Johanna

Okay, you should all see it now.

You're both in. If anyone else wants access just post here or send me a PM. Fair warning- adult area contains really bad jokes too. ~J

I'm okay with opening the Gallery to the public for viewing. Anyone have a problem with it? I would rather improve the current Directory here than take a list off-site or make another FB group (I belong to 200+ that I've been added to and it's overwhelming) and generate interest for the members right here. LW is a powerful social media tool. Tell me how we can improve the Directory to benefit the members. ~J

You are in. Look by the Marketplace for the NSFW area. ~J

I think I have it fixed. Try again?

Dieselman- I turned it on earlier for you when I got your PM. If you don't see the NSFW area on the bottom of the forum by the Marketplace, try logging out and logging in again. Let me know if you have any problems. ~J

Got all of you- even you chancey77! (Also the 9 PMs today) Guess the adult area is about to get busier! Fair warning- jokes already there are horrible! ~J

To do a screenshot, press the print screen key. Open up a new Word document and press the control key and v at the same time. The image should show up as a picture on the document. Save it (press control and s) name it and post it here. The way I understand it, an exploit used a cookie to cause external links to the forum to redirect to another site. The problem is gone, but it couldn't hurt to clear your browser cache. The tech bulletins say it affected most of the popular forums, and kinda hint that the forum developer geniuses should have anticipated this. All IPB will say is that a fix was issued Dec 27th. Their policy is not to discuss details because they don't want to give other people ideas, good or bad. I found the fix by accident after Googling forever. Since I still had an open support ticket, I asked them to inspect the board, and it passed with flying colors. It's a good thing people here noticed. There are a lot of boards that still have the exploit and are redirecting members and guests. If someone follows all the prompts from the bogus page, they could get an infected computer. And next week some other bored jerk will think up a new way to make the Internet more convoluted. Those frustrated virus writers ought to take up leatherwork and do something constructive with their lives. ~J

JJs Leatherworks- you need to run a security scan on your computer. There are helpful people and good clean up advice available at www.geekstogo.com . No one else has reported a problem like that, and it's not possible for the forum software to take you off site like that. I will run another another security check on the site, but AFAIK, we're clean. Let me know what happens please. ~J

Okay- got everyone in who asked here and 5 PMs. Have fun kids- the jokes are really bad! ~J

It wasn't Google after all. It was an exploit in the forum software. Nobody's computer should be affected by this at all.

Sending some contact cement for your tin foil hat, Ken! Keep the doggone thing on!

Okay- wear it out trying to get the bad page again- I don't think you will because I think I fixed it. Yay me! Well, I won't cheer myself until you folks tell me it's gone. ~J

We are addressing the problem with Google, the host and with the maker of the board software. I'll let everyone know something when I do. Our server and the board seem to be clean, but something is not going right, obviously. I hope to have answers soon.

Hello Joe & Cindy! Glad you made it to the forum! Folks- check out powermallet.com and watch the videos. ~J

and you cleared your cache...thanks, I'll check into it some more. ~J

I found a remote mysql % and deleted it, changed all passwords. Let me know if the problem continues.

Also, when a Google link redirects once, it won't do it a second time on that computer. The link clicks true from then on- after showing the redirect page. There's nothing in the forum software out of the ordinary and I don't think the problem is on our end.

So Google is allowing a legit link from the forum to display the real forum page and then interrupting it with these rogues?

I would like to see one of those emails, and if you know how to copy the headers, I would appreciate it. No one else has reported anything like that, and I am not aware of any problems with the mailserver. Thanks for your help. ~J admin@leatherworker.net

Karina I have to agree that it's a Google problem and not necessarily a person's computer. When I got your original message, Dennis, I investigated immediately. The site and server are clean. I did a search using the terms you mentioned, and the first time I clicked the link I got a weird page, and the status bar indicated I was on LW. But the page doesn't exist here. Strange. So I did it again on my daughter's computer, no problem. My son's computer on a different network, all okay, tried my computer again and the link went straight to LW like it was supposed to. Now I'm wondering what the devil is happening, so I start Googling common LW search terms. Every LW link came up clean on all the computers, so now I can't duplicate the problem, but I saw the odd page too- said 404 and was shrouded in gray. (should have screen capped it for submission to Google!) If anyone experiences this again, please let me know as much detail as you can. I filed a ticket with Google to have them investigate after I started Googling for other examples of this kind of thing. Like Karina said, Google is aware of the issue because they have all sorts of folks fussing about redirected links. bleepingcomputer.com and geekstogo.com are excellent resources for people looking to make sure their computers are clean. I know the admins there, and they have top-of-the-line help to assist you. ~J

St8line, if you can't log in, you can't post, so you were logged in okay when you wrote that. The biggest problem people seem to have when logging in is that their log in "user name" might be different from the display name. I tell people their user names more than I reset passwords, but if anyone needs help with logging in send an email to admin@leatherworker.net and I'll fix you up. AFAIK, everything is fine on our end and has been for weeks. The server load is low, the logs look good and there are no viruses or other malware living on this site or the server it sits on. Incidentally, today is the anniversary of the horrible crash of 2008. Kate and I worked hard to get the site online again, and to try to prevent anything like that happening in the future. We did everything but staple Beaverslayer's tinfoil hat on on his head, but he said that it had to come off once a year for his bath. During that time we ask leatherworkers from around the world to hold hands and sing "Kum-bay-yah" until he's got everything shiny again. Please let me know if you are having any problems, but all systems here look good, knock on wood. ~J

Thank you for understanding and expressing what LW is all about, Mike. I hope the people involved resolved things.

Not usually, but this past month has been an exception. The host did some updates a few weeks ago that caused some problems, and today a server data center in Utah failed, and we went offline. As long as Beaverslayer keeps his tinfoil hat on, we should be okay now.