Old Community Forum Info

[justfacts]

Here's some info that has crossed my modem in the last few hours. I thought I'd share this, and my comments with you.

Item 1)
From: An Attendee of Last night's Board Meeting,
The school's website was discussed and people are VERY upset about the community forum being shut down. Mr. Dick somewhat mentioned the new message board (in a slightly disturbed tone) and said that he has 20 years of technical experience and he would like the people that run the new board to come forward and explain how it can be done without spending all that money.
(Hmmm, I guess 20 years wasn't that good to him.)

Comment:
20 years ago message boards of this type didn't exist! The largest on LI was the LICA BBS (Bulletin Board System) run under the CPM operating system in full text format ~ no GUI (point & click) interface. It provided software programs and commentary and ran off a 20 Meg hard drive. I donated another 20 Meg drive to double its capacity. Dave, the volunteer operator, ran it for $100 per year with a 300 Baud Modem. It ran for many years until Dave retired to Florida and the need for software diminished.

In the last year or two services have progressed to "Blogs" and "Boards" that are full GUI interfaces at megabytes per second speeds and are available on the WEB ~ hold on now! ~ FOR FREE! Even paid sites with more capability are available for fees of $100 per year.

It seems Mr. Dick's 20 year's of "Technical Experience" never included anything in the open marketplace ~ he should take a look at what a local outfits can offer; communication lines, equipment, software and all. House Of Files in Hicksville is an excellent local provider that could run the WEB site at far less cost than Mr. Dick implies. Too bad he doesn't provide figures for the cost other than "all that money" (Maybe he's ashamed to do that?)

But; I guess he's right in that "do it yourself" operations using only academically experienced people is more expensive and politically incestuous than operations that have to survive in a competitive marketplace!

The most deluxe of services from Jim Toro's House Of Files facilities are less than what the District had spent for multiple Board members trips to Conferences in Orlando. Hey! couldn't just one or two Board members go and report back to the others? The savings would probably pay for the Community Forum, and maybe a program or two!

Item2)
From: Dr. John Richman,
Yesterday, our website was the victim of the successful efforts of a serial hacker. As a result, all information was deleted and the site crashed. Cynthia LaPier, Chief Information Officer, states that it will take approximately a week to rebuild the site. In the meantime, we will create a "front page" to our web site where we will post any important information.

Comment:
Strange, how all information was deleted and the site crashed! The timing is weirdly related to community protest activity and not to the start of the services being available, when most hacking attacks occur. After the newness wares off, sites are hit at a lower rate and not for destructive purposes, only for "on at all times for relay purposes". Bugs and Viruses happen at the same rate for all exposed systems and some, but few, wipe out information stored on hard drives. Most are of the type that slow systems down or make them inaccessible to the outside world (DOS attacks)

But, even a moderately skilled CIO can easily protect against them and the are world of hardware and software firewalls to impede them. Any systems with general public access are properly designed with protection against hackers going deep into the system, and none provide hackers with the ability to write directly to the system disk. Any "hack" should only be a minor inconvenience.

Destructive hacks occur early in the life cycle of a site and, from the popularity and need for the services that this site provided for the community, it is unlikely that a community based hacker would do anything more than provide a nuisance message ~ rather than an "information wipe-out".

Maybe Cynthia should again use her past Internet friends to ask questions about setting up a Community Forum Board that is more reliable, as she did with her quest for information about the District's RF Network.

A week to restore? What about the information Backups that should have been made? They had to be so small in total byte size that they can be loaded overnight. A week to rebuild the site? Hey, people that built the "New Board", didn't you get it up and running in less than two days? (Was it really under one day?)

Is it possible for the School District Board to send her out to consult with the many Computer skilled Community Residents? She may also learn how to bullet-proof a board against "hackers" (Although what interest an experienced hacker would have in this local board is quite questionable ~ they usually exploit having a board up and running as an anonymous relay station, and very rarely are interested in shutting it down and even less so in deleting its information!)

This "hacker" story smells to high heaven! Even more so, as is an attempt to legitimatize by calling it the actions of a "Serial Hacker"!

[FYI: A serial hacker is one who regularly visits the site to use it as a relay point - they want the site to always be available, never to go down!]

