By Daniel Emery
Technology reporter, BBC News website
Flight simulator site Avsim has been "destroyed" by malicious hackers.
The site, which launched in 1996, covered all aspects of flight simulation, although its main focus was on Microsoft's Flight Simulator.
The attack took down the site's two servers and the owners had not established an external backup system.
The site's founder, Tom Allensworth, said that the site would be down for the foreseeable future and was unsure if would ever go back up.
"The method of the hack makes recovery difficult, if not impossible, to recover from," Mr Allensworth said in a statement.
"AVSIM is totally offline at this time and we expect to be so for some time to come. We are not able to predict when we will be back online, if we can come back at all. "
Backlash
The attack has shocked the flight sim community, with hundreds of blogs, posts and tweets. One user on the simflight.com website said that "there's a special place in hell for hackers who pull stunts like this".
Speaking to the BBC, Derek Davis, editor of PC Pilot magazine, said: "It looks like 13 years of hard work on Toms part could have been wiped out.
"Avsim is an important site, because it services the whole community as a source of community developed terrains, skins, and mods - its contribution has been immeasurable," he said.
Mr Allensworth has set up a temporary forum for Avsim users while the future of the site is decided.
On it, he explained the site's backing up process, although he did not explain why the firm had no external media storage.
"Some have asked whether or not we had back ups. Yes, we dutifully backed up our servers every day. Unfortunately, we backed up the servers between our two servers.
"The hacker took out both servers, destroying our ability to use one or the other back up to remedy the situation."
Mr Davis said he thought the site still had a future:
"I'm sure Avsim will rise like a phoenix from the ashes and will be bigger and better then before."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8049780.stm
Hackers 'destroy' flight sim site
Moderators: Pipe, ZeroAltitude
Hackers 'destroy' flight sim site
What a sad day... That was a site I downloaded a lot of airplanes from.
- flyboy2548m
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Re: Hackers 'destroy' flight sim site
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
"Lav sinks on 737 Max are too small"
-TeeVee, one of America's finest legal minds.
-TeeVee, one of America's finest legal minds.
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Re: Hackers 'destroy' flight sim site
Are you suggesting CK was behind this?Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Re: Hackers 'destroy' flight sim site
Well maybe a similar stunt is being pulled to redirect to a new site like Chris Killturd did.Are you suggesting CK was behind this?Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
proudly serving WTF comments since 2003
Re: Hackers 'destroy' flight sim site
Looks like they're doing a good job of getting Avsim back online. The main page and forums are back and they're working on the library system. I guess they think they can recover about 90% of the files from the library, which is pretty good I'd say.
KP
KP
I went to prison for murder, but I stayed for the chili!
Re: Hackers 'destroy' flight sim site
Well, unlike Killjoy and his airdisasterdotcomdisaster
1. Avsim REALLY went haywire
2.They´re getting it back step by step
http://www.avsim.com
Pipe
1. Avsim REALLY went haywire
2.They´re getting it back step by step
http://www.avsim.com
Pipe
Res Severa Verum Gaudium
Re: Hackers 'destroy' flight sim site
The avsim library is back .................. well, what´s left of it, but still.
Pipe
Pipe
Res Severa Verum Gaudium
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