I've just come from a meeting with our Human Resources regarding my use of the work interweb during the day, basically I showed up as one of the heaviest users in place, which is quite an achievment. The complaint was about visiting cannabis growing sites, so I assumed of course it was this one.

However, they showed me the logs of my activity and there were pages and pages of hits to/from UKcultivator. Now this is a site I don't visit very much and have only been there perhaps half a dozen times, most recently because I was reading the LCA section.

The server logs showed constant activity, I leave my machine on standby throught he night and this activity was going on all the time.

As a result UKC is now going to be blocked by our webfilter, probably uk420 as well sadly. In any case I've had to agree to significantly reduce my use of the net during work times, which I suppose is fair enough. Our IT dept is gonig to be asked to check out what UKC is doing, so perhaps I'll learn more.

I suggest everyone is wary about UK-c though, there's something very odd going on there.

Derek

do some work ya skiving bastard and everyone knows ya dont get probs if ya stick to 420. Good heads up tho Del

Cheers M8.

Dont forget - UK420 rules the roost. All others are imitations!!!

LS

i was on Uk Cultivator for a while then came off it cause it was acting all strange when i was logging in/out, i found it a perculiar site with some perculiar people on it tbh.

Yeah I heard there was problems with people stealing account details and 'doing things'. No idea what the 'things' are though, most likely some kind of scam. Delete your account if poss.

I joined up to UKC a while ago ( may have been earlier this year or maybe it was last year ), I never felt very comfortable there though ( don't really know why ) and didn't post there for very long .

Derik take a day off mate, you dont have to be a plonka everyday.
Theres nothing wrong at UKC , nobody has had there accounts hacked, No strange activity other than what you reported on other ganja forums, would have been nice for you to mention something to us.
I spent hours yesterday checking refferer logs looking for the huge data exchange and guess what, i didnt find a thing.
I even spent £140 quid on having fasthosts analise the server for trojans or hacks that our firewall and virus detector missed and was given a clean bill of health

First, learn how to spell my name please.

Also you're PM inbox on UK-c is full and you can't take more PM's. so I think you're the chaotic one.

As you know from the LCA thread it seems to be your shoutbox thing which has caused the problem. I must have left my machine logged onto your site (although I don't think I did) which resulted in constant server activity which looked like me constantly using your site without me doing anything or even knowing about it

Having something like that on a grow site is plain daft, irresponsible frankly. I wonder how many other people have been hauled over the coals because of this?

The problem was caused by your site running a bit of software I didn't ask it to run and which I was unaware of. This resulted in continuous server activity over an period of time, with each server activity being logged by the websense filter as being from a cannabis grow forum. Thanks a bunch guys, thanks for nothing.

While that shout thing is there the advice is simple - don't go anywhere near UKcultivator, just doing so can cause your readers a lot of trouble.

Either get rid of the shoutbox or make it opt in rather than opt out and put a warning up explaining what it does and what the consequence might be. And please stop trying to blame your victims for a problem that you caused.

Derek

Last time I had a read there,they seemed to be supportive of the LCA - nuff said

Sorry drick didnt mean to spell ya name wrong , nobody told me there was a correct way to spell it, so by your way of thinking its you to blame for not telling me how its spelt.
Most websites have a shoutbox or otherwise known as a chat room including this one, you do have the ability to switch it off from the usercp at ukc.
Like i said on the other site the total amount of data transfer between you and ukc was less than a 2 minute youtube video.
You got caught browsing a ganja forum from work, get over it and do your browsing from home. Its not the fault of the forum your browsing the fault lays with yourself for being a silly billy and browsing during work time

Sounds a fair cop

D-E-R-E-K -



UK420 chatroom has never imposed itself on me and UK420 has not caused this type of problem for me. That's because you have to join the Uk420 chatroom, something I've never wanted to do, as I haven't joined other chat rooms. ie they're opt in, not opt out as your is.



Maybe. The number of "clicks" they saw was huge though. And I didn't ask for that data, didn't know it was happening and didn't want it to happen.



Go boil your head. It was the stupidity of your site and the way it's set up that caused the problem. Now, as I told you in a PM TAKE THIS COMPLAINT SERIOUSLY AND STOP TRYING TO SHIFT THE BLAME ONTO ME. You are irresponsible and frankly a danger to anyone who goes to your site.



The sheer arrogance of you is depressing.

How many other people have you got into trouble I wonder? How many people have lost their jobs due to you? Doesn't that concern you even a little?

Derek

Actually, that was the attitude I went into the meeting with, I had expected them to complain about my use of 420 which had been substantial. But they hadn't noticed 420, UK-c "hits" covered pages and pages of server logs, all flagged as "marijuana grow site" by the websense filter.

And I'd only been there two or three times for heavens sake. So no, it wasn't a fair cop.



Derek

Can I ask why your 'shoutbox' names itself as 'marijuana grow site' on other computers geezzaa? Given that it is an automatic function that anyone browsing your site is connected to without their knowledge or permission?

