JVoices was hacked yesterday and its entire database wiped out by a hacker posing, believe it or not, as Harley from Jewbiquitous, another Jewish weblog.
Unfortunately, restoring the site from our webhoster’s backup cost us $125, and I am scraping the bottom of the barrel for rent these days. Please consider making a donation to help us cover the cost of this procedure.
[Update] Great news! It actually looks to me like this was a software glitch and not a hack at all…
Call me silly, but I forgot that I’d moved over to a new database setup yesterday (a one-click modification via Media Temple’s control panel, and one so simple I’d forgot I’d even done it) and am guessing that the data didn’t properly migrate. According to Harley at Jewbiquitous, she visited JVoices and landed at the WordPress installation screen (which is what you sometimes get when the database becomes corrupted) and put in her data, thus giving me the impression that someone had come in, wiped out the data, and put her information in instead.
In other words, there was no hack, there was no malicious anything, and I think I may be able to get Media Temple to cover the expense whereas it was technically a fault in their software.
If this proves to be the case, and they cover the cost of the restore procedure (which will otherwise set me back $125 I don’t have) I will refund everyone’s donations.
Otherwise, this is great news, frankly, because I was rather perplexed as to how someone would have gained access to JVoices database and wiped out its content. I was worried that someone had gained administrative access to my entire database server and was sweating when the next attack would come. Now I know that this is not the situation.
Thank G-d for small blessings.
If anyone wants their money back on principle, knowing that this unexpected glitch was not a result of malicious behavior, please let me know, and I will be happy to return your generous donation. And I would like to express my deep gratitude to everyone who contributed — it was really generous and honorable of you, and I thank you for your support.