DDOS Attacks, Server Load Issues and Donations.

[ikanon]

The question was less "I don't understand why they're doing it" and more "dont they have anything better to do", which the answer to that seems to be a rather palpable "no".

Making war against such sites will earn them popularity among many. Like "I made that self distributing code that made that animal porn site lame for weeks" ---- "yeahyeeeah you are our hereo!"

Having nothing to do can lead to such activities. Other make such things simply because they can, or want to prove that they are a genuis.

 

[horseplougher]

Making war against such sites will earn them popularity among many. Like "I made that self distributing code that made that animal porn site lame for weeks" ---- "yeahyeeeah you are our hereo!"

Having nothing to do can lead to such activities. Other make such things simply because they can, or want to prove that they are a genuis.

It's so strange to me that there are so many seemingly unemployed geniuses lying around, while the global tech industry is woefully underemployed. Wish i had their free time lmao. If only these geniuses contributed something actually useful to their society instead of attaching more biggoted buzzwords to their social media bios and repressing speech in places like these.

Then again, it's exactly this sort of hubris or vendetta that ultimately destroys people from the inside out. People who behave like this have no empathy and no morals, preferring to engage in illegal/legal gray area activities themselves like cyberwarfare than just minding their own business and living an honest life. They would like you to think their morals are superior, but I see no evidence for that in their actions.

 

[Bloit]

"I made that self distributing code that made that animal porn site lame for weeks"

It's so strange to me that there are so many seemingly unemployed geniuses lying around

I can guarantee you that whoever wrote that DDOS software probably never even heard of zooville.
This is just some dude, or a group of people, paying for a DDOS "service".

That doesn't take any skill. Let's not pretend they're clever.

 

[ikanon]

It's so strange to me that there are so many seemingly unemployed geniuses lying around, while the global tech industry is woefully underemployed. Wish i had their free time lmao. If only these geniuses contributed something actually useful to their society instead of attaching more biggoted buzzwords to their social media bios and repressing speech in places like these.

Having been an educator in a tech academy, I know these "geniuses". They can't work structured, like developing something to satisfy their workplace's needs,like if someone wants a database for management of something. What the heck does that database mean to "me"?- they loose focus on the task, and drift away with other tasks. They can not cooperate with others. They are lonely wolves, who can only work towards something that meets their own needs. At some time there comes this meeting at the principal's office for a pep talk. We are then told that we are the ones that are imbecile. They do not understand that we are the last station before a paid job, and that the employer who pays them has some needs, like creating boring databases, and automation apps. A tech academy has a reputation to maintain, and it serves them best not to let such students leave with a diploma. They drop out, cant really focus on a paid job. They can possibly use heir skills in crime, as the goal they need to work towards will benefit themselves directly, not via a paycheck, further comes the excitement to make something without getting caught, doing a "job", getting the money and not getting caught confirms them as geniuses to themselves, and a few like them, which is probably all they need.

 

[Knottypat]

I can guarantee you that whoever wrote that DDOS software probably never even heard of zooville.
This is just some dude, or a group of people, paying for a DDOS "service".

That doesn't take any skill. Let's not pretend they're clever.

It could be someone who is pissed they got banned from here.

But who knows

 

[MashaSobaka]

Do you all know anything about the 1.6 MB txt file that was uploaded in May and is circulating on the internet? Since it also contains many other website addresses, I suspect that it is a database of some browser account manager or 3rd party password manager that someone hacked, then some antizoo group bought it for money, copied all the accounts with the address "zooville.net" (at least 200 accounts) from it and uploaded it to the internet on various doxxing, tinyboard, etc. sites.
Based on the comments, most of the accounts already have new passwords or are banned, 99.9% of the data is trash and 0-10 comments lurker account. Beastforum is also listed in many accounts, so they probably bought a thousand year old file cheaply. This explains why many passwords didn't work for them.
There was another txt file in it, there were about 50 passwords obtained by thief links and brute force methods, this was also used in the case a few weeks ago, I couldn't find the txt of this one.

