I just got this e-mail from the WE forums:

Someone managed to braek in to the NS site itself. (www.nationstates.net)

If you log on to your nation now it will destroy your nation and change your passwords. So I hope most of you read this first and dont log in to there NS accounts on the Ns website.

The forum is offcourse safe to acces.

Yours,

Roel (Brabant)

Not sure if it s true or not. I'll create a nation and see what's shaking, and report back.

I just tried to log in with an old puppet nation and lost it..... :( :angry:

I can confirm that THIS IS NOT A HOAX. I checked out NS, and noticed a whole bunch of nations that now are called "0" - clearly, when you log in, you get hacked and your nation gets screwed up.

Would an Admin be so kind as to mass e-mail the members of this forum, so that we can minimize the amount of nations lost to this hacking attempt?

If I hear anything else, I'll let you know.

I created a nation, and it immediately suffered the same fate.

stay off of nationstates until further notice. I e-mailed Chex about this so that we don't lose our delegate.

Most likely, a day-old copy will be used to restore things to how they were. This is usual practice among webgames with huge followings. The same thing happened to The Last Knights (which some of you undoubtly play), back in Age 2. Everything was restored.

I have no guarantee that this will happen, but I doubt that the admins would get away with doing anything else. Many regions have lost their founders (Equilism too), and that simply can't be allowed.

Luckily, I just logged into msn, so I caught your email.


I'll send out a mass email to the members of this forum, ASAP.

:angry: :angry: :angry: :wall: :wall: :wall:

Well, I sent out the email. Unfortunately, when I checked my email (in hotmail) to see if I got it....it was in my junk mail box.

I hope people check their junk mail...

It worked fine at gmail.

I don't have many email addresses of people, but I'll forward the message to the few people I do know, just so that we knowthat the message doesn't end up in anyone's hotmail junk box. if they get it twice, then so be it - better tobe safe than sorry.

Oh well. Fingers crossed they'll restore to a backup.

Wow. 15 users online. That's one way to pump up the numbers here :) Too bad it is because of a hack job that everyone is here.

Has anyone lost their main nation?

I lost my main nation and my puppet. I was just about to hit 3 billion served too. :(

Apparently, this is the thread that is discussing it offsite - I can't access it, as I have no active nations.

Okay, here's the main thread discussing the problem:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=440347

From the above site:

Your nations will be restored.

Will they be restored to the exact point when they failed? No. They will be restored from the latest backup.

When was the latest backup? We don't know. Probably sometime within the last week.

Will new nations be restored? Anything created after the last backup will be lost. Sorry. For what it's worth, new nation creation has now been disabled.

WHEN WILL IT BE FIXED!!!?? It will be fixed when it's fixed. Mods can't do anything. This is a job for Admin, and the last time took about 7 hours once they got started. As of this instant, they aren't online, and thus haven't started.

Be patient, and don't log on to your nations. That's all we can tell you right now.

From what I gather everything will be up and around again soon. I was taking pride in how I was governing my single nation. :huh: And now this...

<skinny mustashed nasty villian voice>
Drat! My plan to spam the regional message boards of all my enemies is foiled!
</voice>

:ph43r: :hide: :evil:

I had absolutely no warnings, but I logged on late and this is the message up now:

we forgot the most obvious line!


DON'T PANIC and remember to bring your towel

:clap: :lol:

I received the warning too late (sniff). No more Trois Orleans.

Thanks for informing me guys!

The damage done is only temporary, and anything done for the past day might be lost or cancelled. For now we have to wait until Max gets off from work and he has to reset the game. MODs don't have that function. With the game closed so that noone else can log in by mistake and cause more trouble. Not sure if it was a hacker but there seems to be a lot of that lately. If it is, hope they catch the guy.

Thank God I got the email -- I stay logged in all the time! Hopefully NS is up by tomorrow....

:lol: @ Mav

I didn't. :cry:

My thanks to Chex. Though I read my email too late to warn anyone. England now is much more informed of the situation.

I'm very lucky I decided not to log in during my free hour earlier in the day. :D

This is one time I'm fairly thankful for slacking and having my nations on vacation mode... and not having logged in to them in a few weeks.

Thanks for the mass mail Chex - and hopefully those who have lost thier nations will get them back shortly.

hmmm... by the description... that's probably Vincent Price.

Mr Price works though I was thinking more along the lines of Snidely Whiplash.

"Oh Dudley.... :eyebrow: "

I received the warning email - thanks very much Chex & to Bweezy for giving her the alert.

:wall: < me! :P

I got the warning, but in my Canada.com email which I registered with and not my daily email. D'oh! :rolleyes:

*slinks away*

:hide:

You'll get your nation back, though.

Oh, I didn't lose it - I am just an idiot for not checking my other email before saying I didn't get the message. I just use it for online stuff and rarely check it.

Btw: Easter egg pip! ^ :clap:

Dammit. I thought something was wrong... Why did I log into my main?

Thanks to Checkers and all those in the region for letting me know of this...I am glad I didn't come to NS today; I guess it was good to be busy on a day like this. Fortunately, my nation, my puppet, and my fiancee's nation are still alive and well, and I will hold off for a day or two on actually logging in just to make sure everything is in good working order and I don't lose my nations accidentally.

Though it is sort of a "here we go again" deal...first some eedjit hacked EZBoard, where I go to a couple of message boards, and half the threads there now have all their replies from some guy named "Unknown" whose only message consists of (This post is missing and cannot be restored.)...and now this. I haven't dealt with this many board security issues since my junior year of high school, when a couple of jackholes flooded my board along with several others at 5 AM before I was even awake. I can imagine the NS people needing a beer after cleanign this mess up...

Posted on the news page:

I'm not sure if this means it's safe to log in yet....but it appears so. Anyone have a puppet nation they want to test it out with?

I signed in with my main, and I didn't get deleted. I think...

No problems logging in. Chex has 110 endorsements so everything looks right

:cry:

Mikitivity was destroyed today. As was most of the International Democratic Union.

However, I'd like to thank whomever decided to send the mass email! I think that is a brilliant idea and something I'd like to do in the future in dire emergencies like this. How can invision forum admins (like me) do this on our sites?

Again, I am waiting for the all clear from Canada and once I see it, I'll pass along the word to my region. My thanks on a job well done!
:clapping:

On the Admin CP page there's a bulk Email option ;).

Admin CP --> Users and Groups (side navagiation pane) --> Bulk Email Members.

There's a list of criteria that the message can be made to staisfy, such as which masks (members, moderators, admin etc.) the Email is sent to. I'll get the the addresses off the member database. :)

I just logged in with my puppet and my main nation. All looks as it did 2 days ago. (Groundhog Day Syndrome?)