[yruohk]

justfacts said:

This "hacker" story smells to high heaven! Even more so, as is an attempt to legitimatize by calling it the actions of a "Serial Hacker"!

[FYI: A serial hacker is one who regularly visits the site to use it as a relay point - they want the site to always be available, never to go down!]

Yes, I agree, it certainly does smell! Coincidence?? I don't think so. I'm no computer wiz but even I know that one should have backup of all that's entered into a computer especially info that's as important as the material which was posted on the school's website. Maybe we need to look into hiring people who really know what they're doing rather than those who get things done through sources that charge an arm and a leg, that is the TAXPAYERS ARMS & LEGS & RETIREMENT & BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS. When the money doesn't belong to the spender, it's easy to spend it carelessly and ineffectively.

I wonder if Rich-man will come up with a "suspect" or maybe even make implications as to who it might be. He certainly can't create any inteliigent reason for the supposed "hacking". Again, Rich-man implies the community is made up of stupid people who will believe this ridiculous excuse for why the website is down. With the complaints about the forum being shutdown, it was better to create a story of a legitimate hacker "crashing" the site than to heed the community's demand for restoration of the Forum.

[techie]

Now, we all know that the Board is aware of this site.

If Mr. Dick would like to know how to make a Forum like this for FREE, all he has to do is go to "GOOGLE.COM" and do a BASIC search for free forums. Spend about 30 minutes to look at some of the deals, another 30 minutes (if that) to set your page, and you are on!! After, you can adjust your forum anyway you want while it is up and running as the Administrator. The part that takes the longest is to get your email confirmation back.

I, myself have set up a "Blogsite" or two. they take about 15 minutes.
I set a Forum and it took me 45 minutes.
These same forums are just as quick. The only thing that can take longer is the decision of how you want it to look.


The Web sites can be hosted for a BASIC page for free. When you want to add to them they start to cost more. The costs start out at $4.95 a month!! Average is about $10.00 a month for a decent page.
It does take time to set up a good,informative website, but when you had one,.. to upload it to another site takes very little time.

We all should know just how much money has been spent on the plainedge page!

The only way that the page could cost "all that money"is if they paid an OUTSIDE group to do ALL the work.
I hope they used the opportunity to teach the kids WEB Design and have them set the page instead of paying an outside company!
If the web site was "hacked" how secure was it kept in the first place?
Security is a big concern on any network. In the business world, the person that let this happen would be hung out to dry! (and whoever came in to pick up the pieces would not take a week!)

"20 years of technical experience", my 10 year old showed me links to make the Blog Sites!

AND,... IF,... Mr. Dick and Mr. Richman suppose that people have a little knowledge about these type of things, why would they give these types of answers and excuses?

[justfacts]

For those who don't know about it, here is an old 2003 e-mail Cynthia sent to the Internet Community;

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cynthia LaPier" <cynthia at nemesis2.com>
To: <nycwireless at freenetworks.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 6:34 PM
Subject: [nycwireless] Would you all react to this?


In about fourteen months, we are going to be outfitting a new school - the construction has started but the bids for cabling, networking etc have yet to happen. And of course we are over budget. So I proposed that we make it a wireless building. I am suggesting that instead of running cable to every classroom, we run it to significant geographic locations and use wireless workstations, laptops, LCD projectors, etc. I can't figure out what to do about printers which we seem to have to have in EVERY classroom. Is this decision too risky? Are we going to end up wiring the building three or four years later? Will the response time be so bad that the kids will revolt (it is a middle school)? What other things should I be thinking about?

Any input from this group would be welcome. We have network consultants, but quite frankly, they have very limited interest and experience in wireless. In fact, they are probably miffed that I have even suggested this. In anticipation of your bounty of responses, I thank you.

Cynthia LaPier
CIO
Plainedge School District
No Massapequa, NY

[justfacts]

Another e-mail passing through my modem came up with an insightful comment that we all might be interested in. Here's an extract:

I was thinking maybe someone read the post to the Newsday author, got nervous, and shut down the system so that no one can access old minutes? Of course, I'm probably making more out of it than I should. Luckily, I have hard copies of those minutes!


And here's my response;

Boy! Are you getting smart in my old age! Yes, it does make it harder for someone to put an audit trail on the old minutes. Especially since links to certain pages carrying further details was included in the information supplied to Newsday in order for the paper to readily verify what was posted to them.

