message board/forum back door access
 

yet again i'm only here for a bit advice, long time member slow time poster

I'm an admin bod on a music based Runboard forum. Nothing serious, more of a social one than alot.

After many changes of provider and name etc to get rid of abusive and bullying posters we settled down, and the rest went else where, both becoming members only by invite. Sound familiar?

What's happening is, that a couple of the more savvy people on the other site are getting on to our board and able to read it, then doing the very sad thing and copying and pasting messages and using that to abuse members.

Now, I'm thick skinned and don't give a monkey's but some of members are getting really upset.

The only thing I know is that using some search on google, they are able to get round the membership thingy rather than using somebodies login.

Any suggestions on how this works and how to close down the loophole would be very appreciated.

If need be I'll post the URL either here or by PM

Thanks in advance

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

Could they be reading the posts on cached pages on google?

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

you can stop google indexing your site by putting a file called robots.txt in the root...not sure exactly what you need to have in the file though.
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some useful urls:
http://www.searchengineworld.com/rob...s_tutorial.htm
http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

User-agent: googlebot/1.0
Disallow: /

should do it

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

or this will make one for you

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

ok thanks for you suggestions

I'm not really sure where to put the little script

I did consider the pages being cached but I couldn't work out how to find them without logging in. Every time I managed to find it, I was asked for my password and user name.

the URL is:

http://com1.runboard.com/bsolidbond

If anybody manages to read any of it, could you let me know how.

cheers again! :tu:

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

sorry but I'm going to be cheeky and bump this

Runboard have told the forum owner it is impossible, but even with my limited abilities, I know nothing is impossible when it comes to things like this, you just need to know the "work around" or find it

any other suggestions?

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

What's the actual name/title of the forum?
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Oh, and are you sure you haven't got a mole?

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

the url is

http://com1.runboard.com/bsolidbond

the name is solid bond
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as for a mole, we have a suspicion or two so we are narrowing that bit down.

we are trying to cover all bases, the person taunting us is trying to make out they are doing it through google

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

The only page that comes up (after a fairly exhaustive Google) is the main page.

Unless there's some way to bypass the login I can't see how they can be getting the pages any other way than by actually being able to log into the site.

Where are they reposting them? Can you give me a link to one of the reposts?

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

Thanks for your efforts Raistlin.

The copy and pasting is done on another members only Runboard forum.

The staff at Runboard assure us that there isn't a back door and it't not possible to access without a password.

We're now going to have to work out a way of trying to catch the mole out if that is what there is :erm:

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

Sounds like a mole.

Are you friendly with the other forum? You could ask one of its mods for the IPs of the offending posts and match them with IPs of your members.

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

Is it possible to log who actually views the posts?

I recall that on PhpBB there was a mod that allowed you to log who looked at a thread & when.

This helped me find out who it was that did the same sort of thing by comparing the time it was viewed & the time a message was posted.

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

part of the problem is a rivalry between the boards, its actually the listowner/moderator who is taunting saying a backdoor has been left open and that the right sort of "googling" anybody could do it.

we have suspected a mole and have asked the said person many times.

anybody got any suggestions on the way to catch them out?

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

Zoom seems to have got the solution there, if you can see who is viewing threads at the time they are posted on the other forum then you have your man.

In most security breaches, like medical diagnosis, it is usually the simple and obvious option. If the software developers are saying there is no backdoor, then chances are it is one of your members who is accessing the forum.

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

Depends on how well the 'forum permissions' are set up, the forums might be hidden to non-members but should one aquire an actual link to a page only members see, the forum permissions, if set right, should still forbid access. I suggest copying a link whilst logged in as a member then log out, paste it into your browser and then see if the forum permissions system, if set right - forbids access.

Re: message board/forum back door access
 

i did wonder that one myself but i've not tried that and not managed

http://com1.runboard.com/bsolidbond.fmainchat.t11959

this is a link to a message if anybody else wants to try. If anybody gets in, let me know the the sticky topics in the general section.

Todays challenge eh?? A virtual pint for the winner!

could these messages be googled? or would it be possible to backwards trace an image that is being used as an avatar or signiture or be in the body of the message? :dunce: