WillowDarkling

Thank you! Believe me, we’re all as eager as you are to get things running again, and it really is appreciated to get a thank you!  

Me too in sending good vibes.

With software, it can be counter productive to toss more people at it (ie too many cooks in the kitchen).    Manta would suddenly become a manager, having to get them up to speed, coach, etc; that’d take her away from actually fixing the issue.  If we were already trained, worked well together, then yes, using us might make it go faster.  Better to step back and make sure she’s not too stressed out.

I have to admit, I can’t seem to find my Control Panel either. I’m getting used to the new layout and features, but this one is eluding me as well.
EDIT:
Nevermind. I found it. @Krulos you need to click the little green rectangle icon that looks like a layout page, next to the archive where you want to add the story. Your Control Panel will open up when you do that. It was too damned obvious, and I was looking for something on my actual profile.  

Fiction portal 1.0 was written in php 4, 2.0 was done in php5 and ported to php 7 for the forums with bare bones changes to retain functionality. Fiction portal 3.0 is being done in php 8(current). The biggest issue for 2.0 is that security functions in php 5 were depreciated in php 7.
The injection attack only affected the stories tables. Every thing else was untouched. We assumed the worst that they had managed to bypass login requirements. Thankfully that was not the case. The attack was done via the archive search engine which only queries the stories table.
If you are really worried reset your password, that will log you out everywhere and allow you to secure your account. 
Whom ever this hacker is they are not fond of AFF. While in read only mode there have been a few attempts to overwhelm the server and crash it. That slows down my progress 😞.

Psst… suggest not pinging and interrupting the coder unless you’ve found a bug in the new stuff.  And even then, maybe have a single topic/thread to record them so she can deal with it one at a time?

It’s a bit of a slow roll-out, as stated in the news most of this new look and functions were planned for a November roll-out, the injection attacks forced the schedule forward, so every section gets tested then released as fast as possible. And as members report any bugs or issues, those are fixed before rolling out the next section. 

There’s a vast difference between a derivative work and a transformative work. In the case of this Seuss/Star Trek mash-up, the court held that it was not a parody, but instead did constitute a transformative work. Derivative work requires a license from the original copyright owner because it builds up and expands the original work, whereas a transformative work uses the original work in a new and new and creative manner. It’s rather like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters in that sense. The original work is transformed, and not merely used as a starting point to boldly go where the original copyright holder never intended to go. In the mash-up referenced in the YouTube video, it was the current copyright holder of the Dr Seuss franchise who sued, and not the Star Trek franchise. Obviously, the Star Trek copyright holders are better versed in copyright law and fair use than the Seuss crowd.
AO3 calls everything on its site transformative, whether it truly is transformative or derivative in nature. However, you can’t merely label something transformative to make it so.
As an example, if someone writes a fan fiction based on the Harry Potter fandom, and creates a new work detailing everything that happened after Book 7, that is derivative. They would be using the canon work to serve as the launching point for their story, as they go on to tell us what happened to Harry and Hermione's children at Hogwarts. If JK Rowling were to object, I rather suspect she would prevail, because this work would, if published, infringe on any future novels JK Rowling might care to write about the next generation of Potters and Weasleys.
If someone wrote a fan fiction based on the Harry Potter fandom, and simply created a parallel adventure, or introduced a new character to interact with canon characters in familiar settings and events, that would be considered transformative, in that the new character might reveal feelings and motivations that would illuminate the author’s impressions of the canonical setting or event. It would not materially affect any earnings by JK Rowling from the canonical works or even future works, but it is still highly unlikely that any publisher would take the chance, without clear licensing, of publishing such a work. Legal defenses eat into the already thin profit margins of a publisher, after all.
And, in both scenarios, there is a limited portion of the work that could be labeled as original writing. That’s why we call it fan fiction, after all.