Now, to get copies of them one has to go through the "FOIL" system with the School District. Fill out a form, have it approved, name specific dates of the minutes, wait for copies to be made, pay for each page, etc. This could discourage the Newsday writer.

[archer99]

It was pointed out to me by another community member in an email that the site is only down on certain things.

You can still co to plainedgeschools.org/eastplain/eastplain.swf
and get through.

I can only wonder why certain parts are down.
Maybe the news that the Federal Government wants to look at ALL the schools is making some people nervous?

Maybe the fact that other District's Board Members are jumping ship is making people nervous?

Maybe the site was disrupted so as not to be able to trace what we all have been posting to that site?
(Thank G-D for backups)

OR, Maybe the hosting company "NEMESIS2.COM" is having a problem?!
Try to access them on the net and you can see if you can get through. It was pointed out to me and I have had the same problem.

Just WATCH OUT when you do this because they also HOST PORN!
(I think THAT is not appropriate for a school site!)



I have another question.
Does anyone know what is being built in the "OLD" Sylvia Packard School? Yesterday, Tuesday, I saw a group of people bringing in a "skid" of 2"x4"'s in through the old music room / Gym entrance. They looked like the parents and kids from the neighborhood so I hope that they are going to be able to set something up for the kids there.

I hope it works out for the kids, but wasn't that school unsafe and thats one of the reasons for the new school?

[techie]

Here are two responses to Cynthia LaPier's email asking for advice.
Notice the responses and they still went with the wireless.
She did also mention in her email that we were already overbudget!

You can find this for yourself on the internet. Just do a "Google search" for her name and it pops right up.

[/i]


[nycwireless] Would you all react to this?
Jon Baer jonbaer at jonbaer.net
Sun Apr 6 18:58:38 PDT 2003

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I'd also keep the "mobility" in mind ... and 9 times out of 10 the cost of
cable + NIC will leave you with much more bandwidth and cost less per
machine than APs + WNICs. Also there is no way (for now or for a very long
time) that wireless will beat out fiber optic / 10 gigabit ethernet. (which
will be the norm in 3 - 4 years). Id say grab the blueprint and label out
items of wireless interest like cafeterias/auditoriums/etc and let the
network guys leave room for it.

- Jon

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben N. Serebin" <ben at nycwireless.net>
To: "Cynthia LaPier" <cynthia at nemesis2.com>; <nycwireless at freenetworks.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 5:44 PM
Subject: Re: [nycwireless] Would you all react to this?


> Hello Cynthia,
>
> It all depends on the size and construction of the school? I would
> probably still use a wired backbone. It's very difficult to suggest using
> wireless when one is not familiar with the environment (in this case, the
> school building). There might be many reasons not to use it. Also, what
> happens if you want to do wireless, and no one is able to implement it...
> that's a major portion of the equation. I would trust the advice of your
> network consultant, or get a second opinion from another consultant who is
> able to visit the location.
>
> Good luck,
> -Ben
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Cynthia LaPier" <cynthia at nemesis2.com>
> To: <nycwireless at freenetworks.org>
> Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 6:34 PM
> Subject: [nycwireless] Would you all react to this?
>
>
> >
> > In about fourteen months, we are going to be outfitting a new school -
the
> > construction has started but the bids for cabling, networking etc have
yet
> to
> > happen. And of course we are over budget. So I proposed that we make it
a
> > wireless building. I am suggesting that instead of running cable to
every
> > classroom, we run it to significant geographic locations and use
wireless
> > workstations, laptops, LCD projectors, etc. I can't figure out what to
do
> > about printers which we seem to have to have in EVERY classroom. Is this
> > decision too risky? Are we going to end up wiring the building three or
> four
> > years later? Will the response time be so bad that the kids will revolt
> (it is
> > a middle school)? What other things should I be thinking about?
> >
> > Any input from this group would be welcome. We have network consultants,
> but
> > quite frankly, they have very limited interest and experience in
wireless.
> In
> > fact, they are probably miffed that I have even suggested this. In
> > anticipation of your bounty of responses, I thank you.
> >
> > Cynthia LaPier
> > CIO
> > Plainedge School District
> > No Massapequa, NY
> > clapier at plainedgeschools.org
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------
> > This mail sent through IMP: horde.org/imp/
> > --
> > NYCwireless - www.nycwireless.net/
> > Un/Subscribe: lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/
> > Archives: lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
>
> --
> NYCwireless - www.nycwireless.net/
> Un/Subscribe: lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/
> Archives: lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
>

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[techie]

Heres another thing found on the web. It seems that at WEST, they were able to videoconference around the country. REALLY GREAT!!
This is good because it exposes our chidren to different thoughts/views from accross this country.

