Tech: Website vanished.

Subject: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:26 PM

Well, well, well. After telling people on Mudcat about my new website, I find that someone has hacked into my account and deleted it. Some sick mind objected to it for political reasons, it seems. I don't suspect any Mudcat regulars (probably a lurker), but I wonder if anyone else has had this happen to them, and whether there is any way to recover the information which I have lost.

I just looked at the server and they say that if a file is deleted it's gone for good. Is this true? Is there no backup?

Any and all responses would be appreciated. I have already contacted the server.

Thanks.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From:
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:29 PM

Sorry to hear. Isabel.

Can you upload/publish it again from your home computer?

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:34 PM

To echo George;

Presumably you've kept a local (ie on your computer) copy of it?

Just upload that again.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:36 PM

That's a drag - I was planning to have a look at it tonight too.

I've always made a point of loading my website on a CD-Rom and then publishing from that. That's not been because I've been worried about hackers, but service providers have been known to go belly-side up without warning. Any time I modify the website I do it the same way - edit it on the PC itself, then load to the CD-Rom (since PCs crash), and publish from there.

I can't see how anyone could have hacked in and deleted stuff without knowing your password. Unless you used something like your name as your password.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:45 PM

No, it was all created in sitebuilder. Impossible to upload it, because it was never uploaded in the first place.

When a site gets deleted, doesn't the server have a copy of it somewhere? In the recycle bin, or something?

Thanks for the help.

Isabel.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:45 PM

Would people still have any of the pages in a cache, if they were there recently? If so, suggest you post a note in the thread where you gave us the URL, and see if people can get anything.

~S~

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:50 PM

Maybe when you get it set up again you could download it onto your computer and from there to a CD-Rom, and then you've got it safe, just in case.

Have you checked whether google has it in its cache?

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:51 PM

Golly, McG, how do I do that?

Also, could you tell me how to find the cache on my computer? I visited the site myself a lot recently.

Thanks,

Isabel

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:53 PM

I've tried my cache already; no joy there. Check your own browser cache, Isabel: there's always a chance you may have copies of some pages there. You'll have to try all the files with an .html extension, as the browser will have given them numerical names.

There is very unlikely to be any backup at your provider's end; they ought to be providing better security, though, so be sure and give them a hard time. Personally, I wouldn't touch an online page-builder with a bargepole, but it's horses for courses, I guess. You can, up to a point, back up your site by saving it to your hard drive via a web browser; one of the few things that IE does better than other browsers is to save automatically all the files (images etc) associated with a page. It re-writes the page headers, mind; but at least next time you'll have something to work from, not that that's much comfort at the moment.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Mark Clark
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:54 PM

Isabel, I'm sure sorry to hear about your site. There are any number of site building tools available both commercially and free—enter “web site builder” in the search box at SourceForge to see a list of free ones. Build your site entirely on your hard disk, back up to CD as McGrath suggests, and use your ftp program to transfer it to your service provider. You may not be able to recover your work this time but you can prevent loosing it in the future.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 04:55 PM

If you use IE, the browser cache is likely to be in Windows\Temporary Internet Files. No luck with Google; I don't think your site was up long enough to get indexed.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 05:07 PM

If you search for it in Google, there's a good chance that Google has it in cache; they very often show such. Maybe you'd be able to proceed from that in some fashion.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 05:12 PM

Maybe if you check back in your History, in your browser, you could get it to load the site from the cache in your PC - particularly if you disconnect the Internet connection whilst you are doing it, so it doesn't have the option of trying to load it from there.

I don't know if that'll work, but it''s worth trying.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 05:12 PM

No, nothing in Temporary Internet Files. There are files there, but there's nothing in them.

Is there some other way of getting at them?

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 05:14 PM

Hallo McG, I've tried that already. Doesn't seem to work.

Oh Gawd...

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From:
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 05:21 PM

Isabel. One of the problems you encounter is that while Windows has this Recycle Bin thing, as does many graphic systems.

However many systems, including Linux/unix and DOS, when you delete a file, it's deleted. No return.

While many systems keep backups it's nearly impossible to get ONE file or set of files separated. The backups are usually image files of all the files in position.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 05:21 PM

The pages were stored on the site builder, which was connected to the server. Should the site builder still have some record of the pages?

