DiaryMaster got hacked! Back up your OD now!

The DiaryMaster’s OD got hacked!!!

OK, just for a very short while I hope, but here’s the story: 

I received his email this morning.

Hello Lifetime Members,

I wanted to send out a quick note this afternoon, because some of you may have
heard that my diary was "hacked" this morning.  It is true that
somebody was able to post an entry in my diary, and then posted the
instructions for how to do so on another diary (which was immediately
deleted).

We spent the day upgrading our security code, adding a couple of extra layers
to the login routines to make sure that the method this person
used (and anything related to it) wouldn’t work again.  I won’t go into
details, because it would be unwise to talk about what was changed – but
please rest assured that your accounts are secure and safe.  The extra
encryption and server-side security that has been applied is a good
several steps above what we were already doing.

Security of the site is of primary importance to me (a hard-learned lesson,
some of you might say), and I am glad that we were able to react to
this problem swiftly and shut it down.

A couple of people have asked me why I haven’t posted a public explanation of
what happened this morning.  It’s not because I want to hide it in
any way – it is simply because I have found in the past that if I post publicly
about things like this, it just encourages other nitwits to try the same
thing.  Rather than giving them their moment of "glory", it is better to just
fix the problem and move on.  Talking about it adds another reason for
somebody else to try to prove something.

Anyway, just wanted you all to know what is going on.  I am trying to answer
any notes and emails from people concerned about this.  If you
wish to repost this message, or forward it to anybody you know who is
concerned, please feel free.

Thanks,

The DiaryMaster

Since it’s in my nature to probe into things, I did a little detective work and found the "evidence" on the DM’s OD:

The offending hacker, HeroinInjection, got his OD deleted immediately, according to the DM, but since he posted the method to hack into other people’s OD, there’s no knowing how many people had already read his entry.  And if some asshole decides to put his method to test, our ODs are in danger.  I believe the DM did upgrade the security measures right afterwards, but anyway this proves that similar incidents can happen again in the future.  You know, there are hundreds of thousands of diarists on OD, no doubt many are brilliant computer geeks and some of them may be sociopaths, waiting to wreak havoc on OD if you only give them the right inspiration or provocation.

So, the bottom line is

BACK UP YOUR OD NOW!!!

We should do this regularly anyway, of course. 

Here’s another thing that might interest you.

This site, http://www.odboards.com, is everything about OD and its community, yet it is completely independent of OD.  So, yes, the DiaryMaster has no control over it whatsoever.  Hundreds of OD users are using the web board, and it can be a very good source of information and gossips and rumours about OD.  I got the above screenshot from the site.

Read or use it at your own risk though, coz you’ll find that it’s not a very healthy place.  If you haven’t realized it yet, some parts of the English-speaking community are very complicated, very abusive and very ruthless.  You’ll be shocked to find all kinds of immoral things OD users are doing to one another.

I’m sharing this with all of you coz I think it’s important enough for us Hong Kong OD users to know.  There are so many OD users in HK, representing a significant fraction of OD, but most of the time we are kept in the dark.  We learn about OD news only when the DiaryMaster feels like sharing it.  But what he doesn’t say (on his OD) can also be important, so I think it’s only fair for us to at least have one more way to look at things that might concern us.

Lastly, the same old request for all of you:

Email the DiaryMaster (use the "Contact our staff" option) whenever you have questions and problems!  Speak for the Chinese community!