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Heroes Community > Turban Tribunal > Thread: About the HC engine...
Thread: About the HC engine...
Vasiliy
Vasiliy


Hired Hero
Request timed out
posted December 27, 2004 12:03 AM

About the HC engine...

HC is a wonderful community, but I actually don't quite get it why it uses such an old board engine. Even if Val has modified it to some extent and made it better, I personally can think of many features which could be added to it and - what is most interesting - are already present in boards such as phpBB (consider, for example, the avatar upload feature). Another thing which remains an absolute mystery for me is the security side, I just can't understand why on Earth I'm forced to use passwords no longer than 8 characters (well, maybe I got used to having random 14-character passwords, but still ). And furthermore, they are stored in clear text! I think it is time to really do something and perhaps make an upgrade. I'm pretty sure that there are some boards for which this hosting would be suitable (even if it only allows PHP 3.x and MySQL 3.x, which would be... well, let's say - strange). If Val has no time for this, I think I might try and make some improvements (provided that I have the source code, of course ). I also think there are some convertors from vB to phpBB and other boards and we could alter the database schema as appropriate, without losing the data, and with minimal downtime... Ok, maybe I'm requesting too much, but I don't think that we should stay with this engine forever. If we do, one day this will simply result in a nice hack (by the way, let me remind you of one that has already taken place here before). Think of it.
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Rise... And feel the deadly breeze... The scent of burning flesh... For my blade thirsts for another war!

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Daddy
Daddy


Responsible
Supreme Hero
and why not.
posted December 27, 2004 12:10 AM

I think this was mentioned often before, dunno exactly - but as for the ava.thingie:

When you have 2 yellow stars, Val will upload one custom avatr for you, if in the right size - so I think that's the smallest problem..

reg
Daddy
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Vasiliy
Vasiliy


Hired Hero
Request timed out
posted December 27, 2004 12:12 AM

Nah, Daddy, you didn't get me right. I know this perfectly well. The thing which I don't understand is: why not automate this service and stop bothering Val for such a reason?

Besides, I recall that in the past (dunno about the present days) one had to wait sometimes for weeks before his avatar was finally uploaded.
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Rise... And feel the deadly breeze... The scent of burning flesh... For my blade thirsts for another war!

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Wolfman
Wolfman


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Insomniac
posted December 27, 2004 12:13 AM

From my experience with PHP, I like HC a lot more.
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Vasiliy
Vasiliy


Hired Hero
Request timed out
posted December 27, 2004 12:15 AM

Quote:
From my experience with PHP, I like HC a lot more.
Uhm, a lot more than what?
____________
Rise... And feel the deadly breeze... The scent of burning flesh... For my blade thirsts for another war!

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Wolfman
Wolfman


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Insomniac
posted December 27, 2004 12:21 AM

A lot more than PHP.

PHP, in my experience has had major security problems.  I have lost forums to these problems.  PHP is too easy to hack.  I don't know how, but i've been hacked.

Why would anyone want to change HC anyway?  It just wouldn't be so HC-y anymore.
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Vasiliy
Vasiliy


Hired Hero
Request timed out
posted December 27, 2004 12:25 AM

Quote:
A lot more than PHP.
Hmm... Well, you see... The problem is... that PHP is a scripting language in which this board is built
____________
Rise... And feel the deadly breeze... The scent of burning flesh... For my blade thirsts for another war!

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Asmodean
Asmodean


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Heroine at the weekend.
posted December 27, 2004 12:41 AM

While as moderators of the community, we all feel that if you have an idea or contribution to make then you should make it.
It can be discussed in a logical and forthright manner, and sometimes we can mnove forward on the issue.

But I think the answer to this one is 'Because'.
____________

To err is human, to arr is pirate.

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Wolfman
Wolfman


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Insomniac
posted December 27, 2004 12:42 AM

This is what I mean:  Here

What is this then?  Whoever provides this program has some security issues to take care of.


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Vasiliy
Vasiliy


Hired Hero
Request timed out
posted December 27, 2004 12:49 AM

Quote:
This is what I mean:  [url=http://affcod.com/forums]Here[/url]

What is this then?  Whoever provides this program has some security issues to take care of.
You confuse the PHP language with the phpBB board that uses it. But we are not forced to use phpBB, there are many other boards out there, and some free ones as well. Finally, we could even modify and extend the current one if Val's not willing to (or simply cannot) upgrade.

