Yesterday I had a big issue with PG that has been causing some problems with my host. It's quite possible that you have been blocked as a result. I am trying to contact my host for more information.
Due to a typo in the server robots.txt file and the PHPBB attachment code, Google was able to index a protected files directory (
http://phoenixphorum.com/files) where it shouldn't have been able to go. This directory includes files attached to messages, etc. Because of this, a confidential distributor PG price list that had been discussed in a private message was indexed by google, and thus could be found by searching!!
Luckily we caught this before Google had made a cache of the PDF, so now that the offending files have been deleted, they can no longer be accessed in any way, besides seeing them in the google results list. I have also modified and verified the robots.txt file, so that it now properly blocks the files directory from further indexes. I have also put in a request at google to remove any and all record of the /files directory and it's subdirectories. All records will be permanently removed within a day or two, and this problem will never occur again.
It appears that instead of contacting me about the problem, PG has taken to spamming my webhost with thousands of requests for the PDF file. This caused my host's apache instance to crash, so they have blocked the PG IP address at the firewall. This means that any PG employees will now be blocked from the forum, among the most frequently browsing members.
The following IPs were banned for the DoS attack (# on the left is the
connections being made)
496 64.66.92.18
547 69.211.137.122
612 218.111.201.65
618 194.19.99.229
678 24.185.18.21
983 82.47.174.241
814 60.50.11.20
1001 74.138.81.108
4046 63.241.158.65
6557 207.109.65.130
The IP 207.109.65.130 belongs to PG, so you can see just how hard they were attacking the server. Most of the rest are valid forum members who were banned as a result of their attack, because they thought that you were part of the denial of service attack.
So i've been back and forth with my host for the last two days trying to get everyone unbanned. Needless to say they are very pissed off at me for taking down a shared server. Maybe next time PG can think before they attack a forum providing them free technical support...
I understand that having such confidential files posted could be very detrimental for them, but the problem would have been solved much faster and neater if they didn't resort to attacking us instead.