Now,... what is the reason we can't broadcast or tape the Board meetings and post them to the Web for all to see???.....


This is from the west web site.

Read Across America Videoconferences



Virtually traveling across America for the National Education’s Association event, Read Across America, eighteen West classes videoconferenced with partner classes across the United States to celebrate reading. The annual event is sponsored by TWICE, Two Way Interactions in Education. Our computer teacher Debbie Fallon, library media specialist Emily Smith, and library aides JoEllen Smith and Jean Cooke supported classroom teachers as they collaborated with their students to prepare outstanding, creative presentations promoting literacy for our partner classes. Connecting using interactive video with classes in Indiana, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Michigan, Kansas, Texas, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, classes exchanged reading activities and information about each other’s schools and communities.



For example:

*

Mrs. Avgeris' third grade class celebrated Black History Month by researching a famous African American in history. Their choices were Sports, Film, Literature, Education, and Inventors. The students presented their African American by describing how the positive and negative moments in their lives encouraged them to make the world a better place to live in. They conferenced with Mrs. Seraphinoff's class in Michigan.

*

Mrs. O'Connell's second graders videoconferenced with Mrs. Anderson's second grade class in Evansville, Indiana. First, a few students in Mrs. Anderson's class read a Dr. Seuss book and shared a song. Mrs. O'Connell's class then acted out the story The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. The children were in costume and made props such as the three houses and the jail. After watching and performing, the two classes took an opportunity to ask each other questions about the weather, school, likes and dislikes, and favorite books and movies. The children thought it was so cool that they all liked similar things. They also enjoyed discussing the time change since this part of Indiana is an hour behind New York. It was a wonderful experience. The classes are now trying to work out a pen pal system!

Our new videoconferencing equipment at West set up by our Chief Information Officer, Cynthia LaPier and our technicians, made participation in this engaging event possible. Students and staff are learning that communicating to promote reading is just one door that is being opened. Now that we have videoconferencing technology available, the potential is really limitless

so stay tuned for our future videoconferencing adventures!

[techie]

Now if you can see how they are spending the money for TECHNOLOGY in my previous post, and agree with it,... you have to go to this site yourself and after you read it look at the pictures of the equipment that is being used to have KINDERGARDEN CHILDREN videoconference with kids in Indiana and Texas! I can see the use for older kids but KINDERGARDEN?!?!

plainedgeschools.org/schwarting/df05/read/readacrossamerica.htm

[Go Plainedge!]

A "hacked" site would still go through and at least give the viewer an error page. The site was NOT hacked. You couldn't get to a default page or even an error page. It just wouldn't go through and was taking too long to "time-out".

Agreed - a week to restore is absurd and not making sence. COMMON sence would state that there should be back up tapes that oocur nightly so that if a breach were to occur, a quick restore would take place with MINIMAL data loss.

IF the CIO didn't have back up's OR the hosting company's server was not backed-up (as they usually are on a 24 hour basis) then someone should be held accountable for the time and money it will take to "re-build" the site.

[archer99]

As of this moment, the site that hosts the web page cannot be accessed.

www.nemesis2.com

Once you can access this site you should be able to access the plainedgeschools.org site also.

If you try to access the hosting site keep the kids away as they also host porn sites and it comes up on their home page.

I think it was fitting that the hosting company that was chosen derives it's name from the Goddess of Revenge and Retribution.

Ironic, eh?

[techie]

Well,... it's almost true!

The Nemesis2.com site which is the host for plainedgeschools.org does seem to be hacked!
NOT the plainedge site but the hosting site.

Mr. Dick wanted to know how a site could be made "without all that money"
AGAIN,... How much money has been spent on this?
From what Mr. Dick seems to think it must be quite a little sum.