Nearly any line is jagged and a wide swath of area if you look at it closely enough.  Now, I’m not a lawyer, but I do watch some on youtube… that makes me qualified, right? 
I’ll ignore the outright plagiarism you’re noting above and assume US copyright law based on what I’ve seen for my youtube law degree.   Fanfiction is part source material and part new material.  Author(s) of the source have copyright interests in their own works *AND* that part of your fanfiction that leverages their material.  However, the fanfic writer does have copyright interest in the material they added in crafting their fanfic.  Fanfic writers usually slap on a disclaimer, disavow profit, seek fair use as grounds for posting, and call it a wrap, easy done, easy go.  BUT unless that fanfic writer has signed it away, they’ve got copyright in what they contributed, and therefore, they can use the DMCA against the offending website.  That’s my $0.02 on how a fanfic writer can deal with a website that pirates their stories.  If they want to go further, if there’s a legal tassle, then I’d seriously recommend consulting a copyright lawyer who can evaluate the situation.

Fan fiction works are not original works, even if the original work in question is a title in the public domain, on which copyright has expired. The staff of AO3 either drinks heavily or studied law under a very small rock in the middle of the Utopia Planitia if they truly believe that a work of fan fiction is an original work. I’d suggest trying to get it published (and not self-published) to cure oneself of that particular delusion.
However, IF a fan fiction is properly disclaimed (attributes copyright of fandom to the actual copyright holder, states that no profit is being made), the portions of the fan fiction that were written by the author of the fan fiction may not be reproduced or used without permission, and yes, if your fan fiction has been posted elsewhere without your permission, you can certainly avail yourself of a DMCA takedown request.
If your fan fiction has been posted elsewhere without your permission AND without attribution, under the name of a person who did not in fact write anything at all, that is plagiarism, which is the theft of your intellectual property. That is illegal and has cost people their employment when they’ve been discovered to be a plagiarist.
I will delete a story posted by someone who is not the actual author of the story pursuant to the DMCA without question. I will delete a plagiarized story, along with the account of the plagiarist and all its content, whether stolen or not, and that plagiarist will be banned from the site permanently. Enthusiasm for a story is one thing; theft is entirely another thing.

Hi!
As we’ve been telling other members, there was an issue with an attack on the site. In order to thwart the attack until we can finish securing the site, the archive is in read-only mode, which means no one can open a new account, post a new story, or update an existing story until the archive is back online again.

As I’m sure everyone is aware, a couple weeks ago we suffered a severe injection attack.  The end result is that Manta2g has been recoding to make sure it doesn’t happen again.  In the meantime, where the fixes are done, you will see green.  Where you don’t see green, that part of the site remains read only.  Thanks for bearing with us.

Wherever you see green in the site skin, that part is now live and fixed.  Expect to see more rollouts, and the fix to be done here in the next few to several days.

Our coder does all of this in her spare time, while working full time IRL. We are all unpaid volunteers on staff here with real life obligations and work/school. 

Until we fix the issues that allowed the injection attack which redirected all of the archive subdomains to a malicious page, the archive is in read-only mode. That means you can’t post a story, update a story, review a story, create an account, or reset a password.
Our coder is working all the free hours she has to get this fixed for us. It’s a huge job, so let’s all be patient. Trust me, we all want the site back to normal.
 

The Archive is in read only mode for the time being, while our tech admin deals with a rather nasty attack on our site. As I understood it, that means that everything including new user registration is on hold until it has been dealt with. So please be patient with us and keep an eye on announcements from our admin who will let us know as soon as we are out of read only mode.

And you discover the true taste of your friends!

Well as they say. There’s no party like the Donner party.

Those poor Donners are never going to get to live that one party down, are they…  

Those poor Donners are never going to get to live that one party down, are they…  

You are magnificent, Manta2g. Thank you for all of your hard work keeping us up and running. 
And you too DG. You are amazing. 
🙇‍♂️

Dammit.  Back to the drawing board we go

Manta did all the work.  I just kept her company!

Patching is done, we are out of read only mode. Backups have been made.

We suffered an sql injection attack, which included a multitude of redirects.  When Manta fixed it the first time, it happened again.  We THINK we figured out the where/how of this, and she is working on that right now.