[Elfsea] Something wrong with Elfsea Website?

[Armand Dragonetti]

Greetings from your Virtual Scribe (who now has high hopes that you might
actually receive said greetings :-)

<Warning: This message contains limited technical descriptions concerning
malicious computer programs and the disruption of the Elfsea.org site. If
this is of no interest, or too off-topic for your taste, please stop here,
disregard this message and accept my apologies for the time you've spent to
read this far.>

To begin, I extend my apologies for not responding sooner. As some of you
may know, the virtual community has seen (and is still seeing) the amazingly
swift spread of a disruptive worm, known as the RedAlert worm. The Elfsea
site apparently fell victim to this worm (actually several times) but has
since been patched and *should* no longer be affected. Be assured that most
of you using your home or office computers to access the website will NOT
have been infected. The RedAlert worm/virus (in it's current form) only
affects Windows-based *web servers*. It does NOT infect client machines or
typical web surfer's machines. If you want to know more about what happened
to my system specifically, feel free to respond to me off the list at:
dragonetti at generich.com or to learn about the virus in general, take a look
at one or more of the following sites:
http://www.symantec.com
http://www.sans.org
http://www.incidents.org
http://www.cert.org

Having said this, however, there is apparently a new worm out that is
legitimate and that can infect typical users. It's called the
w32.sircam.worm at mm worm, and you can learn more about it at the Symantec
site listed above. While I'm still skeptical about most virus 'scares' and
perhaps a little suspicious of the companies who ultimately profit from such
scares, namely the virus removal folks (Symantec/McAfee/etc), I now have
seen enough legitimate incidents first hand to advocate conscientious use of
detection software and a meticulous routine for keeping them up-to-date. If
you have questions about this, want my opinion on detection software, just
curious, whatever, please feel free to contact me off the list at the
address I gave above. And if you experience further erratic behavior of the
Elfsea site in the near future, please contact me ASAP. However, if the site
is down, my email may very well be unreachable as well. Until I establish a
backup mail host, please contact me directly by phone with the contact info
in the Scroll. Thanks, and sorry to be so long-winded.

Your (somewhat tired) virtual scribe,
-=Armand=-

----- Original Message -----
From: Karie Mitchell <allessandre at hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 1:54 PM


> Greetings,
>
> Did I miss the post or mention that the Elfsea website would be down?  I
> tried to access it and it wouldn't bring up the page.  Please help.
>
> Ciao,
> Alessandra
>
> "Those who give up a little liberty for safety, deserve neither liberty
nor
> safety" - Ben Franklin