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: treewind
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 05:25 PM

I know it's little consolation now, but I'd never advise building a site online, especially if it's non-trivial. If it's important enough to matter, you should really learn to to do your own HTML and graphics, keep it all on your PC, back it up, together with all your other important documents which I hope you back up regularly (?) and upload the web pages to the provider's site.

One advantage of that, which I have found useful several times now, is that you can move the whole site to another provider quite easily. In this case that sounds like it might be advisable anyway.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:14 PM

Even if you build it on site, you can still download a copy of it - maybe it's too late for that, but it's worth bearing in ind for teh future.

It's a pain, but the thing about any kind of magazine is that the copy is transient, and you have to be working on what's going to replace what you've just published. The work is never done.

If you can find out what happened, it'd be interesting to know that. How did the presumed hacker get access to the material, was it a password that slipped out somewhere? Or is there some security flaw in "sitebuilder"? In which case, they are at fault, and should do something to make up for it, asell as ensuring it can't happen again.

Used right, this whole episode could be quite helpful in drawing attention and readers to the site.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:22 PM

I know you're being nice, McG, but how could this draw readers to the site? I'm studying for numerous exams right now and there's no way I will be able to get the site back up until Xmas, by which time all interest generated here will have died out.

Thw website was not meant to be the magazine itself, just to provide a background for potential contributors or subscribers. I already have a lot of copy written for the first issue and that thankfully hasn't gone missing.

It was probably just a case of the password being too obvious. I had a working password that I could easily remember while I was building the site. Then to my horror when I tried to change to something more secure, it wouldn't let me. Given this was the case, they should bloody well have backup!

(N.B. I did try to store some of my webpages in wordperfect, but they are complete gibberish.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Sorcha
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:46 PM

I lost mine at iVillage because it didn't generate 15 hits per month. Oh well, I can re do it. It was all pics anyway.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:51 PM

Hallo, Sorch --wish I could redo mine!!

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:52 PM

hmmmmmm...I wondered why they dumped the Secret Santa site.

Also, my private site got dumped when the ISP changed my email address -- just dumped my site with no notice. I had ~80% of it on my hard drive, but many files I had to regenerate.

Isabel, I cleaned my temp files recently, but maybe someone else has some of the files from your site on their computer. What was the URL? I've gone to my temp files several times to retrieve a file. They are arranged chronologically, so it helps to know the approximate date I visited a site. (for files I purposely snag, I just visit them and then immediately go to the temp files, they are the last ones.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:05 PM

http://albionmagazineonline.freewebsitehosting.com/index.html

Hopefully someone could do a search in their files for that.

Mary, it's appalling that service providers can just do scrap sites. If I had had 1 day's warning, I could have printed all my stuff off and at least have had a template to follow.

I wish my temp internet files worked that way --how do you get into yours? I go in thru "my computer", then thru C drive and then windows --temp internet files, but nothing comes up that way.

I'm gutted. It's pretty hard to memorise the different parts of the brain (I'm doing psych) when your website has vaporised...

:(

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:11 PM

As with so many other things, you tend to get what you pay for. A "free" website is often paid for in banner ads and pop-ups that will slow most browsers to half their normal speed and drive away the bulk of your potential visitors anyway; and there is rarely any technical support worth speaking of. Were you obliged as part of the deal to use online "site-building" software, or was that your choice? Is that software on the same server as your webspace?

If you're serious about getting the thing up and running, the first thing you should do is dump "freewebsitehosting.com" and go for a proper webspace provider, even if it costs a bit of money.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:21 PM

I know, Malcolm --but a student must eat...:)

The sitebuilding software on the site was useless. I used an external sitebuilding software called zyweb, which is actually quite good and has slightly better tech support. (I've trying to get a response from them now as to whether they still have my files, because that was where my files were being stored.) But now that my account with freewebsitehosting.com has gone, I can't get into my zyweb account either.

I would love to have a proper service provider, but the money problem is a significant one. Free service providers should still not be able to feel that they can scrap websites without saying why.

Just another thing --if somebody finds that url, I particularly need page with the url http://albionmagazineonline.freewebsitehosting.com/guidelines.html

That's the one that was changed the most from my handwritten notes.