They managed to log in with some accounts, they proved with print screens that they were spamming.
The many members who created "die animal abusers" threads in DF and elsewhere while watching horse sex videos (months ago) were because they were stolen accounts. This explains everything why a porn watching account suddenly became an antizoo spam account.

I would take the security of the forum a little more seriously after this. Of course, this is not ZV's fault, because it was not the ZV server that was hacked, but one of the password managers and only weak passwords. However, further stricter measures are needed.

And it would be good if users finally understood not to use "someone80, motherfucker85" and the like as passwords, not to use the same one on 15 other websites and not to save the password with a browser. Especially not if it is an outdated browser or Android phone that is several years old. Do not generate passwords with your browser, because the generation algorithm can also be decrypted. All this data was stolen from there.
There were also few "seen" logs (which thread it was in), so it's likely they also used a keylogger that users activated by clicking on the thief's link.

The attacks were mostly promoted by accounts with Israeli meme avatars, similar to AZA. The style of speech in the comments is very similar to that used on Kiwifarm and etc.

Since there was no destruction on the forum in 5 months, only simple spam, it is clear that the passwords of admins and members with high number of comments could not be obtained.

 

[purpleponyman]

On ddos attack could we just whitelist nordvpn vpns ips. Or any vpn or selection of vpns. We all use one and I get most ddos bots won't.

Could we just remove the porn and let every user host a few pics and have links to other sites which we post too?

 

[Cococoa]

Assuming there is not enough funds, I wonder how it would go down over time.

 

[Wibbler]

Is there a place to go if ZV ever goes offline

Not really because this place has gone out of its way to keep this place a monopoly effectively

 

[Bloit]

Not really because this place has gone out of its way to keep this place a monopoly effectively

What’s that supposed to mean?

 

[dogluver101]

On ddos attack could we just whitelist nordvpn vpns ips. Or any vpn or selection of vpns. We all use one and I get most ddos bots won't.

Could we just remove the porn and let every user host a few pics and have links to other sites which we post too?

Not effective, almost everyone goes to one specific site. Let's say its the one that allows everything. Because its impossible to believe a zoo forum doesn't allow sadist material.

Back to VPNs. Botnets/DDos can also come from there. VPN providers don't have their own ASN. So they most likely use other ISPs. You don't know which IP blocks are by the VPN provider, or which is the true ddos attacker.

 

[dogluver101]

Since there was no destruction on the forum in 5 months, only simple spam, it is clear that the passwords of admins and members with high number of comments could not be obtained.

Because half of them never used LastPass.
LastPass - All of the last made passwords you can never use.
Surely they all fell for the random links they get in DM, or they get elsewhere.
Don't click weird links, there's some sites that can view the link and determine if its a phish or just a BS link.

 

[knottydripqueen]

It is most likely dead.

Yeah it hasn't been active for a long time now

 

[MashaSobaka]

Not really because this place has gone out of its way to keep this place a monopoly effectively

How? A lot of users complain about the moderation and the rules and the many bans. A lot of users could easily create another forum. They don't do it because they are lazy and stupid and have no idea how to run a larger forum in the long term and how much money it costs.
That's why they migrate to the convenient Telegram.

 

[ikanon]

How? A lot of users complain about the moderation and the rules and the many bans. A lot of users could easily create another forum. They don't do it because they are lazy and stupid and have no idea how to run a larger forum in the long term and how much money it costs.
That's why they migrate to the convenient Telegram.

Running a forum that hosts porn is a hard thing. Not many hosting services are willing to host such content, and it will become a target of hostile reactions. Running a porn free zoo discussion/social forum would be easier, and not so prone to hostile reactions. But nobody seem interested in running an actual porn free zoo forum. There is the porn free ZC, but in term of moderation it stands worse than ZV.

A large deal of bans are the result of more or less ingenious attempts to wave the "i'm a pedo" flag. Others do not understand for their life that they cant post their telegram handles in the forum. Because Telegram is on me phooon, an that is as private and safe as anything can become as long as me let no others see me screen! No?
If these banned members were to form a zoo forum, they could never do without the porn, it might become a pedo friendly site that does not care about safety. Most likely they would do that on the oh so safe Telegram.

