Hey folks, I know, I know... The title sounds like some sort of spy thriller gone computer nerd xD but its a topic I enjoy reading and posting about on admin forums and others... Forum Espionage would be where users join a forum, gain trust, gain staff access (mainly going for top level admin) and then give your forum's secrets and staff information to a competitor... In many ways, it related to corporate espionage which happens all the time all over the world... scary thought though! Has anyone here ever been victim to this sort of thing? If so, how did you handle it? Scenario, This happened to you! What do you do? Lastly, has anyone here ever been oh so naughty to conduct forum espionage before? If so, what was the outcome and results?
I'm a firm believer in Karmic Return, so no. I'm pretty upfront about things, I don't like this kind of underhand way of finding out what's happening on competing sites.
I utilize an NDA and confidentiality agreement for people I bring up to admin. So basically, I would kick their butts.
Many years ago the second in command and head admin of a rather large commercial gaming organisation I belonged to attempted to usurp the organisation leader. He locked everyone out of the gaming servers, took the forum down and held the database up for ransom. He threatened to destroy the entire infrastructure if he wasn't acknowledged as the new leader. I eventually managed to retrieve the situation by convincing him to take me on as his second in command at which point I managed to lock him out and hit him with the ban stick. His forum avatar still resides behind Photoshopped prison bars ten years on It all sounds rather ridiculous now but I learned a lot of valuable lessons from that.
That's why it's also great to have remote backups Not to mention...if the owner bought the server he could easily get back in by contact the host support
Very much so. Unfortunately in this case everything was in his name which was a huge mistake made by the then leader of the organisation. Never again!
