23-02-2002 22:52									#1
	What's Area 25? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I saw it mentioned several times in Chris 62's thread about Ming. I wouldnt posted the question there but i thought it might be considered Thread Jacking?

	23-02-2002 22:58									#2
	Put an end to popups!

a long time ago... well probably not that long ago, but before i got here, one of the forums got shut down. at least that's what the mods and admins thought, all that happened was that it got taken off the main page. and a few of the more notorious posters found out it was still there. and since post counts counted there... Can you say spam? I don't know exactly who found it or who posted there. Anyways, they all ended up getting busted when Ming found out, something about Horse posting a link to it in the OT, at least that's what i got from the horses mouth when i asked him over at CivFanatics... he was probably just trying to get me (and others) riled though.

	23-02-2002 23:23									#3
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I wondered that too......but how can you have an unused section of forum? I mean.....we could spam the Mac or TOT forums to hell.....like that? Kind of?


Where was this forum?

	23-02-2002 23:27									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

well kinda reminds me of the old Sega msg boards..... when you make your own forum.. you moderated it and had a password for ppl to get into it....... there were no lists.... just other ppl had to know the name and the pw to get to the forum...... they redid the msg board and siad they got rid of them ...... but they didnt, they just kinda forgot about them and we used them all the time once we'd find out a pw to one of the old forums.

	23-02-2002 23:30									#5
	Tired of ads?

I don't remember when this happened, but from what I've gathered, one of the forums became unused, but still in the database. All the forums have a url like this:

http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdis...&forumid=31


And I suppose by putting in a 25 at the end for the forum ID, they managed to get in there.

	23-02-2002 23:31									#6
	Remove this text

For the record, FG, spamming the mac forum is rather difficult. Mark gives it a regular sweep every so often, usually knocking off whatever asher posts, so you'd probably have a hard time getting anything done there...

	23-02-2002 23:34									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Poly is full of surprices. I know about the double area 51.

	23-02-2002 23:38									#8
	Increase the size of your Attachments

IT was not merely spam. There was pornography and other such things there.

Through use of the forum, some posters managed 30 to 40 posts a day for a time.

Over 30 were banned.

Snapcase discovered the forum... was up to 3000 or 4000 posts... then received a 50% pcr, I believe... Then changed his name and locked himself out of his login, and was forced to create a new login and has since then recovered his posts.

Andz83 was among the banned as were a multitude of others.

AH blew the whistle on the operation.

	23-02-2002 23:45									#9
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by DarkCloud Snapcase discovered the forum... was up to 3000 or 4000 posts... then received a 50% pcr, I believe... Then changed his name and locked himself out of his login, and was forced to create a new login and has since then recovered his posts.

I know the story of Snapcase's DL (A Preserved Snapcase on Stage), but I didn't know it had to do with that forum, but more that it were related to that he used tochange his name now and the, and one they he made the name too long for UBB. However, that account works with vB (Snapcase tested it).

The date of is new account would bring down the discovery of area 25 to november 2000.

	23-02-2002 23:46									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

hmmmmmmmm....... dont think i'd be a snitch....... and ifi were i'd be sure and not tell ppl it was me....hehehe

	23-02-2002 23:55									#11
	Support Apolyton

i bet horse just wanted the attention, he will forever be remembered as the whistle blower.

	24-02-2002 00:14									#12
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

How can a forum like that Hide from the Mark????? Moreover..Porn? That would have been awesome had it still existed Is there an Archive of it?


Dam!

	24-02-2002 00:32									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

The forum was removed from the main page, but not closed for posting. So the mods couldnt see that new posts are posted there.

Someone discovered it using the method ixnay37 described, and the rumor spread. So we were pumping up our post counts for a while and then AH told to the mods and everyone got banned.
Luckily, I had only 400 posts at the time, and 33% PCR didnt matter much.

	24-02-2002 01:40									#14
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: and since post counts counted there... Can you say spam?

At the time OT posts counted aswell.

....

There was also the "Case of the Communal DL" on that forum.

	24-02-2002 02:54									#15
	Inflate your Upload Space

Note that there are no empty "hidden" forums in vBulletin so don't even try to find them. I already did.

This was under the previous system, UBB. And although I take full "credit" for finding Area 25 (and the three other empty forums, 2, 8 and 30 IIRC), the, er, trick was discovered by someone at OWO, where it was possible to spam the classic "empty" forum. It was discovered on the eight of October, 2000, IIRC. It was a day after I left for Univeristy, so I missed the final chapter of the whole mess.

I don't think anyone except me used the communal login, "Ken Bregott". The "communal" bit was an afterthought, actually.

	24-02-2002 03:15									#16
	Remove this text

Sure there are secret forums on Apolyton. You just can't access them in the conventional way.

	24-02-2002 03:19									#17
	Suffering from ads?

How does MySQL deal with deleted entries?

	24-02-2002 03:24									#18
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by Asher Sure there are secret forums on Apolyton. You just can't access them in the conventional way.

I know about seven...

	24-02-2002 04:25									#19
	Got spare money?

Ways of accessing or secret forums

	24-02-2002 06:06									#20
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Horse was not the whistle blower, he was the scape goat.

	24-02-2002 06:37									#21
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Hydey Horse was not the whistle blower, he was the scape goat.

actually he confessed to posting a link to area 25 in the OT, and then ming found it, and that as we say, is history

	24-02-2002 06:46									#22
	may as well throw my 2 cents in... Tired of ads?

there could have been any number of whistle-blowers. one of the area 25ers was dropping hints about the "secret" forum, so while i didn't see AH's supposed link, i still found the forum. there's no shortage of people here smarter than me, so i'm sure others found the forum independently as well.

i didn't bother posting in there as browsing some of the threads made it pretty obvious that most everyone involved was going to be caught and punished. that assumption was validated when ming posted in there later

	24-02-2002 07:15									#23
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

History is written by those who want others to believe there thoughts, it rarely matches the truth.

	24-02-2002 07:35									#24
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Hydey History is written by those who want others to believe there thoughts, it rarely matches the truth.

While that may be the case in many situations...

	24-02-2002 07:37									#25
	Put an end to popups!

There is a secret forum deep in the center of Apolyton where the moderators live.

	24-02-2002 07:52									#26
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

There were some great threads in Area 25. I don't remember any porn though. My personal favourite was the Word Association; "normal rules apply, except you have to post five times before anyway else can".

	24-02-2002 08:15									#27
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Area 25 had some great spam in it,

I mean where was area 25.

	24-02-2002 14:00									#28
	Remove this text

Though AH turned informer, we shouldn't hold a persons nature against them, give the guy a break already...

	24-02-2002 14:53									#29
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Originally posted by Snapcase (and the three other empty forums, 2, 8 and 30 IIRC),

Were they used too?

	24-02-2002 17:25									#30
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Not really. I posted once in one of them, but we decided to pick No. 25 (real name "HS - Alphaleague" IIRC) because it had no official moderator set. I don't honestly know if that makes a difference.