Safety has a price.

 

[MashaSobaka]

But nobody seem interested in running an actual porn free zoo forum.

There are three such forums, in all three the same few people talk to each other and occasionally pinch each other in their boredom, like children in the kindergarten yard, bringing up the same boring annoying things that have already been discussed over and over again, intentionally. Only they are 30-40-50 year old adult people. Why create a fourth forum to have the same content?
There is enough experience from this already that if someone close together a small number of members zoophile and exclusive zoophile towards the edge of the spectrum, then over time the place will become distorted and ghettoized.

 

[ikanon]

There are three such forums, in all three the same few people talk to each other and occasionally pinch each other in their boredom, like children in the kindergarten yard, bringing up the same boring annoying things that have already been discussed over and over again, intentionally. Only they are 30-40-50 year old adult people. Why create a fourth forum to have the same content?
There is enough experience from this already that if someone close together a small number of members zoophile and exclusive zoophile towards the edge of the spectrum, then over time the place will become distorted and ghettoized.

Unfortunately I see ZCA creeping in that direction too, even if it is not porn free (at least formally). Boredom with count to 100.000 frequently interrupted by questions like "Where is the porn" when the magic 12 shitposts did not open the magic door.
It seems as if zoos are like Uranium. Too much at one place and it will melt down. Keeping the Uranium pellets a little apart spaced with beasties, experience seekers, pornhounds and what seems to work in its own odd way.

 

[MashaSobaka]

It seems as if zoos are like Uranium. Too much at one place and it will melt down. Keeping the Uranium pellets a little apart spaced with beasties, experience seekers, pornhounds and what seems to work in its own odd way.

 

[Goattobeloved]

Unfortunately I see ZCA creeping in that direction too, even if it is not porn free (at least formally). Boredom with count to 100.000 frequently interrupted by questions like "Where is the porn" when the magic 12 shitposts did not open the magic door.
It seems as if zoos are like Uranium. Too much at one place and it will melt down. Keeping the Uranium pellets a little apart spaced with beasties, experience seekers, pornhounds and what seems to work in its own odd way.

Cause people feel more comfortable when they can look down to those that look worse in comparison.

If there are no fetishists, they will pick from what is available and havoc is ensured.

 

[mare_passion]

mare_passion is well informed.

Thanks

So what if CAPTCHA rejects many devices? Will the service that redirects traffic suffer? But the site itself will remain untouched, won't it? CAPTCHA is still used on Amazon if there are a lot of requests. I think that if it were useless, it wouldn't be there. And bots are easy to identify.

Ok let me try and explain another way.
DDoS scripts / software usually have multiple attacks methods programmed.

Sure, you can adf captcha that will stop an application layer attack only. Application being web based so http/s traffic, database requests, sql attacks etc. Application based attacks are also some of the easiest to defend.

So generally when the attacker notices their method isn't working. They just change the type of attack to something else.

I'm not suggesting that captchas don't work. I'm just saying that proper DDoS defence is a lot more complex than that.

 

[Beowulfe]

Zooville has been facing an absolute wave of DDOS attacks and other denial of service tactics as of recent. The issue has gotten so bad & out of hand, i've come to help address and keep zooville running.

That is, keep zooville running as long as YOU the community, wish to keep it running. The staff has always agreed that to keep ZV running as long as it can be run, on the donation basis of the community to keep it running.

We are planning to spend a large amount of donations to fund the required DDOS protections and security measure to keep ZV running.

These expenses will be in the realm of an extra $3,000 per year to operate and with an additonal $3-5,000 upfront to initiate these upgrades over the next several months. likely before the end of December this year, onto the next year.

We have tapped into ZV's rainy day fund, and are grateful to have had it. However, it wont be sustainable unless YOU the zoo community wish to keep ZV alive with your donations. We can expect a yearly server costs of now 3800$ to 5000$ per year depending on the level of attacks we sustain.

