[EM] wiki emergency: home page hacked (and maybe more)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

Well, it has happened.

The electorama wiki home page has been replaced by a list of spam links.

Happened to me within about a week when I started the wiki for 
BeyondPolitics.org. To avoid it, I went to a replacement wiki 
(TikiWiki) that had user security: to write, users must log in and to 
get an account, they must register and respond to a validation email. 
Maybe there is an option with the wiki being used by electorama.

That first time, I checked the access logs and found the source, and 
complained to the ISP. I'm not sure what happened, but they did ask 
for a copy of the log....

I also found the registrar for many of the domains advertised in the 
list. I looked up the registration information and found fraudulent 
phone numbers. I then complained to the registrar and the domain 
registrations were cancelled. That cost them something, I'd venture 
(unless they used fraudulent credit cards, which is unlikely since 
the domains had been registered for some time.)

I tried to restore the page from history, but the site is sluggish or 
non-responsive. One of two things is happening: either the owner is 
fixing it, or the spammer is busy replacing all pages. They use bots 
to find open pages and replace them with spam.

I'm generally opposed to the death penalty, but when it comes to 
genuine spammers....