data though, if anyone's willing to host it.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by |darc| »

MetaFox wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2020 1:53 am I was afraid that might happen. The site was operating on fumes as no one has had contact with Max for years.

I managed to grab the entirety of the site's SQL data a few years back. I tried to host it on Sourceforge but the SQL data is huge (over 1GB) and it caused the SF subdomain to be unresponsive.

I still have the data though, if anyone's willing to host it.
DCEmu's database situation is in the same boat, so I have a lot of experience dealing with that. I'll PM you.
It's thinking...
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by cube_b3 »

It seems to be loading fine.
I kind of gave up on it after Meta updated it and broken Chris's setup.
The Webmaster Chris is helpful and built it back on his own server, but it was just to much work to build it back.
I also got Dan Loosen of GOAT Store to host it, me and MetaFox were supposed to have a meeting with him but I just rage quit the scene after MetaFox updated it. As discussed wasn't doing to great back then.

Edit: It is acting weird. But I am able to login to Wordpress and theoretically it shouldn't be hard to fix.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by |darc| »

Weird. I loaded dreamcast-scene.com and I still get a redirect to a scam/ad site. But if I go to /wp-admin, the login page loads, then if I hit "back" on that login page, the front page of dreamcast-scene.com starts loading fine again.
It's thinking...
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by cube_b3 »

I would assume it is entirely possible the website has a spam virus or something.
Fortunately, me and Metafox both have a backup of the site. Before it went to shit.
Do we have a plan here? Are we motivated to address the issue?

@Metafox: You said you are able to rebuild it? Should we contact Chris?
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by |darc| »

Yeah, that is the case -- this is basically what happens if there is no admin keeping the software that runs the site patched.
Likely someone exploited an old version of wordpress or another script on the site and got access to modify the .htaccess file, and set a rule in there to redirect all of the site's traffic to their spam site.

I'd be willing to host an archival version of it, or something, but I don't know if that's even necessary, whoever actually owns the site/domain should be contacted before anything is done.
It's thinking...
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by cube_b3 »

@MetaFox you are an admin again at DCS.I apologize for the lag, I've been busy.
You are also welcome to contact Chris, he is the architect of DCS and your efforts to rebuild would be much easier with his support.
I need a month to focus on my job. I'll be back in March and we can discuss other strategies.

Eric I appreciate your offer to host an archive. As stated I asked GoatStore to host DCS and they had agreed but I think the decision is ultimately with Metafox. I am busy with my job. Maybe, I can contribute during spring break.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by MetaFox »

Luckily just updating the Wordpress installation did the trick, and Dreamcast-Scene is back.

I'll contact Chris and see if I can find out what CMS he used to see if we can get the database hooked into the website again, but at least it's working as it was before the hack.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by cube_b3 »

It was a child theme for the base theme Wordpress 2012 or something...

The main page seems to be loading but clicking the news feed leads to spam.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by |darc| »

If it's still redirecting to spam, check the .htaccess files MetaFox. They likely have set rules to make most pages redirect to spam
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by Basil »

If it's still redirecting to spam
Yes it still redirects to spam site for me as well when you click any internal link.
Probably wp has to be reinstalled and i think database is not affected.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by MetaFox »

|darc| wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 9:39 pm If it's still redirecting to spam, check the .htaccess files MetaFox. They likely have set rules to make most pages redirect to spam
The Wordpress directory .htaccess seems to be fine, but I can't say the same for the rest. Without FTP access, checking and fixing the .htaccess files will be tricky. I'll see if I can figure out a backdoor into it through Wordpress like I did when I grabbed the website's entire database dump.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by cube_b3 »

Try emailing Chris, maybe he can offer some support.
He's the best Wordpress dev I know.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by cube_b3 »

How we doing MetaFox?
Did you give up?
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by cube_b3 »

I do not really check my hotmail to often cause cube_b3 is kinda no longer a thing.
But DCS got a major spam attack and I had to delete thousands upon thousands of comment emails.

I had to login to DCS and turn the comments off on the particular post the bots were targeting. DCS server doesn't allow me to select 500, 400, 300 or 200 at once. I have to select and delete 100 comments at a time and it has taken me almost an hour today to move them all to spam.

I also updated everything not that it would make anything work again.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by cube_b3 »

I have disabled comments as we are still experiencing rapid bot comments.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by MetaFox »

Are all the infected links plugged? I unlinked all I could find, there's not much more we can do without FTP access. And considering that PHP is woefully out-of-date on the DCS server, it's not going to be easy to keep it from getting hacked and link spammed in the future, I'm afraid.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by cube_b3 »

Well let's watch it.
Domain Name: DREAMCAST-SCENE.COM
Registry Domain ID: 104787967_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.psi-usa.info
Registrar URL: http://www.psi-usa.info
Updated Date: 2019-10-10T07:31:30Z
Creation Date: 2003-10-09T17:52:58Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2020-10-09T17:52:58Z
I do not know if Max annually registers the domain or not. But it is set to expire soon.
Would you like to buy it, if it expires or should I?

I am done with the scene but would like to restore all of the versions of the website and just preserve Max's contribution to the indie scenes history. I really hope he is doing well.
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Re: Did we lose Dreamcast-Scene?

Post by MetaFox »

I'll buy it if it comes up for sale, and upload the database to the server that runs Cydoca.com. As long as I keep the forum closed once it is uploaded, it hopefully won't be a load on the new server if I do. I've got a good host based in the UK with unlimited bandwidth, but I really wouldn't want to test that.

I also hope that Max is doing well. I've contacted him several times without response, but I'm sure he's got a life outside of this stuff, as we all now do.

UPDATE: It's been updated, so Max must have it on autopay. Hopefully, that's a good sign that he's doing well.
Last edited by MetaFox on Sun Oct 11, 2020 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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