I'm still going to go ahead with the magazine, however. The email for it is [e-mail]

Perhaps I should start a separate thread explaining the magazine, since the url won't work now.

At least hotmail accounts don't disappear in a puff of smoke.

Cheers,

Isabel

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:24 PM

First thing - did you clean the temp files since your last visit to the page? (I clean mine when I go to my computer, right click on C drive, click properties --- then choose "disk cleanup" to empty the temp files and the recycle bin.)

If you think they may still be there, (and it helps to know the name of the files, at least in my system, Internet Explorer) - go to programs/accessories/windows explorer/ ------ then look in windows/temp internet files ----- click on the main folder and in the right window you should see every file from every page since you last cleanup.

(I hope this is right......it's hard to describe it without looking!)

Another thing, if you deleted the files in the temp internet folder, but haven't emptied you recycle bin since then, they are still in there. Look in the recycle bin using windows explorer.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:37 PM

Hmm... Mary, sounds plausible but from accessories I can't get to IE. Are you going in through the start menu?

Thanks,

Isabel

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:43 PM

Another thought, actually two:

1) How long does your history folder keep info? Mine is set for 3 weeks. That means if I visited a page within the last 3 weeks and haven't cleaned the temp internet files, I can sill click on that URL and call up the page. I did that for a site Wolfgang was interested in that disappeared before he could look at it. It was still on my computer. In Internet Explorer, just click on history.

2) If you still have the files, but can't find them ---- you can arrange them chronologically. In your method, my computer/C/windows/temp internet files -- click on view/arrange icons by date.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:46 PM

oops......start/programs/windows explorer


But your way works too.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:50 PM

Can I do anything with cookies? I've just looked at those and found there are some to do with my old sitebuilding programme...Can you plug them in somewhere to come up with pages, or is that just wishful thinking?

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:52 PM

wishful thinking.......get back to your studying......as long as you don't clean your computer the files will still be there tomorrow.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:55 PM

I've finished studying for now. Thanks for all the help!

Night,

Isabel

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 08:56 PM

Good luck.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 09:03 PM

Isabel said she'd tried thta, Mary - but anyone else who's visited the site could do the same, chase up the pages via History, and send them to her.

Unfortunately, as I said, I'd put off having a look round it until tonight...

What I meant about drawing some benefit from it, Isabel, was that what's happened, especially if sitebuilder is at faulty is something you could kick up a fuss about, get letters about it printed in publications and so forth, (computer/internet publications, and folk publications, and student publications...) and include the website address on it. Losing your site like that is the kind of thing a lot of people have nightmares about. But for that to work if you'd need to have cobbled together something to put on the site.

It would maybe be worth sticking up an explanation of what has happened on the site, with an appeal to anybody who might have visited it to have a look in their browsers to see if they've got stuff from it tucked away. After all, someone who has visited it is likely to visit it again, to see if there's anything new, and you might be lucky that way.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 09:20 PM

Isabel if you remake the site - consider using Netscape Composer which I have used for years without any problems. As well as saving the pages as webpages you can also save them as txt files - that way they are permanently off line and out of harms way.

PS Nescape is free and I stick to the older versions like 4.6 and up but not v 6 which I have not yet tried.

:)

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 10:53 PM

Appears its a "female problem" for you.

Send a PM to LaughKat, she's the MC's resident, PC, lady-guru.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Why don't females backup their files, copy their passports, cleanup their gardens?

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 06:53 AM

And what kind of problem that last poster had, I shudder to think.

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: GUEST,Isabel at Univ
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 08:12 AM

LOL McG, thank you!

I will eventually get the site back up (reconstruct it from notes etc) on a more reliable server. That'll take a while, though, and in the meantime I'll carry on with the magazine. I'll just put our mission statement up on Mudcat, and anyone interested can pm me.

Cheers.

Isabel

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 03:14 PM

The website has been revived! I found that my pages had been saved on my sitebuilder account and I was able to publish them again on a different server. Thanks for all the help and commiseration while I was going through it --it was really frightening when the site just vanished like that.

Cheers,

Isabel Taylor

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 03:38 PM

That's good. So what's the URL?

Subject: RE: Tech: Website vanished.
From: izzy
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 03:50 PM

I put it in blue clicky form on another thread, McG, but here it is again at this address

Cheers,

Isabel