Redbrick Down?

cooker3

tnkrbell wrote: »

Well college work is being done cause of no Rebrick!

Fair play to all the admins that are working to get RB back.Probably not what any of the admins that are in college wanted especially when exams start in 2 weeks time!

Hi tnkrbell!

AlanSparrowhawk

spockety wrote: »

Can I ask if you have a technical background at all?

If the facts of the matter are that a student compromised Redbrick to gain root access to one or more servers, and then used that access to deface web sites or interfere in any way with user data, then yes they could find themselves in a lot of trouble. You might laugh, as obviously there is no 'principle' in DCU, but there is a disciplinary board, and if the facts are as above then the person involved could very easily find themselves kicked out of the university for it.

Thousands of people rely on redbrick directly or indirectly at this stage. Redbrick provides invaluable services that are used 24/7 on a 365 day a year basis, and for someone to interfere intentionally with that, it is a big deal no matter what kind of mole hill you think it represents.

From the sounds of it, the admins are dealing with the technical side of the problem appropriately, now I would hope that they can prove who it was that did this, so they can deal with the non-technical aspect of the problem correctly.



"# It is not acceptable to engage in any activity which:

1. Disrupts the intended use of the resources.
2. Wastes resources(people, capacity, computer, network, data etc.).
3. Compromises the legal rights of others.
4. Modifies, damages or destroys computing resources or the data on them.

# Disciplinary action and/or criminal proceedings may result from any breach of this Code of Conduct. "


"All Members of the University are expected to ensure that those on Campus who infringe the Code of Discipline are identified and dealt with according to the regulations of the University."

Ha. You make this sound like some kind of industrial espionage by some disgruntled redbricker. As if! I don't think there is anyone elite enough within the current redbrick ranks (therefore previous admin excluded) capable of hackerdom of this level. This is definitely grade orange material.

Secondly, don't imply that I've questioned the quality of the service redbrick provides. Redbrick is a fine organisation.

spockety

AlanSparrowhawk wrote: »

Ha. You make this sound like some kind of industrial espionage by some disgruntled redbricker. As if! I don't think there is anyone elite enough within the current redbrick ranks (therefore previous admin excluded) capable of hackerdom of this level. This is definitely grade orange material.

You don't need to be 'elite' to root a box if you have local access already and there is some unpatched vulnerability on the system with exploits readily downloadable and deployable with full instructions for dummies.

Secondly, don't imply that I've questioned the quality of the service redbrick provides. Redbrick is a fine organisation.

I didn't, I implied that you perhaps don't appreciate the scale of how many people this has affected given that you described it as a 'molehill'.

AlanSparrowhawk

spockety wrote: »

You don't need to be 'elite' to root a box if you have local access already and there is some unpatched vulnerability on the system with exploits readily downloadable and deployable with full instructions for dummies.



I didn't, I implied that you perhaps don't appreciate the scale of how many people this has affected given that you described it as a 'molehill'.

:( To call it an out of the box exploit I feel is a little bit unfair and demonstrates a frank misunderstanding of what exactly happened. Credit where credit is due. This would be quite a feather in ones cap for any wannabe hacker. I think redbrick molehilled it because they took all the systems down for a complete rebuild when other methods were open to them which wouldnt have had such a severe effect on the users. At the end of the day a level brown vulnerability was made aware to the relevant bodies.

Will

haha this is turning into lobby, bickering and trying to out do each other. its why i rarely use chat.

spockety

AlanSparrowhawk wrote: »

:( To call it an out of the box exploit I feel is a little bit unfair and demonstrates a frank misunderstanding of what exactly happened. Credit where credit is due. This would be quite a feather in ones cap for any wannabe hacker. I think redbrick molehilled it because they took all the systems down for a complete rebuild when other methods were open to them which wouldnt have had such a severe effect on the users. At the end of the day a level brown vulnerability was made aware to the relevant bodies.

I haven't heard any details of what exactly happened, so I don't know if it was local or remote, or done by a student/member or what. Care to enlighten us?

Assuming someone rooted the boxes remotely or locally, what would you have done?
I don't think anything short of a complete rebuild would be enough to put confidence back in the integrity of the network and everyone's personal data.

Suaimhneach

AlanSparrowhawk wrote: »

I think redbrick have made a mountain out of a mole hill and all this "let's stay around all day and night rebuilding" although sounds noble enough sounds is just masochism.

AlanSparrowhawk wrote: »

Secondly, don't imply that I've questioned the quality of the service redbrick provides. Redbrick is a fine organisation.

Masochism? Yes, because the admins want to be freezing their asses off in the server room on your behalf, at the end of week 12 and just before exams start are doing it because really, it's awesome and exactly how they wanted to spend their weekend.

And those who don't have exams and are previous students... their dedication and experience is priceless, but they are obviously only helping because it makes them look cool.

