[haloboy100]

Before i say anything, i'll say i mean no offense to an0n whatsoever.

After taking a look at the idiot thread another time and getting a few good laughs, i read goob refer to the "an0n incident". Might it be right for me to ask what exactly this is? again i don't mean any offense to an0n should it cause any, i'm just a little curious as to the events that happened around the hlpbb when i wasn't around. Thanks in advance.

[achtung]

Old stuff, before my time.

[Nuclear1]

April Fool's Day either last year or two years ago.  The admins faked an an0n takeover of the boards and started deleting the project forums with the hopes that the forum databases had been properly updated and nothing would be lost.  

However, a lot of stuff was lost, people were pissed, and HLP was down for a long time.  Of course, then the admins brought out HLP 3.0, and all was well.

The funniest thing about it all was how believable it was and how many people fell for it hard.  We had lots of n00bs and even some experienced members who were seriously thinking of ditching and just running to Game Warden or GTD Bastion.  Of course, the people that knew (Raa and Matt to name a few) spilled it to some of the others on Game Warden, and suddenly it was the funniest thing in the world.

[haloboy100]

really? i thought it was something about an0n being put in the "voiceless" group and then using some security loophole or something...

[redsniper]

Yeah, that was the joke. an0n didn't really exploit any security loopholes, it was just the admins posting under his account. Then the real an0n got on IRC and told anyone who asked (myself included) that it was for real just to add to the confusion.

[haloboy100]

well, i searched the forums for something about it and i ended up finding This. What's up with that?

[Nuclear1]

The whole incident is kind of a blur, but it must have been later than that.  Perhaps that was a casus belli, but that wasn't the Incident™.

[Polpolion]

You see, an0n is a sociopath.

[haloboy100]

more specifically...?

[redsniper]

look for a thread titled by an0n "New Rules"
That's the definitive April Fool's '05 thread, I think.

[vyper]

It got funnier. The admins had linked to Penguinbomb while pretending to be an0n. The lad himself then replaced the homepage of PB with some... "homoerotic" imagery.

Funny days. Not so funny for the projects though.

[Goober5000]

...with the hopes that the forum databases had been properly updated and nothing would be lost.

We weren't that irresponsible.  We double- and triple-checked beforehand that the forums were backed up and that the backups were intact.  We planned to restore the backups the following day and pretend that nothing had happened.

However, GameSpy had screwed up our FTP settings, with the result that we were not able to restore the backups for a month and a half.  (Their technical support was unfortunately not very responsive, which was one of the reasons we later switched to independent hosting.)  Once we got our FTP account working, everything was back to normal in a few hours.  Nothing was lost.

I was the person who actually deleted the forums.  A lot of people pointed out to me afterwards that making the forums invisible, inaccessible, and not counting toward posts would have achieved exactly the same effect and not required a forum backup.  Unfortunately, that didn't occur to me at the time.  Hindsight is 20/20.

well, i searched the forums for something about it and i ended up finding This. What's up with that?

That was when we decided to try something different: putting an0n in the "Voiceless" usergroup instead of outright banning him.  Unfortunately, whoever had set up the Voiceless group in the first place hadn't configured it properly.  As a result, an0n could view every single forum, even if he couldn't post in them.  Fortunately, the only thing he did was post a few screenshots of the admin forum, which were embarrassing but which didn't reveal any sensitive project information.

The security hole in the Voiceless incident was part of the inspiration for the April Fools joke, as nuclear1 supposed.

[haloboy100]

ah. and how come i don't see anything about a "voiceless group" in kal's "guidelines for forum conduct" sticky?

[Polpolion]

I still think an0n is a sociopath...

[Bobboau]

a lovable one though!

[vyper]

well, i searched the forums for something about it and i ended up finding This. What's up with that?

That was when we decided to try something different: putting an0n in the "Voiceless" usergroup instead of outright banning him.  Unfortunately, whoever had set up the Voiceless group in the first place hadn't configured it properly.  As a result, an0n could view every single forum, even if he couldn't post in them.  Fortunately, the only thing he did was post a few screenshots of the admin forum, which were embarrassing but which didn't reveal any sensitive project information.

The security hole in the Voiceless incident was part of the inspiration for the April Fools joke, as nuclear1 supposed.

... screenshots? I thought that was the time he mirrored/leeched the entire admin forum on Penguinbomb?

[haloboy100]

ya, and i did a little more investigating and it turns out he leaked that info over in the wcs community and embarrassed our admins.

[Goober5000]

... screenshots? I thought that was the time he mirrored/leeched the entire admin forum on Penguinbomb?

Actually, yes, they were mirrors, not just screenshots.  Although it was just the first 6 pages, not the whole forum.

[haloboy100]

knowing goober's wrath I'm surprised an0n didn't get IP banned outright for all the things he did, i mean to me it sounds like he was rebelling against HLP!

[WeatherOp]

Ahh yes, back when the forums were alive, and people cared if HLP went down..