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UPDATE: All of the Turkeys Aren’t in Turkey
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 If you missed my tribute, it may still be seen at 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… |
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Contributed by The Gray Dog on September 17, 2006 at 03:53 PM in , , , , , , | | | |
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All of the Turkeys Aren’t in Turkey
As some of you already know, and the rest of you are discovering as you read this post, The Gray Dog’s web site was hacked by Turkish Islamic After Armed now Many hours later, I once again received an email from the help desk to inform me that Once again, The Gray Dog site will return. As I contemplate a new software platform and possibly a new web hosting service, I did want to express my gratitude to the fine folks at for showing me just how vulnerable we all are to a group of miscreants armed with a little computer knowledge and filled with malice. As a visible expression of that gratitude, I invite you to visit view this heartfelt tribute. I’ll be back! |
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Contributed by The Gray Dog on September 15, 2006 at 11:56 AM in , , , , , , | | | |
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A Turkish Memory
Webmaster's note: Mike Connelly's home site, , was recently put out of business by a Turkish hacker. Since none of the Dogs reads Turkish, or Arabic, or Martian, or whatever the hell that was they put on his site, it isn't clear exactly who he offended or how. I am sorry to hear of Gray Dog's CP being overrun by a bunch of Turks. Like Rurik I once knew a little Turkish but that was more than forty years ago and the phrases I knew were mostly bar talk and bartering with the ladies who displayed their exotic charms in the windows of their business establishments in the red light districts of Istanbul. I was there on a NATO operation in 1962. We jumped in with our NATO allies, a small contingent of Turkish and Greek paratroopers and that was quite the experience. The Turks all looked like Sad Sacks in their baggy, heavy woolen uniforms, worn even in the heat of summer. The Greek paratroopers, on the other hand, all looked like Errol Flynn in their tailored jump uniforms and stylish berets. We suspected they had been hand picked for this operation because they were all simply too dashing and handsome, each bearing a thin, Flynn moustache, to be ordinary troops. In fact, some of us suspected they were all officers, wearing enlisted uniforms, selected by their superiors to make the Turks look especially bad by comparison. As it turned out, the most difficult part of the operation, involving a forced march up to the Bulgarian border, was keeping the golden boy Greeks and the Sad Sack Turks from each others' throats. The Greeks all brandished deadly looking jump knives and the Turks, we discovered much to our surprise, were all locked and cocked, their weapons and ammo pouches bearing a full basic load. It got a little hairy a couple of times and I must say that the Greeks weren't just pretty boys. They were ready to take on the Turks at any moment. And the Turks, who for the most part had all the dash and pizzazz of peasant goatherders weren't intimidated in the least. Fortunately, although there were some fistfights, we were able to prevent any lethal confrontations. However, when alcohol was involved, there was no way to prevent the exuberant Turks from firing their pieces off into the starry sky just like the later Saddam Hussein and other Muslim celebrants. The most interesting experience I had on this particular operation was in Istanbul following the field exercise. We were turned loose in Class A's to see this city before flying home. Walking down a boulevard with a couple of buddies, I noticed we were suddenly the object of attention of three gentlemen sitting in a sidewalk cafe, one of whom became very agitated, pointing to us and jabbering excitedly. We stopped, thinking as all young paratroopers do, "Hey, these Turkish assholes lookin' for a fight?" One of them stood and approached us and enquired if we spoke Turkish. My roommate back at Fort Campbell, SP4 Charley Turbeville, replied that we did not and asked if they spoke French, which Turbeville, whose father was a foreign service officer with the state department, had learned at Portsmouth Priory. The fellow did and quickly asked us in French to join them. We seated ourselves at the table and a waiter was called to take our order, with it made clear that we were their honored guests. As we waited for the drinks, the excited fellow explained through our mutual translators that he was German, had been in the Wehrmacht in WWII. During an American airborne operation, his squad had been captured by the fierce American paratroopers wearing the eagle on their shoulders. Much to their amazement, he and his kamerads had been treated better and fed better by their American captors than their own officers and NCO's. He fervently believed he had survived that great war due entirely to the beneficence of those men who wore that screaming eagle. Following the war, he had made his way to Turkey and taken up residence in Istanbul. From the day he had been dropped at the POW camp by his paratrooper captors he had never again seen that shoulder patch, which explained the astonishment we had first seen registered on his face as we approached the sidewalk cafe. So it turned into a jolly time with us drinking away the afternoon on this gentlemen's tab and only extricating ourselves by firmly explaining we had plans for an evening engagement with some fair Turkish damsels. We parted with much hand-shaking, back-slapping and even hugs, something young, American males were not really comfortable with back in those days. As we walked away, I looked back, waved and then reflected that it was a good thing some of our senior NCO's who were WWII vets weren't with us; they might have spit in his drink and then killed the poor bastard. It was only eighteen years from the last European battles and there were still old vets who harbored harsh feelings against the Germans. I mentioned that to my buddies and we agreed that it might be prudent not to share this little vignette with any of those tough old birds. He may have gotten good treatment from those who had captured him but I couldn't help but think he had been lucky not to fall into the hands of some of the senior NCO's I was familiar with. Sorry, Gray Dog, I'm sure this doesn't help your anger at your Turkish malefactors, but you never know what memories will be triggered in an Old War Dog's foggy brain by a current event. Russ Vaughn |
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Contributed by Russ Vaughn on September 12, 2006 at 11:50 PM in , , | | | |