Yikes, phpBB forum software

[chris p]

(1) Yo Rick, nice new forum

(2) There used to be a forum running phpBB software - called guitarnuts, all sorts of helpful stuff on rewiring guitars for better tone. And then, it died - the software hadn't been updated, the site got hacked, and the admin simply did not want the grief of restoring it all from backups. Apparently there are sites devoted to how to hack into phpBB forums, with detailed instructions. Guitarnuts was hacked by someone with the maturity of a 9 year old, which may be right because I understand that *real* hackers consider nuking a phpBB forum to be so uncomplicated as to not be worth the bother - no kudos in stealling lollies from babies. The ongoing war between hackers exploiting software holes and new software releases to plug those holes is endless, I know.

(3) The upshot? I'm mighty pleased that the TRM forum is to continue, and hat's off to Rick et al at TRM for the effort to maintain all this as a service to us freeloaders (well, sort of, I did take a client along to TRM for mastering). However, there may come a point in time when Rick decides its all just too much continuous hassle.

[Peter Knight]

[quote="chris p"]

[Ausrock]

I internally cringed when I saw what software was being used here.

A few months ago there were a number of music oriented forums using the phpBB software that were being continually "attacked"by "hacker gangs", some of whom were based in South America somewhere. At least some BBS owners changed over to "vBulletin Version 3.0.4 Copyright

[JulienG]

I too cringed a little when I saw it was PhpBB, however as long as it's kept updated there shouldn't be too many problems. (One of my many hats at work is backup sysadmin, and I'd be happy to support it as long as I was able to keep it updated).

As for paying for it, I'd bet that almost all of the professionals on this board, and many of the bedroom types would pay a decent amount for a closed forum. (I know I would, and these days I don't even count as a bedroom type)