That does seem to be the issue. I personally think it is disturbing that you have this thing that is 'contacting' other peeps computers instead of the other way round on a mj site at all.

We took your complaint very seriously , i spent all afternoon till evening looking into the huge transfers of data between us and you and found nothing.
I spent £140 on tech support checking out the forum for virus or hacking activity. Even then all we could find was a small amount of data transfered and seriously nothing to get alarmed about.

Right im off to boil my head, pehaps Joolz would like to close trouble making pile of shit this thread and we can continue it on your forum where you somehow nobly forgot to tell your own users of the dangers getting caught browsing at work, maybe you can start a FAQ on how to pass the blame onto others in a futile attempt to make yourself feel better about getting a bollocking from your boss

Not surprised that you're over here, UKC seems to be dying on it's arse since the LCA moved in.

Not surprising though, you've chosen Fasthosts as your provider, based in the UK and happy to cooperate with police investigations as can be seen in their privacy policy.


and they're also known for having piss poor security.

Every single Fasthosts customer in the country was contacted last week about their latest breach and advised to change all their passwords.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/18/fa..._investigation/


So forgive me if I'm not completely convinced by your version of events. Derek's account of events seems infinitely more plausible.

It's not as though you lot really show any understanding of how the internet works anyway. What's that policy about not having external links on the site about? Trying to stay below the radar? What a load of bollocks. Do you think the authorities don't know how to use google?
http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:ukcul...=N&filter=0

Hey dude , long time no speak
Its coded into the index.php so it comes up with UKC shoutbox on any refferer
It doewsnt connect to anything when your not logged in, you have to log into ukc to use it. Non logged in and visitors cannot see it when they access the index.php screen

Just cant happen, you have to log in to view anything, the mysql cannot connect to a user not logged in

Hello G,

So it's pretty much the same as the site description in the title bar? It says marijuana grow site because it's a marijuana grow site, basically. Hmm, k. My first thoughts were that it was giving too much information but on thinking about it I don't see how you can stop your site saying what it is if you want anyone to be able to find it.

Derek, switch your computer off at night and stop blaming others for your faults.

That's the equivalent of tens of thousands of pages of forum text.

Poor old fasthosts did get a hammering recently when someone hacked into there accounts for windoze based servers , Luckly we use unix and werent affected by the hacking. as a matter of course i change passwords weekly
Your forgiven and free to believe what you like, We are growers , Untill i started ukc i had trouble sending emails, But the proffesionals i employ to make changes and install pre brought scripts certainly know what they are doing .
As for links we do allow links you just have to put hxxp infront , stops people like Argos from suing us because ganja site has linked to an ossilating fan they are advertising (long storey)
The police know about UKC, the same way as they know about UK420,Hg42, lca forum, Ukcia, Hg420 and all the rest of the forums, its called freedom of infomation. If it want we would all be doing time under the organised crime act

actually its not a lot if you forget to log off at night with a page that has the shoutbox on it

Complete bollocks. I know about this because I have a site hosted on a fasthosts server on a unix account and got the same mail as everyone else.



Who told you that someone could sue for linking to their web site?
Why do you tell people that it's for security reasons and to stay below the radar.?


The difference is that the other forums either have their site hosted outside the UK or tell their users that PMs, private details etc can be accessed any time by the UK police. As for "Freedom of Information" what the fuck has that got to do with it and why would anyone be prosecuted under the Organised Crime Act for having a forum server hosted outside the UK?

But you have to log in to post Geezaa, do that and you're connected to your shoutbox. Like someone said, it looks like you don't understand how the internet works.

All this traffic was flagged "marijuana grow site" by the websense "netnanny" filter my employer uses. It monitors traffic and flags up any sites identified by the users (ie my employers) as being of potential concern. Of course drug advocacy sites and growing sites are one such category.

Every time I post to uk420, or do a page refresh this sort of entry will be recorded by the filter. So I notch up a few hundred 420 logs in a week or so. But UK-c was sending an update to my machine every minute or so for days (which is why I don't think I was logged in), which amounted to thousands and thousands of apparent hits, all flagged as "marijuana grow site". So much for " Trying to stay below the radar" indeed.

As for why I didn't post the complaint to UK-c, well, first off I didn't want to go there again till this was sorted out, second I did try to answer the thread Nigfis has started there (remember Nigfis?) but I can't access it for some reason. But mostly because I think people need to be warned about this.

Oh yes, I will turn the thing off at night from now on, except that I often can't because it gets used to record radio progs.

Derek

So that's the cause of Derek's problem in that he stayed logged in overnight and because you have an Ajax application on your front page, the site refreshed every couple of seconds pushing data out to Derek's computer.

So how is that anyone else's problem?

Didn't say it was but as Derek had started the thread not knowing why it had happened, it's reasonable to give him an answer.

Because their website was doing the updating, my machine wasn't doing anything. I often stay logged into UK420 and other sites and nothing happens. My machine is locked BTW.

It's a problem caused by UK-c, simple as.

