Thanks to all of you that have recently visited my temporary web site page to view my tribute to the Turkish hackers that plagued and defaced my site.  I hope you enjoyed watching it as much as it was therapeutic for me to create. 

In real life I am a computer geek, albeit a mainframe COBOL dinosaur.  I utilize PCs, the internet and web sites as a recreation and pastime.  I am by no means skilled in the intricacies of the modern computer languages and communication protocols, but I really am not totally clueless either.  My initial attempts to uncover the hackery at my site was done through the red lens of rage and frustration.  I have thought of little since the incursion at my site occurred back on 9/11. 

But in creating my Flash response, and writing a post here at OWD about my trials and tribulations, I was ready to begin a serious perusal of my sites code and database tables.  My wife came down from our bedroom this Sunday morning to find me working at the computer as I have been doing in every spare moment in the last week.  “Your dog needs and wants you to take her to the fields for a run today!”  Being a dog myself, I couldn’t deny that I had been neglecting a very special member of our family.  So off we went.  The pent up energy of my German Short Hair pointer was soon unleashed as she galloped full speed about the open fields and out of site in into the high brush.  It made me feel great to watch her and be away from this damn PC for a while.

I returned home calm and satisfied that I had for at least a few moments rejoined the real world and had a life outside the blogosphere. Refreshed with this reality check, I resumed my hack search in a new direction.  It did not take more than 15 minutes to discover the hack had not been in the code files but the database itself.  After stretching my shoulder out of whack while patting myself on the back, I bit by bit was able to trace all of the database defilements and soon had my site back to its normal state.  Backed up NOW!

I then embarked on doing the things I knew how to do, to prevent future attacks, or at least make them more difficult.  It was only a few minutes after restoring my site that I was checking site visit logs and noticed a very high rate of visits to my site from the same hackers that had defaced it before.  I have spent hours entering large IP ranges to block their access to my site.  But now I was able to see where they were going and what new vulnerabilities they were attempting to exploit.  In a way, they were pointing the way for me to tighten things up, while giving me new IP addresses to block.

Right now, I am just one tired mutt trying to keep a dozen wolves away from the flock.  But unlike my statement to change platforms and hosts from my last post, I have decided to stick it out where I am and draw a line in the sand.  They may knock me back down again, but I will continue to learn, add to my defenses and come back again.

What saddened me today is that not all of the IP address on the attack today came from Turkey.  Some came from other Western European countries, Australia and the U.S.  Wow!

I don’t know whether I am contending with Islamofascist or just a bunch of snotty computer geeks who take thrills from piling on.  But as my friend and fellow OWD JB says, “Bring it on!”

If some that read the first post on this subject didn’t see the comments left behind, one of interest was from a Turk calling himself TiT.  He claims to be the leader of the group responsible for hacking my site and ended his comments with “lol Christians.”  For the uninitiated lol is email-speak for ‘laughing out loud.”

A few others have since commented on the oddity of his name.  I for one have taken it one step further and located his image on the internet.  Since it may not be appropriate content for OWD, I warn you before clicking on the link to my site that displays his image.

For the link to TiT’s image click http://thegraydog.org/?m=20060917 If you missed my tribute, it may still be seen at http://www.thegraydog.us

Hopefully the site will be fully restored for normal access tomorrow, or it may once again be defiled by my new Turkish friends and NATO allies.  Just why did the Pope apologize?

No matter what, I shall return and return and return…

Contributed by The Gray Dog on September 17, 2006 at 03:53 PM in 9/11, Current Affairs, Islamism Delenda Est, Jim Bartimus, Politics, The Gray Dog, Turkey | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: JB

Mr. TiT may not realize that we have some rather good friends in the business around here also. I would highly suggest that he'd better leave Mickey alone. He seems to have copped an attitude of sorts.
Hack me if you can and I will learn from your mistakes oh Great TiT and return them with interest.

Posted by: JB | Sep 18, 2006 8:44:17 PM