AsstModerator
FPA Forums and Reviews Admin
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Hello Troops,
You may have noticed some difficulties accessing the FPA's website during the last few weeks. A couple of the smallest outages were routine database maintenance. There is another explanation for some of the longer outages.
Some scammers don't want you to read what's posted about them at the FPA. They've paid some hackers to launch a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. This is where hundreds or thousands of computers are remotely controlled by a hacker who uses them to try to crash a website.
A side effect of this on Saturday was a longer outage that left many loyal members seeing an incorrect "You have been banned" error message. I think the programmers have that issue resolved, so it shouldn't happen again.
When I do ban a forums account, there's always a reason given. That reason will be displayed if a banned person tries to login. If you do encounter an error like this without a reason displayed, or if the site doesn't load for you, don't worry. Just try back again in a couple of hours.
The FPA has been DDoSed before, and the site will be DDoSed again. Each time, the programmers learn more about how to prevent the issues. The first known incident began in late August 2008 and continued on and off until the middle of 2009. There have been many smaller incidents since then.
I consider an attack like this to be a good sign. It means that the FPA is doing its job. The website has information posted that one or more scammers don't want you to see. They are so determined to keep you from reading what's written that they have paid a lot of money to criminal hackers for a sustained attack against the website.
You may have noticed some difficulties accessing the FPA's website during the last few weeks. A couple of the smallest outages were routine database maintenance. There is another explanation for some of the longer outages.
Some scammers don't want you to read what's posted about them at the FPA. They've paid some hackers to launch a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. This is where hundreds or thousands of computers are remotely controlled by a hacker who uses them to try to crash a website.
A side effect of this on Saturday was a longer outage that left many loyal members seeing an incorrect "You have been banned" error message. I think the programmers have that issue resolved, so it shouldn't happen again.
When I do ban a forums account, there's always a reason given. That reason will be displayed if a banned person tries to login. If you do encounter an error like this without a reason displayed, or if the site doesn't load for you, don't worry. Just try back again in a couple of hours.
The FPA has been DDoSed before, and the site will be DDoSed again. Each time, the programmers learn more about how to prevent the issues. The first known incident began in late August 2008 and continued on and off until the middle of 2009. There have been many smaller incidents since then.
I consider an attack like this to be a good sign. It means that the FPA is doing its job. The website has information posted that one or more scammers don't want you to see. They are so determined to keep you from reading what's written that they have paid a lot of money to criminal hackers for a sustained attack against the website.
