I am sure that there is a simple shell command that you can think of to clean up your infected files, by using perl or sed.
Wonderful!!
Has it not occurred to you that most people with Coppermine galleries will not have a clue what you mean by "simple shell command", much less how to use one?
I am sure this will earn me a greater negative Karma rating, in the Gau Gau system, and – almost certainly - a ban, but I don’t care one bit. I have thought a great deal, over the last few days, before posting this and have decided to do so, not for my personal benefit, but for that of others.
My principle reason for posting is because several people – most of whom we do not know – have asked us “Do you think the latest loadadv598 attack could be a deliberate attempt to destroy Coppermine, because of the contempt with which the authors treat people?”
There is IMO a fundamental flaw in the concept of Coppermine “support”, in that my idea of “support” seems to be very different from what happens on this forum, which is – from my own perception and those of the people who have contacted us – a place where fear reigns, among those seeking support, created by a “you will do as I say, or else” attitude among those who are supposed to be providing that support.
I don’t pretend to fully understand karma, in any real Indian religion sense, but I believe in it and realise that I always tried to live by its concept, even before I had ever heard the word.
In my book, someone with positive karma is a good person, someone who is totally loyal to friends, supportive of acquaintances and tries to be kind to others who cross his/her path. In other words, you do unto others as you would have others do unto you and, if what you do is positive then your “karma” or whatever you, personally, call it will be positive. On the other hand, if what you do to others belittles them and is cruel to them, your karma will be negative.
As I see it, positive karma is not something you get for answering questions on a forum and I consider it arrogance for any human being to believe that THEY have any right to designate anyone’s karma, by a process of “clicks” delivered by one man and his sycophants.
Let me tell everyone here why my karma on this forum is -5. Not long after we installed Coppermine, I was informed, by GauGau, that I had been banned for having removed the Coppermine link from the bottom of my Gallery. I was furious, because I had done no such thing, so I registered under another name and informed GauGau that I had not done this and, indeed, would not (in those days) have had a clue how to; something that should have been obvious to him from the very basic nature of the questions I had been asking. The result was that he admitted that he had made a mistake, because he had been viewing our Rainy Day template in bright sunshine and couldn’t see the Coppermine link. Did I get an apology from him? No! Instead I got the ban lifted and that -5 karma. In my book, GauGau was the one who earned negative karma for his false accusation, not me for defending myself and pointing out that his accusation was false.
The reaction to this saga of the loadadv598 trojan is IMO typical of where this so called support forum falls apart.
April 6 Htgguy reported the problem. He was immediately given the standard “Upgrade” and “Instructions are in manual” stuff.
April 7 GauGau was suggesting that people were jumping to conclusions and this was not just a Coppermine exploit.
April 8 GauGau was still telling people to upgrade and upgrade other apps.
April 9 GauGau posted Most replies on this thread (except the report by mr.goose) are invalid. Please don't PM me. Instead, read up what I suggested in this thread and post your report. Everyone who has been running an older version than cpg1.4.16 when he/she got infected should try to fix this on his own and not reply here. Keep this thread clean with only valid postings.
April 9 5 ½ hours after that GauGau post, Nibbler had figured out one exploit.
So, it took 3 days before any serious reaction to a major hack occurred!! The only reason for that delay, as far as I can see, is that the majority of Coppermine users have no sense of being in a supportive atmosphere, but are terrified that reporting their concerns will result in a ban that might make it hard for them to continue to operate their Coppermine gallery. GauGau’s last post on this thread illustrates this perfectly. “I'll lock this thread and make sure that only users who haven't misbehaved will be able to see the instructions I'm working on. I mean it!”
Recognising that those affected by this hack needed to talk, but recognising equally that those who were trying to solve the problem should not be bothered by such distractions, I tried to help all concerned by starting a self help thread. GauGau locked it. Why? Can he not see that those of us who are affected, whether it is people like us with a huge gallery, or an individual who is proud of his/her personal gallery, need to feel that they are not alone?