OpenJason

onHacked, onVandalized, onRobbed, and onThreatend …

By who? By a few dorks who call themselves: onW!red Yes, a design company here in America hacked my local network, vandalizing and robbing valuable data. During the attack, they were threatening lawsuits and litigation. For what? Nothing really… they just let their ego get the best of them.

So… I'm a pretty easy-going guy.  Always happy and positive… Always. I've been know to cut corners from time to time, but my intentions are always good and corners cut are never illegal. I've had a crazy up-bringing, but always landed on my feet.  I have never been in trouble with the law…  not even once. In fact, I've never even had a traffic or speeding ticket. Never.

 

You may, or may not like the way I've written this post…  If that's the case, feel free to leave at any time. I'm simply logging my thoughts… I may be a little harsh, but what's written on paper is what was floating in my head. Everybody THINKS this way… so do yourself a favor and quit lying to yourself. If you were in my shoes, you'd be harsh too.  - No really… you would. And if you’re one of those people who say that “what he said on his blog was so unprofessional,” keep in mind that this is a blog… not my profession. I say what I want, how I want.

 

I'm involved in a company called Daynger, Inc. There's about 4 partners in the company… we specialize in open source technology, outsourcing, and several other technology-based solutions. We have international clientele and have done quite well over the past two years.  We never really call ourselves "designers," but we are capable of  various design work…  Anyway, we're expanding our services to include a higher level of design work, but this doesn't officially happen for another couple of weeks.  So, we decided to modernize the site a bit, giving the two new designers a good idea of what we're envisioning.  Now, along with adding designers to the staff, we're also bumping up our open source capabilities. That being said, our site's content became outdated… and we're so busy with current clients and prospects, we've had a tough time getting the copywriter to finish the new content. If you visit the Daynger site, you'll see what I mean…

 

We found a site we really liked… We thought a similar design would represent us well. On-W!red is the name of the company who had a great looking site… Well, that’s not how they spell it, but I’m leaving their real name out to eliminate any more shenanigans.  I'd link to them so you can see who and what I’m referring, but I really don't want to give them a link. Just do a Google search for On-W!red and you'll get there. The plan was to build a Joomla! template inspired from the On-W!red site…  Now, I consider myself an expert Joomla! developer/user, but I don't have the background in design. I tend to think I'm a good designer, but in reality, not so much. So, David (the current design guy) agreed to work on the graphics and the css. I would then convert everything into a standard Joomla! template and we'd be ready for action.

 

Long story short, this is how it all went down… David used a Firefox extension called 'scrapbook' to grab the On-W!red Design. He then put the files on a local server. The plan was to have the scrapbooked site as a reference to the new Daynger design. I’ll reiterate… only to be used as a reference. Now, David is a Design/Marketing guy… he didn't realize the local server was currently set to allow incoming connections. That was the first mistake.

 

This was the second mistake: We had investors coming in and needed to have the Daynger site up… at least have something to show. We initially wanted to revert to an older version of the site, but that wasn't an option. The investors would've flipped their lids and it could’ve cost us the funding. We made the decision to put the new site live, regardless of its infancy.  The plan was to leave it up for a few days, then bring it down once the investors had a good idea of what the web strategy was. No big deal, right? Well, David had to leave due to a family emergency. We were pretty much between a rock and hard place. I was scrambling to get the damn thing done… I knew it was a time-sensitive thing, but the live site remained unchanged for a few days longer than expected. Nonetheless, it was  nothing like the OnW!red site, with never a possibility of getting our site shut down.

 

This is where it gets good. Right when David had to leave, I get a message from the guys at On-W!red… they basically stated they were pissed off because we "ripped off their site." I immediately replied, trying to briefly explain the situation, and to let them know that we would revert back to a previous version, even if we technically weren’t using anything of theirs.  David ended up getting back and he and I worked throughout the weekend to get the Joomla template done. So, the site was rebuilt from scratch… all images were original, the css was new, etc. The source code of the Joomla! site was substantially different than the On-W!red's source code. Completely different… you can see for yourself. Click here to see the Daynger site source code, then compare with the On-W!red source code. It's completely different. It was simply a visual inspiration. Well, by Monday, the fricking dikheads at On-W!red had this to say…

 

"Our patience is limited.  We've been polite, we've given you time to respond and extended more courtesy than the situation requires.  Now it's time to get your shit together.  If that means you have to put up a one-page "Coming Soon" placeholder and keep it there for 6 weeks while you start from scratch, then that's what you'll do, immediately.  Remove and delete our images, our content, our code, our layout, all of it, right now and without delay."

