What happened to racesaw.com?

[weimedog]

Yeah I agree on the timing thing.  Funny how [edited] started a rumor saying I hacked the site after I called him out about being a pos thief and a liar IMO stealing from me twice and got busted doing so.  Then he removes my post or re-words them. Then he twist and turns things around to make himself look like a perfect little angel.

The sad part is he let things go to his big head so bad he is using racesaws to run his little porting business in the back ground. No different then some do as sponsors at other site.  Except they pay a fee and he gets free reign to keep people hushed and controlled at his finger tips.

Before I left the site I talked with one of the site owners on the phone (as we always did in the past) and told them I wouldnt be coming back till they had a honest admin/mod running the place for them.

Why people believe anything  that pos says is beyond me. Talk to anyone in the know in the chainsaw world back to 2002 and they can tell you they still waiting to talk to him someday.  Just glad I dont have to watch my back every place I go and  I can walk in clear conscience.

wow. I don't know a thing about the guy. I also tend not to let internet stuff get to a point that it impacts my life! One of the reasons I'm hangin here for a while is there are too many who take this stuff way too seriously at the others! And I hate to say it anyone who takes internet hearsay as a way to quantify and qualify someone to do work..welll...lol ..I'll keep my thought to myself and just move along trying to read or post interesting things about those saw we all enjoy.

[Jeff]

For you guys that never leave the chainsaw boards, and probably dont know who I am, I'd like to give you my thoughts.

My name is Jeff Brokaw. I spent my entire working life working in commercial sawmills as the head sawyer, and then some stints in the woods when the mills were down running skidders, slashers and total tree chippers.  I probably don't have 40 hours in my entire live with a chainsaw in my hand. I no longer can work in the mills as 4 shoulder operations pretty mush eliminated my ability to run equipment is a production environment.

I started the Forestry Forum over ten years ago, while I was still working in the sawmill and still healthy. There are some threads on the forum where I explained why I did it, but it wasn't out of the need to make a buck, but out of a sense of seeing a need to share information. The Forum actually evolved from a site called the Timber Buyers Network. A project I started to try and help landowners make educated decisions on managing their woodlands.

Anyhow, the Forestry Forum grew from that. I've guided it through the years, but never tried to dictate its every direction. As an area of interest presented itself, I've tried to accommodate it. The chainsaw forum was one of those areas that pretty much naturally evolved.  The only thing I've really every asked of the membership here is to treat the Forestry Forum as if they were in my home. Because in my mind the Forestry Forum is an extension of my life, and my home. Everything I do, and everything I am revolves around the Forestry Forum.

The Forestry Forum has never been hacked to the point of losing its data. I try to make sure that the software is always updated and security patches are in place. I also have several backup systems in place to try and make sure if anything happens, that our data is recoverable. We have ten years worth of collective knowledge here, and to lose it would be like losing a family member.

One thing we may do a bit differently then other forums is that our registrations are all manually screened for approval. We ask for a good reason for joining, and then we try and do a little bit of background checks on email addresses and I.P. numbers. If we get any flags that tell us that a registration might be problematic, we simply and quietly decline it. Even with 8 admins, that can be quite a bit of work, but we think its worth it for the sake of the Forestry Forum and its membership.

I guess I really don't know why I felt the need to write this, other then that I want to assure you guys that I try to do my best to make the forum a place that is fit for all and a place that you can come and be among friends. I protect it with all of my ability and I honestly do care about the membership. 

[Al_Smith]

Thanks for the info and explaination Jeff .You're doing just fine .

About this constant hack threat .More times than not after most sites get a good hack thrown at them they tighten things up quite a bit . I think it's just  the continual education that goes along with administering a web forum .

I do know that Butch got hammered a few times as well as did Steve over in England and took extra measures after that happened .

Now about the rest of the forum which I do lurk but until I get my bandmill operational I have little to offer .Good info though I will say . ;D

[Cut4fun]

Nice reply Jeff and explaining a lot of stuff I had wondered about.   Didnt know there was any security stuff for websites, does it come from the host?
I was wondering about back up  on servers etc too. I remember something happened here and you started a temp site and then back to here. So all the info lost over there has to be somewhere you would think.

[Jeff]

So all the info lost over there has to be somewhere you would think.

Not necessarily.  If there was not a backup agreement with the host, there probably is no back up there, and if the webmaster was not doing personal backups, then potentially, data can be lost permanantly.   Typically a hacker will just come in and announce he has conquered the site with some sort of defacement. If they deleted the database I'd be inclined to think it was something more personal then a random hack.