As for security... Well, what I can say is that every program has vulnerabilities, and actually I'm convinced that this particular board has much more of them than phpBB. I've pointed out a few security weaknesses in my first post. I must also say that with a properly configured and regularly updated installation, the chance of a successful hack is quite low (much lower than with the current installation, I guess). And furthermore, I point once again to the issue that has taken place here already (unfortunately, I don't remember the exact time). As far as I remember, the heroescommunity.com website was taken down for several days, and Val later introduced the hackprotect system which was intended to protect HC from this kind of attacks (I actually think it was a DoS attack).
____________
Rise... And feel the deadly breeze... The scent of burning flesh... For my blade thirsts for another war!

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Lord_Woock
Lord_Woock


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
posted December 27, 2004 12:56 AM

The point is, wouldn't there be transferring all the threads and stuff to a new board be a problem? I'm afraid it may be. So why not leave HC as it is.
____________
Yolk and God bless.
---
My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!

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Wolfman
Wolfman


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Insomniac
posted December 27, 2004 12:57 AM

Ok, I learned something new today then.

If there was an upgrade the colors would have to be the same yellow, green, white and gray.  You just can't take that away.
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Vasiliy
Vasiliy


Hired Hero
Request timed out
posted December 27, 2004 12:59 AM

Quote:
The point is, wouldn't there be transferring all the threads and stuff to a new board be a problem? I'm afraid it may be. So why not leave HC as it is.
Well, actually, some issues might arise, but with proper testing and checking (and backups of course) everything should be fine. There are some convertors to take as a starting point, and I think that with some changes they will be able to successfully transfer the data from the current HC database to the new one.

I'll post some more specific proposals later.
____________
Rise... And feel the deadly breeze... The scent of burning flesh... For my blade thirsts for another war!

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Lich
Lich


Adventuring Hero
posted December 27, 2004 01:00 AM

Val once said that it is merely impossible to transfer HC into new system due it's unique traits. I think some minor upgrades as uploading avatars (for 5 star members perhaps) wouldn't make much damage... But I don't think that Val will let anyone unfamilliar to him mess with HC database. That I'm allmost 100 % sure.

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Wolfman
Wolfman


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Insomniac
posted December 27, 2004 01:01 AM

"Why fix what isn't broken?"
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Dingo
Dingo


Responsible
Legendary Hero
God of Dark SPAM
posted December 30, 2004 01:21 AM

I like the Way HC already is.
____________
The Above Post/Thread/Idea Is CopyRighted by, The Dingo Corp.

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TheRealDeal
TheRealDeal


Promising
Supreme Hero
Foobum* of Justice!
posted December 30, 2004 01:25 AM

First of all, i also likes HC as it is.

And wolfman, that quote sux.. Medical Science isn't broke either, but it can surely be improoved.

____________
*We all know the that Foobum is the class of all that is Cake.

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greek_god_su...
greek_god_superman


Famous Hero
Bringer Of Light
posted December 30, 2004 03:25 AM

He´s not a newbie, Vadskye...
____________
After all, marriage and murder are not too different - one ends your life and the other is a crime

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Dingo
Dingo


Responsible
Legendary Hero
God of Dark SPAM
posted December 31, 2004 04:20 AM

After 6 months, Noob status fades away.
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The Above Post/Thread/Idea Is CopyRighted by, The Dingo Corp.

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Valeriy
Valeriy

Mage of the Land
Naughty, Naughty Valeriy
posted January 01, 2005 10:33 AM

As Lich already quoted, HC has an altered database structure, disctinct from blazeboard, the script that it originated from, making it extremely difficult to convert the database.

Blazeboard had a few flaws. I fixed quite a few bugs. BB had a search feature, which (brace yourself) was saving every single post into a separate database table for search purposes - saving every post twice!

I think the limitations and uniqueness of the HC script, which is unique in the world and cannot be found anywhere else, is part of the attraction here. Any other common board script, even with the same colour scheme, wouldn't have the same appeal in my opinion.

It would take a long long time for me to figure out the inner workings of another board system and to re-code the HC-unique features such as QPs, then to shoot down the associated bugs.

So overall it is much easier to make a few improvements to the existing system. Please make detailed proposals and we'll discuss what is worth doing.

As for the attack that took place, I wouldn't call it a hack. It was simply someone trying to overload a server. I implemented an anti-overloading measure and the source of attack was blocked.

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