TheVault news

Welcome to Our New Home -- What Happened and Why


TL/DR - Senior staff member went rogue, shut off the servers and locked everyone out. New server on new domains, drawn from backups. Change your passwords (especially any pw's shared across sites) and bookmarks.


~ We're Back!

It's been a while, but we're finally (mostly) back. The first thing you'll notice is that we're now at .click, so please adjust your bookmarks. For now the .bz domains are forwarding here, but that may not continue. See below for why.

~ Wait... something seems wrong. I'm missing ratio, and there's fewer torrents, and some conversations I was having are gone, and the torrents are all reporting errors! What gives?

Unfortunately we've had to restore from offsite backups, the latest of which was from late January. Due to the domain migration you'll also need to redownload your torrents. You can get those here.

~ Okay, so what happened?

A little over two weeks ago, our machines were mysteriously suspended. A trouble ticket was immediately launched to get things back online, but their reply was unexpected: suspected identity theft, servers offline for our protection. Most of us complied with all requests, but one senior staff was missing and unavailable. For days we tried unsuccessfully to reach him. Then the email contact at the provider changed to his gmail.com account and shortly after our access to admin was cut off.

This was alarming; was it our missing man working on the problem? We repeated attempts to contact him, and eventually he got back to us, but his answers were evasive and... weird. Still, he gave the impression that the downtime was temporary. This was about a week ago.

~ That doesn't sound entirely reassuring.

It all seemed very sketchy to us, as changing passwords and locking teammates out of administrative panels etc didn't look like a 'mistake', it looked like someone either deliberately trying to destroy the sites or to lock us out so he could do something nefarious. Given the situation, the shuttering of access, his lack of communication or enthusiasm in getting the servers online, and the duration of downtime, it forced us to assume that it wasn't a mistake, but a deliberate measure and to react accordingly.

At that point we moved to acquire new hosting, got IRC back online so there was a line of communication open, acquired a new and safe set of domains that he has no control over or access to, and set about restoring the site from the latest offsite backups. You're seeing the results of that labor.

We may or may not get access to that old server. If we do, we can fill in the gaps the restoration from backups left. However, given the situation, we are forced to presume that this isn't a mistake and that the old servers, and the data on them, are no longer available to us.

~ That's not good. So now what?

At this point, for your protection, we strongly recommend that everyone change their passwords, both on our sites and any others that use the same password. The data is encrypted so it's not an immediate danger, but better safe than sorry.

~ I donated, and my ratio is gone!

Unfortunately, being locked out of the machines and pulling from backups means we don't have the very latest data, including your donations. If your transfer was recent, you may be able to reverse the charge. Older stuff you may be out of luck. In addition, if you provide proof of donation in admin mail we will do our best to extend your rightful credit to you. Skiff will be personally handling that, so send him a PM.

~ This all sucks!

We agree, and we're working hard to get things back to normal. All the admins have been advised of the situation and know the score, hopefully the transition can be smooth and relatively hassle free for users.

We also working on new ways for you to be able to donate, but it will take a little while. In the meantime we'll make sure noone is deactivated for ratio issues while we handle things.

~ So what's the deal with the new domains?

As mentioned, we've been locked out of servers and administrative services. That includes control over the .bz domains. Unless someone has a sudden change of heart, those domains should be presumed lost... and if so, TeamBZ is dead. The .click TLD had all the domains we needed, plus the new name isn't half bad.

Welcome to the (re)birth of The Click Group.


~TCG