ATS Incident Analysis

Greetings ATS peers!

As everyone is no doubt aware by now, this site is in quite a predicament. All users were locked out and forced to recreate their user accounts, including mods, and no word from the owners/admins on what's up. A ship without a captain.

Now since this is ATS after all, we have a few theories on what is going on, as well as alot of bs being spewed by the bots/ai/spammers. So far we have:

1. Got hacked by outside parties
2. Some kind of configuration or database error
3. These actions were planned and intentional for unknown reasons by the owners

Now for me, 1 and 2 dont make alot of sense if we expect the owners to check in more frequently than 4 months ago. Now if 1 or 2 happened and the owners are MIA and unaware, maybe, but I am assuming they bought it for a reason, like to make money, so this doesn't jive with me unless there are other reasons.

3 seems more and more likely the longer we go like this. If ATS is still up and in this state in 3 months, my vote goes to this one, as someone has to pay the bills. And who pays bills on something they've ignored?

What do you guys think? As this situation unfolds, I would like to use this thread to notate any notable events, like mods now moderating or some word from Darko or others in the know, and discuss the possibilities.

a reply to: unknowndude
Since ATS just literally a moment ago took another # I am at a loss. However, my 2 cents/ideas:
1 If it was the owners, then you are probably correct. Coordinated and executed.
2 Not counting out the Chinese (after all, this is ATS)
3 Jack Smith the great Witch Hunter pulled it and all the info (cuz you KNOW the owners saved and sold our info) to get Trump (I think Trump has had an account for a while lol)
4 The original re-sale was not legit, it was taken over as a foreign troll farm and used as a test lab
5 Too many anti-MAGA folks starting posts so the GOP pulled the plug on their pet project they invested in when Trump was elected.

All guessing of course, and managed to do it without mentioning genitalia or sexual orientation!

Maybe external ransom hack... I'm not sure if everyone is locked out if the owner can actually retake control, maybe others can speak to that.

6. Or some dumbass [owner/mod] started messing with the site and didn't know how to code worth a damn and trashed the data base.

a reply to: lilzazz

I'll pick 'Dorko is a dumbass for $1,000, Alex'.

originally posted by: lilzazz
6. Or some dumbass [owner/mod] started messing with the site and didn't know how to code worth a damn and trashed the data base.

Lol P.I.C.N.I.C.
problem in chair not in computer

originally posted by: lilzazz
6. Or some dumbass [owner/mod] started messing with the site and didn't know how to code worth a damn and trashed the data base.

This is the most probable explanation, actually. I wouldn't agree will the dumbass part really. I had a friend who was a programmer. He used to say he wouldn't give all the troubles with maintaining a website to a monkey on a rock.

originally posted by: N3ONOTS33
a reply to: lilzazz

I'll pick 'Dorko is a dumbass for $1,000, Alex'.

I've not been around for a good while.

Who is this Donny Dorko fella?

a reply to: septemberusMasonicus

And a damn shame it has been. ATS is eating itself lol and she is a glutton. I think Dorko is Darko, or who the hell knows anymore. Certainly not me. I'm "new" here 😂

originally posted by: septemberusMasonicus

originally posted by: N3ONOTS33
a reply to: lilzazz

I'll pick 'Dorko is a dumbass for $1,000, Alex'.

I've not been around for a good while.

Who is this Donny Dorko fella?

Mr and Mrs. Darko are the new owners, or so it's been posted.

a reply to: septemberusMasonicus

Go to the former ATS Discord, you can read all about him.

a reply to: unknowndude


Pretty sound unknowndude.

My addition is simple. IF the owners are still interested at all, it seems logical that they would have been in contact with at least one of the moderators that members would know well enough and from that connection, transfer knowledge to the membership. From what I have been reading this has not happened. It is impossible for me to believe that the real identity of moderators would not be known to the owners. Therefore, as we are going on day three with no even indirect communications from them that they do not give a whit OR their purposes are more clandestine than put forward in previous communications.

Or as we might suppose the owners did care enough to give it a try but found it too overwhelming though were that true we might suspect that there would have been some warning or some form of information coming from them as to the plight of the forums. What might be is that their resolve to continue the ATS traditions was not as profound as presented and the incentive for profit, or a quick buck, was sated by an offer from a third party to take the cash and run with an NDA. This to me is as plausible a conclusion as is available to me now.