We had a server crash in 2007. I thought we had a backup plan in place with the host, but as it turned out we didn't. We were able to recover 100% of our data by sending the drive to a member of the forum who's some did data recovery work in the military. We got lucky.  I'm not saying we could never lose any of our data, but I will say we could never lose all of it.  Losing a few hours worth of posts is a possibility in a worst case scenario here, but hopefully with all the things put in place after our near disaster in 2007, we are about as ready for trouble as we can possibly be.

[HolmenTree]

Haven't been around this site much.  I actually joined here before AS.  I did a search looking for why RS closed, and found this thread.  Maybe I'll hang out a little more here.

good to see you again Will. I remember after I left AS you said RSaws is a interesting site but was no fun watching the grass grow. I found out myself that was very true,but I don't know how I put up with 3 to 4 pages a day of threads on the chainsaw forum at AS.

Willard.

[Cut4fun]

Haven't been around this site much.  I actually joined here before AS.  I did a search looking for why RS closed, and found this thread.  Maybe I'll hang out a little more here.

good to see you again Will. I remember after I left AS you said RSaws is a interesting site but was no fun watching the grass grow. I found out myself that was very true,but I don't know how I put up with 3 to 4 pages a day of threads on the chainsaw forum at AS.

Willard.

One funny guy PM'ed me once and said it was like watching paint dry.

[parrisw]

Haven't been around this site much.  I actually joined here before AS.  I did a search looking for why RS closed, and found this thread.  Maybe I'll hang out a little more here.

good to see you again Will. I remember after I left AS you said RSaws is a interesting site but was no fun watching the grass grow. I found out myself that was very true,but I don't know how I put up with 3 to 4 pages a day of threads on the chainsaw forum at AS.

Willard.

Hey how's things!  Haven't talked in a while.  Hope things are going well for you. 

Will

[parrisw]

Yeah I agree on the timing thing.  Funny how [edited] started a rumor saying I hacked the site after I called him out about being a pos thief and a liar IMO stealing from me twice and got busted doing so.  Then he removes my post or re-words them. Then he twist and turns things around to make himself look like a perfect little angel.

The sad part is he let things go to his big head so bad he is using racesaws to run his little porting business in the back ground. No different then some do as sponsors at other site.  Except they pay a fee and he gets free reign to keep people hushed and controlled at his finger tips.

Before I left the site I talked with one of the site owners on the phone (as we always did in the past) and told them I wouldnt be coming back till they had a honest admin/mod running the place for them.

Why people believe anything  that pos says is beyond me. Talk to anyone in the know in the chainsaw world back to 2002 and they can tell you they still waiting to talk to him someday.  Just glad I dont have to watch my back every place I go and  I can walk in clear conscience.

Wow!!  Is all I got to say.  He definitely has some followers that's for sure. Not me!  I always thought it was funny how people were so kiss ass with him, never understood it?  But I'm not a goat!!  I don't follow the heard.

[Jeff]

I think it's time to put this thread to bed.

After making my post about who I am and telling a little about the forum, it generated a very pleasurable phone call this morning from Rick Helsel.  Turns out we are almost neighbors with a whole lot in common. Rick probably lives less then 50 miles from me and we know a whole lot of the same people. He's a logger and I'm a sawyer, so most likely over 25 years I may have even sawn some of his logs.

Anyhow, we talked about a lot of things, and he's let me in on everything he knows so far about what happened to his website. I'm hoping that through a little forensic investigation and looking at server logs, they will be able to figure out exactly the who whats and wheres of how they lost the site.  I know if it was me, I'd put every resource I had into it.  In fact I have once, in our crash of 2007.

Innuendo and insinuations and downright accusations of others won't fly here and I have no time for it.  I'm confident they will find out exactly what happened at racesaws.com and Rick will be able to rebuild and replace what they had and continue on to great things. From what they learn they will be able to make sure it does not happen again.  Software can be patched and upgraded, security can be tightened, servers can be replaced and human interference can be discovered and dealt with if that turns out to be part of the equation.  I know under Michigan law, if the site was brought down by a hack, some considerable prison time to the offender(s) can help ease the pain of the loss, and there are lots and lots of ways to track them down. Luckily Rick is from Michigan so those penalties will be available to him if it turns out this was a hack and not a software/hardware problem.

So, I came away from our conversation knowing a lot more then I did, and with that knowledge I think this topic needs to end here as it serves no purpose for it to continue.