 

"I was hoping that we could resolve this quickly and easily without getting your hosting company and our attorney involved, but we're certainly willing to take the next step if required to protect our brand and our intellectual property."

 

"To put it as plainly as possible, using ANY of our source code, images, or content — whether or not you tweak the colors, make slight image edits, or rewrite things a little — is a copyright violation, and it's both unethical and illegal. "

 

"Our pockets are a lot deeper than yours.  How far do you want to take this?  Your move."

 

Who says that? How does this idiot know how deep my pockets are? What an arrogant, dick thing to say. He must be a young buck.

 

I see where they’re coming from… sort of. The fact is, nothing was copied… there were a few similarities in the visual aspects, but we certainly remained within legal limits. I tend to think they don’t know half of what they claim… so they just kept getting pissed off without a legitimate reason. When these emails were written, everything they owned was removed. Everything. He then continued to threaten litigation as well as gave his advice on our business model, which they know nothing about. To say the least, these toolbags  really started crossing the line.

 

But wait … that's not the half of it…

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While all of this was happening, had been posting in their forum about our "senseless acts of plagiarism," as well as how “slimy” I am and what a worthless designer I am…. Haha… again… I’m not a designer. They even went as far as posting my business email address along side a bunch of fabricated nonsense.  They also stated that I wasn't cooperating with their requests, when the fact is, I kept them well-informed and responded to every email within 10 minutes getting it. Also, they tried posting in Joomla-based forums about the ordeal.  Now, I doubt they have real users in their little forum… I tend to think all users in the forum are the 3 little circle-jerk twerps who call themselves On-W!red.

 

It was probably pointless for me to communicate with them any further… I mean, there was absolutely nothing that could’ve been done. They would’ve just ended up spinning their wheels and their money on a fruitless, frivolous claim. I was being so damn nice because we had 3 projects needing design work and I was thinking of working with them… haha… fools.

 

Anyway, one of the "forum users" stated that they had gained accessed to our local servers and that the MySQL databases were vulnerable. Sure enough…. !!!! These idiots broke into our local network and deleted thousands and thousands of dollars worth of data. They flat out erased everything… Everything. They also infected the machine with several worms, viruses, spy ware, etc. They really did a number… clever little bastards.

 

We checked the log files for the incoming ip… All signs point to!!!!! Yep, you guessed it… I bet these idiots were really proud of themselves for being so sneaky… They probably slapped each other on the ass, repeatedly… giving high fives to one another. I'm sure they sit around playing with one anothers onNuts…

 

So that raises another issue… you would think that these dipsh!ts would know that it doesn't take much to track them down…  Did they not care? Or did they just not know?

 

I emailed them several times about the hacked network… They ignored the question over and over, but had no problem raising different issues. After several attempts, I finally got a response that simply said "we're not responsible for the actions of our forum users."

 

Are you serious??? What a bunch of shady man/boy/goat-loving pricks. I told them several times that I would just let it go. I was dealing with so much already that I wouldn't be able to handle another time-wasting costly ordeal like this.

 

So, in conclusion, I changed the site completely…again. Just to avoid further problems with a bunch of ignorant, arrogant, shady, worthless idiots who have no idea what kind of mess they're getting themselves into. Did I have to change it? Absolutely Not.

See for yourself. I've given you the url… check the source for comparison.

Am I going to let the hacked network slide? Not sure yet…

It depends on a few things.

A: What they do with the stolen data and

B: How jacked up our machine is.

 

One might think I'm stupid and/or crazy for letting the hacked network slide…maybe I am. But think about it… how much will it cost to take this further? I have a fortune to make… Wasting time and money on these fools is stepping backwards. I'm pissed that I was called "slimy" and that the forum users had a different picture painted, encouraged to say a bunch of thoughtless shenanigans. It really pisses me off… but again, at the end of the day, who the FU&K cares, right? The fact is, we didn’t compromise their site or the work. We actually really liked what they did and were just about to hand over some work. We had a legitimate site built… We did absolutely nothing to get us in legal trouble… Nothing. But the egos and arrogance got the best of them…

 

I think maybe I should just invite them for a few rounds in the octagon… lol. One thing is for sure… they're barking up the wrong tree. I promise that.

 

Tags: hack, design, wired, on, fools

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