And that leaves us where? If the intent of the possible third party was just to quash the site as in the suggestion by LeXoXel due to too many anti-maga folk starting posts, (which was a trend I was noticing) then we can expect that the site will soon dissapear when the bills come due.

However, I have always held in the back of my head that ATS for much of it's time, at least since I have been visiting here certainly ,could have been, at least, under constant evaluation by social and cultural scientists as a sort of petri dish of outlier development thinking . What are the mice thinking today. It would have been a simple procedure to introduce any number of memes or whatevers now and then, here and there just as experiments. It need not have been the government as so many like to surmise. Nor the CIA or the FBI. A simple think tank might have been luring the entire time.

And now, it may be that the value of the experiment has reached it's zenith, Pay the owners to cut and run, and then watch closely as the rabbits eat each other.

i have to be truthful here though. My favorite Twilight Zone, and I am old enough to have seen the original presentation of this episode and given it serious thought, was ''The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street''. That was the episode where the aliens screwed around with a neighborhood just to watch the neighbors squirm and then make their judgements on the experiment. This is not to say that aliens are involved but simply to make the point.

a reply to: unknowndude
Or ...
7 and the one I'm starting to lean into as I read and reread new threads posted days and hours before "the purge"....a child who has not matured enough to handle adult conversations, got butt hurt by a few folks disagreeing and decided to burn it down. Now we got a few posters with absolutely nothing but buzz words meant to get attention, which they are getting through multiple accounts, and get their perceived enemies. This is what babies do, try for attention by crying, sometimes screaming, sometimes saying mean # because any attention is better than no attention. As a parent, recognizing a temper tantrum is second nature

originally posted by: LeXoXeL
a reply to: unknowndude
Since ATS just literally a moment ago took another # I am at a loss. However, my 2 cents/ideas:
1 If it was the owners, then you are probably correct. Coordinated and executed.
2 Not counting out the Chinese (after all, this is ATS)
3 Jack Smith the great Witch Hunter pulled it and all the info (cuz you KNOW the owners saved and sold our info) to get Trump (I think Trump has had an account for a while lol)
4 The original re-sale was not legit, it was taken over as a foreign troll farm and used as a test lab
5 Too many anti-MAGA folks starting posts so the GOP pulled the plug on their pet project they invested in when Trump was elected.

All guessing of course, and managed to do it without mentioning genitalia or sexual orientation!

I would like to thank you for getting us started on the right foot, as you indicated, i fully expected differently! Just wanted to shout that out first!

a reply to: unknowndude

Seems like you guys are way ahead of me! Lol

I wouldn't put it past as a whoopsie on the server side, but there is zero chance i would keep a site like this up in this condition if I was aware at all. If it was a whoopsie, any checking at all should have caught it. It is much better to shut it down while you restore from backups, or at minimum regain control and reset all logins and mitigate, THEN put it back online. This hasn't happened so he doesn't know, or can't help for some reason. Might be dead/incapacitated. Might be NDA and a deal. Might be blackmail. Might be on vacation this week at easter island and be back next saturday to find a huge mess. Wish we could find out soon!

Great contributions so far! Let's rock this place while we can if nothing else.

Maybe an experiment to see how we all respond without censorship, and starting everyone at zero. Creating a new ATS?

A mirror site of ATS to gather ideas

Perhaps to get to the real ATS one must understand the riddle of lou?

Database error that the owner can't fix on a sight that they can't monetize... server space is paid up for the month.

originally posted by: Dandandat3
Database error that the owner can't fix on a sight that they can't monetize... server space is paid up for the month.

But new logins work, so it isn't like the database is locked out. Its reading and writing. Database errors are usually all or nothing with the same actions, like two diff users logging in! Like unknownguy and unknowndude. But we will see soon, huh?! I'm giving it 3 months for that.

originally posted by: Peters5211
Maybe an experiment to see how we all respond without censorship, and starting everyone at zero. Creating a new ATS?

A mirror site of ATS to gather ideas

Perhaps to get to the real ATS one must understand the riddle of lou?

The lou thing does seem particularly relevant, doesn't it?

a reply to: unknowndude

So i just found these posts from MrsDarko. Is this the real one? What's the verdict?

www.abovetopsecret.com...