ubuntu forum Important

Wed Jul 24 12:06:31 UTC 2013

Hi Tom (and list)

Thanks for the quick answer!

Yeah, I'll wait with asking the really hard questions until they're finished with repairing too, I guess.
maybe /if any of them reads this/ would it be an idea to have the forums run in a kind of "safe mode" first, when they're up?

Hm, I don't have any active accounts, besides my Ubuntu-one. I think maintaining a lot of accounts is a hassle >.<
>From what I know, neither of these two are at direct risk, am I right?

yeah, my senior always told me:
"in case of trouble, get a pot 'o' coffee, sit down, and wait until there's no-one pressuring you"
So, no, I wasn't actually planning on storming the actual maintainers with questions now >.<

And I know that there's more sources out there (Thank open-source :D)
But I actually also found a halfway-around, you can use google cache to (up to a certain level) gain acess to posts,
so for now, that way is good enough for me :D

greetings,
Cornelis

//Extra info - spoiler alert//
The reason I'll persist in asking said questions, is that I have a low-latency freelance job as writer for a dutch PC-mag.
so, since my redaction said they'd be interested if I could fish out details, I'd thought to go ahead and ask stuff >.<

From: Tom Davies 
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 12:48 PM
To: Conno B. ; Team, Ubuntu 
Subject: Re: ubuntu forum **Important **

Hi :)  
At a guess i would say they are going to stay down for around a week.  When i said about changing all my passwords i said that i would change them now and then again in about 2 weeks just to make sure my new passwords hadn't been harvested by some lingering intrusion.  it looks like the site maintainers had roughly the same thought and are keeping it down to ensure that when they do come back up they don't have to suddenly go down again due to some secondary or lingering problem.  

Someone contacted me off-list to ask how to change their password for this list too and i really hadn't thought about it.  I have changed it now but my first thought was to change all the Launchpad and other Ubuntu logins.  

Personally i would avoid hassling the site maintainers about the issue as they obviously have a lot of work to do and doubtless feel really awful about it.  If you ask them they are likely to feel even more pressured than they already do.  

There is a ton of "Community Documentation", there are the Launchpad "Answers" and 
http://www.linuxquestions.org
and a ton of other stuff out there.  Take this as an opportunity to explore and find the types of things that noobs might find.  I found Kioskea giving some really really bad and even dangerous advice but they fairly quickly booted me out because they didn't like my answers.  Clearly they don't have many (if any) people that have used any Gnu&Linux but still feel able to give advice about it.  

Regards from 
Tom :)  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: Conno B. <conno.boel at solcon.nl>
  To: "Team, Ubuntu" <ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com> 
  Sent: Wednesday, 24 July 2013, 9:46
  Subject: Re: ubuntu forum **Important **

  Hi all,

  This is quite the predicament. I didn't have a Ubuntu forums account, but them being down still cuts my information sources for both ubuntu and Debian in half.
  Now, seeing how my interests are, I would like to ask: Does anyone know more?
  Like, How, Why and What exactly happened?
  Who found out? Who did it?
  I know not all questions can be answered, but I would really like to know all this~

  Or does anyone know where I can find people who I can ask this?

  Greetings,
  Cornelis

  From: Phill Whiteside 
  Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2013 3:34 AM
  To: Team, Ubuntu 
  Subject: ubuntu forum **Important **

  Hi, 

  well what can I say? 

  Sorry if you get this more than once... but as the key phrase is:

    a.. Unfortunately the attackers have gotten every user's local username, password, and email address from the Ubuntu Forums database. 
  I have sent it to all the mailing lists I know of, please do pass it on to others.

  Regards,

  Phill.
  Ubuntu Forums is down for maintenance
  There has been a security breach on the Ubuntu Forums. The Canonical IS team is working hard as we speak to restore normal operations. This page will be updated regularly with progress reports.
  What we know
    a.. Ubuntu Forums is down for maintenance
    There has been a security breach on the Ubuntu Forums. The Canonical IS team is working hard as we speak to restore normal operations. This page will be updated regularly with progress reports.
    What we know
      a.. Unfortunately the attackers have gotten every user's local username, password, and email address from the Ubuntu Forums database. 
      b.. The passwords are not stored in plain text. However, if you were using the same password as your Ubuntu Forums one on another service (such as email), you are strongly encouraged to change the password on the other service ASAP. 
      c.. Ubuntu One, Launchpad and other Ubuntu/Canonical services are NOT affected by the breach.
    Progress report
      a.. 2013-07-20 2011UTC: Reports of defacement 
      b.. 2013-07-20 2015UTC: Site taken down, this splash page put in place while investigation continues.
    If you're using Ubuntu and need technical support please see the following page for support: 
      a.. Finding Help .
    If you're looking for a place to discuss Ubuntu, in the meantime we encourage you to check out these sites:
      a.. The Ubuntu subreddit 
      b.. The Ubuntu Community on Google+ 
      c.. Ubuntu Discourse 
    The passwords are not stored in plain text. However, if you were using the same password as your Ubuntu Forums one on another service (such as email), you are strongly encouraged to change the password on the other service ASAP. 
    b.. Ubuntu One, Launchpad and other Ubuntu/Canonical services are NOT affected by the breach.
  Progress report
    a.. 2013-07-20 2011UTC: Reports of defacement 
    b.. 2013-07-20 2015UTC: Site taken down, this splash page put in place while investigation continues.
  If you're using Ubuntu and need technical support please see the following page for support: 
    a.. Finding Help .
  If you're looking for a place to discuss Ubuntu, in the meantime we encourage you to check out these sites:
    a.. The Ubuntu subreddit 
    b.. The Ubuntu Community on Google+ 
    c.. Ubuntu Discourse 

  -- 
  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/phillw 

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