Derek

Man, I was on your side until you said that. Ajax applications are really common and a lot of them force those automatic refreshes. It's not unusual to have some sort of shoutbox on the front page of a site (although the UKC one is particularly big and intrusive). The simple solution is to just shut your browser down, or disable javascript. I'd really like to be able to tell you it's UKC's fault, but in this case it's yours.

I'm not sure how you would normally respond to problems with a service provider Kushti but I usually question the provider about the problem. In fact that's wrong, I usually check the problem isn't at my end first, then question the provider.

It appears to me that Derek has left his browser online overnight and the UKC site has updated it's 'shoutbox' as it always does. Derek's been carpeted by the boss and wants someone to blame because Derek is perfect, he never ever makes mistakes of any kind, so it must be someone else's fault.

Well, how come UK420's chatroom doesn't do it then?

Normally, as I say, you have to join chatrooms - opt in, not opt out.

Anyway it's simple. If I don't go there it won't happen.

Derek

Yes we all got the same email, I found out that it was the windows servers when i threw a few Fs into Fasthosts customer support (got a free months rental aswell ) further info on that fiasco can be found here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/18/fa..._investigation/
Trouble is that has feck all to do with Deriks situation
The argos thing is well known, we linked to an advert for a fan, Argus didnt like that and didnt want to be associated with a ganja forum so they gave us 24hrs to remove the link or would take legal action - also fek all to do with deriks situation
Freedom of info, well what we are all doing is illegal (which is wrong) and if the fia wasnt there we would all be arrested for conspiracy to commit crime - also fek all to do with dereks situation


Anyways i need to go out so im going to add a new standard to UKCs security and each night someone is going to nip round to deriks workplace and switch his computer off for him

Jeeze Hvy, you sicken me.

Did you know Uk-c site would do this before you read this thread? Were you aware of the potential problem it could cause? Hmmm...

It isn't a question of wanting to blame anyone really, more a question of warning people that this can happen. Anyone running a cannabis website should be aware of the trouble they can cause with this sort of thing.

Derek

It looks that way to me too.



It just looks to me like he got confused, fair enough, a few years ago what happened would have been technically impossible. I don't know about your other gripes with him, that's not my battle. On the other hand I'm happy to join in with a UKC bitchslapping which is my main interest in the thread not defending or attacking Derek who I've got no strong opinions about and who you clearly do have strong feelings about.

Because it's a chatroom. Come on Derek, hold your hands up and admit you got your botty smacked by Sir because you fucked up. We're all human, fuck ups are allowed.

Wanker, can't even spell my name - or wont.

You going to make sure all the innocent visitors to your site are aware of this problem or not then?

It looks like not to me.

Derek

No hvy, it's because you opt into UK420 chatroom, it doesn't start up and include you without telling you.

I got smacked alright though, and it could have been serious for me although in the event it hasn't been. As i said, has this happened to anyone else before? Just because they thought they were using a forum, not a chat room.

Derek

Derek! This information is sent to every computer that connects to your site. What are you going to do about it?

If you want them, you can have them on

1 - Silly internet linking policy
2 - Providing a forum for the LCA
3 - Running a shop via ebay (although that might have closed now )
4 - Hosting the site with Fasthosts who's privacy policy lets them allow the police access to the server without a warrent
5 - Running the site with Fasthosts who are piss poor with security.


You can't however have them for leaving your machine logged in overnight and your browser open. It's not something they need to be telling people because most people already know that cannabis sites aren't safe for work. You just have to accept that you fucked up on this one.

You can't really hammer them on design principles either as your site is supposed to be accessible but has twenty accessibility errors, a youtubevideo and no document type header, uses java script and there's 148 lines of poorly formed code to go through to get to the "text only version" link which takes you to more poorly formed pages. The colour scheme of the text only version is awful and there's still no document type header and there's 16 lines of "Cannabis Spacing Graphics" to get through before you get to any content. That really takes the piss out of your medi users who are partially sited and use assistive technology to browse the internet.

Just pm me if you cunts wanna know where you can get oil to keep your pitchforks nice n' fucking shiny.

You'd be the first person I'd think of.

I'd assume that it's the chat box and the top, AJAX isn't it, so it auto refreshes.

Marx

No offence ( Im not an asshole delibrately starting fights like some other people Ive noticed on here threw the last few days... )

But I really think looking on Cannabis sites at work is just asking for trouble. I mean, what if your boss sees your screen at just the wrong time, or even better, a work mate who ant such a mate...

And to everyone. This is a Cannabis growing website. That normally means that most people on here are Cannabis tokers with endless supplys, that normally means most of us are stoned and probably not thinking to the best of our abilty when we are writing replys... so lets just calm down and stop with all this fucking argueing.

If you're self-employed,you might be able to get away with it.

Or have more than one brain cell

...not checked MY grow diaries, have you?

But I agree, that it's a bit foolish to view any canna sites at work.

Well would'nt you just be the first,dark no fun boy eh?

I imagine you skulking around graveyards in 16th century black you dull and dark sucker of light life and all things good you fucking saddo pants.

Hvyfuel , you really don't like Derek do you ?