Is SimHQ under attack!?

Okay a bit dramatic, but I've noticed there has been a big spike in viewers here at Sim. At this point there are over 400 viewers listed in the DCS forum

What gives?

Do we need to assume defensive positions?

It is very odd...

I still don't believe everything I read, so the numbers of viewers on a website ranks right up there with my concern over mythological creatures such as imps, fairies, virgins, unicorns, and leprechauns.

Yes cid, that is kinda assumed. But thanks for that

Though there is this

head for the hills

Two separate issues: insecure log-in and abnormal views. Could be related, but simultaneous events do not prove causation.

My browser reports that some parts of this page are not secure. The site also uses cookies and trackers according to the report. On the one hand, since you agree to a TOS to join a forum, assume anything you put on the forum is no longer "yours" and on the other, it is never good policy to share any personal info on any forum.

It could be that SinHQ's site is no longer 'listed' as 'secure' because of various protocols. It may also use out of date protocols. It can also be a false positive. It could even be a Chinese spy-bot site.

I am not worried. Neither are you, or you wouldn't be logging in

Generally a spike like that is due to bots cataloguing the site for search engines. No big deal normally, it’s how the internet works. Like the google maps car driving through your neighborhood every so often to update things. Bots come in to a site, check it out, then follow all of the links it finds there...repeat.

The more links posted, like those “news” URL’s in PWEC, the more attention this place will get as they check their traffic sources.
It can also be bots looking for usable info, and checking the IP’s of the incoming traffic may make it clearer what it is, but even though you could block huge numbers of suspicious IP’s from China, Russia etc., it would be a full time job and you may block some legit users in the process.

Cookies are part of how browsers work and not a bad thing in and of themselves. You can set your browser to delete history, cookies etc when you exit if you’re worried about it, but things become less convenient when you do that.

Many times over the past few months it has been difficult to access SimHQ, almost feels like a DDos, today it has been down for me for the past hour or so.

Thanks guys. Interesting

I was not really worried, this was offered some what tongue-in-cheek. Need that emoji

I was curious due to the high numbers as I have not seen this before. Like in 18 years

Those bots have to log in to SIMHQ to get access to PWEC I do believe.

Get privacy badger and see all the cookies tracking you and you will change your mind about them.

They'll get the referring link, but won't be able to access PWEC as non-members, but can still catalog the rest of the site that isn't locked away behind logging in.

It should be considered trespassing, or at least something along those lines.

Just another check mark against our rights to privacy. Speaking of which...WARNING! SimHq off-topic happening in progress!

I live in a ZERO crime place, at least nothing except maybe a couple of family arguments in the past 3+ years. I haven't locked my doors except when I go to sleep in a couple of years....most of the time not even then.

Some horrible Neww Yoorrkah who lives across from me, just put up spy cams looking into my porch! Sadly, doesn't seem to be much I can do legally. A friend tells me they are the kind that detect motion and then record and send an alert to a phone. Getting a cane pole with enough line to just come up short of her property but well in camera detection according to my friend who's familiar with them. Fishing practice at all hours of the night coming up, as I am am up at odd hours with my school workload. Just enough to activate the dang thing. Two other neighbors plan on proactive action also. First jerk we've had here. She seems ultra paranoid and all of us have seen her "extremely medicated" and nodding out on her front porch. I'll be filming the next time I see that with a cigarette in her hand!

Oh, the former resident of that place just happens to be planning to drop by and say hi to myself and another neighbor. He sad something about asking her how she likes the place and then casually asking about the ghost!

Wow. Just wow. I have security cams on my house and if they happen to include my neighbors property then it is what it is. If you think you are being spied on, or worried about it, then perhaps you should reassess what you are doing outside of your house.

I have fully functional dome cameras and fixed cameras, none of those are fitted tho, there is crime in the area but mainly drug related as in drug labs, one got busted last night and I was laughing and joking with the guy that ran it earlier in the day as he works for the local authority in the recycle park and I was dropping off clippings from our trees, sheesh I know his sister and she is a school teacher at my grandkid's school.

My son had filmed a person making a bit of a fool of himself, now the police are taking my son to court for invading the other's privacy, then again it was a police officer that made a mistake on a traffic stop and asking the passenger to blow in the breathalyser oops, one of my son's friends posted it up to facebook and now my son is in trouble for filming it.

I almost got in trouble for filming a guy with a CCTV system, he was threatening my wife and threw glass into our gravel driveway, we could not use the video in court as it was digitally recorded and not legal for use as evidence, we got a warning from the police about it recording 3rd party people even though it only covered our own property.

It is why I keep an old Nikon F5 35mm film camera as only the pictures accompanied by the negatives are legally able to be used in court here.

I believe I said it is pointing INSIDE my porch. Yep, "just put up spy cams looking into my porch".

" if they happen to include my neighbors property then it is what it is"...

Sorry but I have problems with that attitude. Lattitude/Attitude thing I guess.

The only thing I do on my porch is throw paint and water at paper. It's the principle of the thing. She's paranoid about something I guess. have a para=legal friend researching if I can just aim lasers at them. I already filed a written complaint with my landlord.

Well, we got our cane poles. Getting together with my neighbors for a beer and making our lures. Takes a big one to catch a ghost!

Who ya gonna call?

Just made my first cast. No ghost but my lure somehow set off my neighbors motion detector light.

She should pay me for testing it (and the camera).

Will have pics soon of Ghost casting. I could become a UTub star! Get fake boobs and a BIZARRE fake butt...nahhh...a jet! So I can go to climate change parties events in style!

Who ya gonna call?

Your just having to much fun.

Hmmm, I see a paintball gun with the balls filled with Elmer's glue and chalk in your future.

It's all about stealth to avoid motion detection.

As I demonstrated to a company I worked for, I could carefully walk across two rooms pick up any of the master tapes (1" reel to reel recordings of well known pop groups) and walk out again, they changed the security system within days after that demo.

Or one I liked, in the office of the head of security for the houses of parliament and he offered me one of his business cards, they were sitting in a dish on the desk, so I picked one up and took it. The look of disappointment on his face as his alarm did not go off, I had lifted the top card off without tripping the sensor, he called me a light fingered b@st@rd but from that we got on great and we got the contract.