I've been enjoying retirement, and glad to see ZV still strong 2 years later, and this is the limit of my return here. Keep the lights on, you the community still run things, and hopefully, keep this place a haven for zoo's worldwide.

Please Donate if you can. Zooville depends on it.

-ZTHorse.

“this is the limit of my return here”

Hahhhh surrre ZT, you can act like you don’t care about us buuut we all know you’ll come save us anytime our animal-fucking club is threatened ^_^

Thanks for all you’ve done for us over the years, and all that you’ll do going forward.

(Cause we both know you WILL do more ; D and we’ll always love ya for it)

 

[Pinkunicorn]

@ZTHorse can you explain how many the porn area costs ?
Because give money for the community, yes, but for dude comes here to jerk, no ...

 

[dogluver101]

@ZTHorse can you explain how many the porn area costs ?
Because give money for the community, yes, but for dude comes here to jerk, no ...

The donation is hosting the entire site, not certain categories.

 

[MashaSobaka]

Hahhhh surrre ZT, you can act like you don’t care about us buuut we all know you’ll come save us anytime our animal-fucking club is threatened ^_^

If he really cared about the future of the forum, it wouldn't be in this state for years.

Floof llc. should have taken over the whole thing a long time ago and they should have run the entire server. Then there wouldn't be any such problem. They just can't afford the $5000 a year, and that's completely understandable, because it's a lot of money.

In the current state, where it takes months to fix a bug or problem, because the 3-4 members who are responsible for it communicate with each other so poorly, this forum will die within 1-2 years.

 

[Pinkunicorn]

The donation is hosting the entire site, not certain categories.

Yes, but how much less if the porn are were removed ?

 

[MashaSobaka]

Yes, but how much less if the porn are were removed ?

The problem is not the size of the storage, but the monthly fees for broadband internet, domain, server, Xenforo, Cloudflare, etc.
It would cost about the same if the entire porn section were deleted.
It would be very problematic to link to the videos afterwards, because most servers ban such videos, so there would be a lot of dead links. And if there was no porn, this forum would die out. However, the number of attacks would not decrease, as ZV has already written itself into history in the 6 years it has been a porn forum.

 

[mare_passion]

Could it be worth changing so that ZV is only accessible via the TOR network?
Use the .net domain to point people to the .onion address - the TOR network by its nature would surely reduce the script kiddie DDosS'ers?

 

[ADreamOfLiberty]

Could it be worth changing so that ZV is only accessible via the TOR network?
Use the .net domain to point people to the .onion address - the TOR network by its nature would surely reduce the script kiddie DDosS'ers?

That is my understanding, it is more difficult to attack through Tor because of lack of UDP but also the exit nodes can and do have load balancers on them.

They don't know where the requests came from and if they're HTTPS they can't read them, but if there is a giant spam targeted to one hostname they can and do de prioritize those requests.

I also think it wouldn't be a bad thing to protect the tech-ignorant from themselves although that is a losing battle Tor browser or not.

 

[ZTHorse]

To answer some of the questions,

1. Removing the porn section and costs. While yes, cutting the costs of running video streaming and storage will lower the costs of operation, this also isn't that expensive compared to the DDOS issues and combating that as well. There is technical details i cannot discuss, but hosting zoo type of content period, is expensive.

It is expensive and were constantly fighting DCMA and other takedown requests. This the majority of new operating costs.

2. Also consider, with no porn, means less donations, which creates a vicious cycle of a marginalized forum and created a vaccumm for sites like zoo, X, 18 that run pure ads for shit services and abusive content. ZV still operates almost completely off donations, and if they cease to exist, then the forum will go away too.

Again, if yall like ZV, and want to keep the lights on for the next years, donations will be needed and you can still get that cool philathropist titles.

 

[ZTHorse]

I kinda figured that was the situation. Thank you for the public notice with the information.

I would like to donate via XMR but use this forum on a secure machine that does not contain my wallet which is mobile. Can you please update the crypto donation information to include QR codes to allow mobile wallets to easily capture the address? I tried copy/paste using OCR but failed with invalid address and I'm too lazy to type it manually.

Please send me a DM but the xmr address should still be functional.