Cop on! How can you claim they're a fine organisation when a couple of posts earlier you insulted the people who are working for free, when they really could/should be studying despite the fact they're doing a job you could never do.

You might be entitled to question how they dealt with the situation, but maybe you could do so without outright insulting the people who're working hard to get things back up and running.

Personally, I am glad to see there are dedicated people who are willing to put the time in, and I am grateful for it.

robby^5

Can we stop all the bitching and moaning, the admin team are all juggling fixing this problem between work and exams at the moment, so whatever course of action they have taken to resolve this problem is their decision and we should stop criticising them and instead applaud them for giving up the entire weekend, and probably then some, to ensure that when redbrick services come back online they are 100% safe & secure.

tnkrbell

cooker3 wrote: »

Hi tnkrbell!

OMG HAI COOKER3!!!

Mad_Max

Mad_Max wrote: »

Definately the last straw, i'm going to try and get my club's website off redbrick.

I know this one isn't rb's fault but our site is down nearly on a weekly basis. We had no way of contacting our members this weekend as we manage it through the site.

RedBrick's reliability is not much worse than that of many commercial webhosts, from what I have seen. By "last straw" you'd imagine that your society has suffered on numerous occasions as a result of downtime. RedBrick is not down on a weekly basis. Downtime occurs maybe once every month or two for a couple of hours. OH NOES! TRAGEDY. Stop exaggerating.

There's no point in indulging in the privilege of having the site hosted on RedBrick's servers if you're entirely ungrateful for this service, which you seem to be.

It is not RedBrick's fault that you haven't implemented some form of emergency method for contacting your members, for example a mailing list.

AlanSparrowhawk wrote:

I think redbrick have made a mountain out of a mole hill and all this "let's stay around all day and night rebuilding" although sounds noble enough sounds is just masochism.

No. It's not masochism and RedBrick has not made a mountain out of a molehill. I don't understand the need for you to be so incredibly wrong. Do you realise how many hours of work have gone in to the servers? And do you have any idea how many more hours it takes to get them back up after a disaster such as this and a full rebuild? Two of the current admins are on INTRA and are working full-time, it's two weeks before exams and the server room is very small, very cold and very noisy so in order for them to get RedBrick's services back to normal as quickly as possible they'll have to suffer quite a bit.

I think the admins deserve the greatest applause for their efforts thus far.

YAY ADMINS!!! \o/ \o/ \o/

Suaimhneach

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't understand the need for you to be so incredibly wrong.

+1

\o/


/me changes the discussion to a lighter subject.

So anyone else miss idling in channels... it's like I am missing something. Check mail, check adium, check boards... where's Redbrick!

Mad_Max

Deleted User wrote: »

RedBrick's reliability is not much worse than that of many commercial webhosts, from what I have seen.

I've had better. Not free though granted.

Deleted User wrote: »

By "last straw" you'd imagine that your society has suffered on numerous occasions as a result of downtime.

Yes.

Deleted User wrote: »

RedBrick is not down on a weekly basis. Downtime occurs maybe once every month or two for a couple of hours. OH NOES! TRAGEDY. Stop exaggerating.

Read my other post.

Deleted User wrote: »

There's no point in indulging in the privilege of having the site hosted on RedBrick's servers if you're entirely ungrateful for this service, which you seem to be.

Again, read previous.

Deleted User wrote: »

It is not RedBrick's fault that you haven't implemented some form of emergency method for contacting your members, for example a mailing list.

Did I blame redbrick for our failure? Nope.

Please read all my posts before jumping down my throat.

Katniss everMean

I miss redbrick (someone get me unbanned from dcu on quakenet? >.>)

Max please stfu I seriously challenger you to find a free service that has better uptime then redbrick. (This does not include a mats dell he figured out how to put apache on...)

Dec are you being serious? Just because you had root as a webmaster does not mean you are the almighty. (Thats almightys job.) Someone roots redbrick, changes all our index files, had time to do whatever he/her liked I for one would not be happy if the boxes where not rebuilt. They could have a back door anywhere!

Admins aka werdz / johan / receive / cian / svan / halenger / atlas / d_fens / (going to guess phaxxy over irc). Thank you We seriously owe you all a lot especially in week 12 with intra and exams. I hope redbrick is buying you lot dinner each day

Mad_Max

*yawn*

Mad_Max wrote: »

Not free though granted.

Matthewthebig

Angelkat7 wrote: »

Dec are you being serious? Just because you had root as a webmaster does not mean you are the almighty. (Thats almightys job.) Someone roots redbrick, changes all our index files, had time to do whatever he/her liked I for one would not be happy if the boxes where not rebuilt. They could have a back door anywhere!

It's not skyhawk...