If you go to "whois. godaddy.com" you can search to find who has the Domain Name, www.nemesis2.com
Guess Who?
Ms. Cynthia LaPier!
Lets see,... she owns the site that hosts the schools page, it costs alot of money(according to Mr. Dick's statement),
on viewing it before it was interupted, the page also hosted porn.
As someone else pointed out, nice context for a name!
Look at the bottom to see the other chosen name for the other server. a little twisted to me......

Is this who should be our CIO? For $125,000. a year?
I can see it will take a week to get the site up again now. This is because the Hosting site has to be fixed FIRST (not on our time), then adjust the school's web page.
A lot of business sites get hacked all the time. Now it seems more understandable. THE SCHOOL"S WEB PAGE WAS NOT HACKED!!! HER HOSTING SITE WAS!!! along with whoever else she hosts!


Registrant:
nemesis2.com

3289 Salt Point Road
Watkins Glen, New York 14891
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: NEMESIS2.COM
Created on: 08-Mar-00
Expires on: 08-Mar-06
Last Updated on: 05-Mar-05

Administrative Contact:
LaPier, Cynthia [e-mail]
nemesis2.com
3289 Salt Point Road
Watkins Glen, New York 14891
United States
[phone] Fax -- 999 999 9999
Technical Contact:
LaPier, Cynthia [e-mail]
nemesis2.com
3289 Salt Point Road
Watkins Glen, New York 14891
United States
[phone] Fax -- 999 999 9999

Domain servers in listed order:
NEMESIS2.COM
EVIL.NEMESIS2.COM


Registry Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK

[irishman]

Hey Techie, What are ye telling me my boy?

Do you mean that there's a bit of double dipping going on at the old public swill trough?

That the "extra cost" our Mr. Dick has been harping about is the double charging for our finally getting thru nemesis2 to our own School site?

That the "nemesis2" (evil or not) site is but a wee bit of a front for the real School site?

That the famous Mrs. Lapier is charging everyone in the District to go thru a door to the Plainedge.org site?

While she's getting paid a fabulous sum by us for selecting her own site as the doorway?

Now wonder it takes a week to fix the site! She has to travel way back up to Watkins Glenn to fix the site for Plainedge and the other clients she has!

I wonder if the other clients are paying her as much as Mr. Dick harps about?

Is she charging the District for these repair costs? Travel costs?

Oh Techie! What a hornet's nest have you stirred up. There's more than enough curious questions in this little lark to keep me busy for a month of Sundays.

And, isn't "Nemesis2" some queerly dark and secret abode for the immature doing ne'er-do-well games and other nefarious activities?

Here's one sample for a Google search:
Pool Sharks - online pool game psr, Jan 13, 6:30 PM, nemesis2 is a faget and a ***hole. nemesis2, Jan 13, 6:34 PM, psr is disturbing saying how he is going to mollest me ...

Here's two other Google outputs for Nemesis2:
Nemesis2.com · Contact Us · Current Projects · Search the Web. Welcome to Nemesis2.com! We offer various web services and consulting services. ...

Nemesis2.com · Contact Us · Current Projects · Search the Web. Contact Us. Send us an e-mail: [e-mail] or fill out the following form to help us ...

'Tis this what we want in Plainedge?

[archer99]

That seems very interesting.

I did what was said and looked at Google.com

This is G o o g l e's text-only cache of nemesis2.com/ as retrieved on Aug 21, 2005 05:04:56 GMT.
G o o g l e's cache is the snapshot that we took of the page as we crawled the web.
The page may have changed since that time. Click here for the current page without highlighting.
Click here for the full cached page with images included.
To link to or bookmark this page, use the following url: www.google.com/search?q=cache:WDtFgyCIEPwJ:nemesis2.com/+&hl=en&lr=&strip=1

Google is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content.

Nemesis2.com Contact Us Current Projects Search the Web

Welcome to Nemesis2.com!
We offer various web services and consulting services.

Feel free to check out our most recent projects.

Please contact us and let us know what we can do for you.


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This means that her business is setting up web sites. I really hope that this business ( if it did) did not set up the schools site for a fee without bids being taken. I hope we can get the information from someone on the Board that approved this as to what company or person set up the site, was there a fee charged, and how much does the hosting cost? Mr. Dick's statement is really starting to concern me. In one part because he said he has 20 years of technical experience and I would imagine he would have looked for this.