Cid-Highwind

Angelkat7 wrote: »

Admins aka werdz / johan / receive / cian / svan / halenger / atlas / d_fens / (going to guess phaxxy over irc). Thank you We seriously owe you all a lot especially in week 12 with intra and exams. I hope redbrick is buying you lot dinner each day

Thanks kat.

Yep, there's been food. We've had pizza, chipper & chinese this weekend, and have now ran out of local dcu food establishments. If anyone would like to feed us please send 4 large steaks, cooked medium well, to:K104b, The Hub, DCU, Glasnevin, Dublin 9

Matthewthebig

medium well?

you disgust me

:|

woah this page has had a lot of replies in a few days, must be cos all the redbrick heads have nothing better to do

slightly ot but why is it called redbrick? cos dcu has a lot of redbrick buildings?

dregin

wrote: »

slightly ot but why is it called redbrick? cos dcu has a lot of redbrick buildings?

Yes

dregin

First stumbling block with the new Redbrick security measures:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276304

Katniss everMean

Mad_Max wrote: »

*yawn*

I do believe I gave you a challenge to find one, NOT what you have found.

yawn yore face.

tnkrbell

Jesjes wrote: »

+1
So anyone else miss idling in channels... it's like I am missing something. Check mail, check adium, check boards... where's Redbrick!

Jesjes i agree with you!/me on gtalk isnt the same as /me on RB
don't worry not missing out on much in #lobby or #intersocs its kinda dead!

Cid-Highwind

Jesjes wrote: »

So anyone else miss idling in channels... it's like I am missing something. Check mail

You may have an email (or several) from me

Sorry for spamming people with multiple mails, but it was the only reliable way to mail everyone right now.

gamblitis

Mad_Max wrote: »

*yawn*

Thanks for your extremely helpful input. I'm sure you have something else to go bitch about tbh rather than take up space here with your pointless posts. You say that your website is down nearly on a weekly basis, then i suggest a little chat with your webmaster as you admit yourself it isn't rb's fault. A little support for the guys trying to get it back up for you would not go astray instead of the constant criticism your giving them.

Admins:Keep up the good work. Much appreciated.

yay for admins! I miss redbrick. Hey everyone

Suaimhneach

Hi,

By now most of you will be aware that we have been forced to take the entire
Redbrick network offline on Friday following a compromise in security.

There has been no loss of user data, email, websites, pr0n etc. - it is all
safely backed up. However, we are sure that the root access was gained on
both murphy and minerva as well ldap, so we are re-installing all systems
cleanly before they are going back online.

At present, the only service active is email - email which is autoforwarded
will be operating as normal, other email will be waiting when you login
again. Mailing lists are operational also, but the web interface is offline.

I am hopeful that we will be able to offer basic login services and chat
by Tuesday evening, but we can't make any guarantees - we are working as
fast as possible to get services back online safely. Progress with murphy
has been very slow, and website and database access will take longer to get
up again.

As ldap has been accessed by the intruders, all users will be issued a new
password in the near future. Please keep this password safe, you will
need it to log back in.

I would like to stress again that all your data and mail is safe and waiting
for you. If you need urgent file access or mail forwarding drop me a reply
and I'll do whatever I can.

We'll be in touch shortly when we have more online. We will also be keeping
the website error page on www.redbrick.dcu.ie updated with current info.

Thanks to everyone who sent us advice, encouragement, and steak. It is
much appreciated.

All the best,
andrew.

ps. Apologies to people who have received this multiple times.

Yeay - we be informed.

Cy_Revenant

LDAP was accessed?

*sigh*

How troublesome.

Merchelo_

Most of you guys are posting from the Hip.

You gotta ask why root your own networking societies servers when you are probably using them all the time?
Also, how many users on redbrick have the ability and the knowledge to do this.
In My opinion it was someone on the outside who did this.
I'd keep a close eye on this AlanSparrowHawk Guy, he seems to be either trolling, or knows something about the incident, and maybe a reason it was done.

But the reason is more than likely a "Ha ha, i'm better than you" swipe at redbrick.

Just My 2 cents to put in.

trekkypj

Um not a redbrick user but you've probably seen me on Intersocs now and then...

Sorry to hear about the hacking - good call by the admins to shut down everything.

Suggestion: Buy those guys some beers and pizza. They deserve praise for dealing with it, (and not the ****e one or two of ye have flung). Its a mammoth job to rebuild an entire network after something like this. They're volunteers and like people have said, they are working and/or exams are about to start. Give them some understanding and support, okay?

Hope you can get the muppet(s) who did the damage and make him sorry for it...

Oh and I spotted an article in the May '08 Linux Format on hacking which might be useful... they got hacked themselves so if they can get hacked... with the experts they have... then Redbrick definately can

Beruthiel

Thread closed on the grounds of stupidity.
B