Mchost started up their businesses and got heavily involved answering threads at the webhostingtalk forums. More or less every thread suggested that Mchost is a very good company when it comes to customer service and so on. So what happened next? Answer: more and more people started to sign up for their reseller plans and some even left their old hosting providers to join mchost.

So what was the outcome? Answer: Mchost started to grow rapidly and obviously taking business from other people at the webhostingtalk forum. Outcome, other hosting providers started to feel very threatened by the Mchost success.

Next thing that happened was that Mchost announced that they are in the progress of developing the virtualcp. OOOppps, other hosting providers became even more scared of the ever-growing Mchost.

What I am trying to say is that a great deal of people in the industry are probably scared of the possibility of loosing even more customers to Mchost.

So is Splashhost trying to frame Mchost? Answer: that would be a very stupid move and I strongly believe that it is another hosting provider that have used Splashost to get to Mchost..

Ask yourself, why should Mchost put their ever-growing business at stake and attack Splashhost?

Ask that question and your answer will be that Mchost is not guilty.

I don't think any of us are qualified to make a decision on who is right / wrong, as none of us know all the facts. The best thing to do is let the various parties involved solve the problems themselves, and we will no doubt hear the outcome.

Here's another way of looking at the situation. WHT is not the industry. About 0.1% of people looking for a host will end up here and 0.001% of all hosts are represented here. The only competition happening between these 2 hosts is happening here on this forum.

So are the other hosts really that threatened by McHost? I don't think so. :rolleyes:

And a host can never have enough clients. ;)

Looks like RackShack servers plus poor sysadmin skills are to blame for not catching this shameful action sooner. I'm sorry, but I can't understand how you can expect to run RackShack servers unless you have extensive admin experience or a full time administrator to maintain your network.

I guess I'm just paranoid but we have our servers at the RackSpace Managed Hosting facility where there are full-time sysadmins 24/7 plus we have our own full-time admins and top level techs and I feel it still isn't enough. :D

A chkrootkit would have uncovered this right away.

This is what I think and its like Kiwi thinks like that too...

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37220&perpage=15&pagenumber=9 :
"Could a third person get access to one of Mchost servers and from there place a proxy so he could spoof via the IP of Mchost and place the script on the Splash server (have Mchost checked their logs)? Both companies could have been hit by a third person. I cant believe that Mchost could do a such risky thing with their own IP! I am not saying that Mchost is not guilty but if they are discussing a fees for the damages then Mchost might have done something wrong, like a leak in their own security!"

Kiwi later wrote something interesting about this:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37220&perpage=15&pagenumber=11 :
"I am still talking through this situation with Alan on ICQ, so i thought i'll update you guys with some fresh news. Facts are:
I was never contacted by Alan on this matter. I have found out about this thread early this morning (after 4 hours of sleep, btw.) by myself and contacted Alan immediately.
With the customer base we have, there is no need for us to grab customers from other companies. All hosts in this industry have a fair share. In fact, most of our employees are working 16+ hours every day since we are growing faster than expected. It would be stupid to look around for even more customers than we already receive every day.
A proxy server has been running on my network here for certain employees.
Yes, it was not password protected. This is my fault and i accept responsibility for this. Yes, this IP is logged into all of our machines every day and visible to anyone with shell access.
No, i have not hacked into Alan's server at any time. And i seriously doubt any of our employees would.
No, i have not yet been shown any evidence at all.
Yes, i will be (hopefully) going through the server logs with Alan to track down what happened and who did it.
While Alan is estimating the damage on his business caused by this, we will be doing the same on the damage caused to MCHost."


The last comment is very interesting. Both companies are damaged now. Both Alan and Marc would have seen this and there is no way to blame both or one of them, its someone else!

Originally posted by NexDog
A chkrootkit would have uncovered this right away.

NexDog, 'a' chkrootkit or 'the' chkrootkit? I fail to understand how a rootkit sniffer could uncover something that is *not* a root kit.
We now know that the attacker used a demo account (no exploit here) and a fork bomb, which looks like a perfectly innocuous piece of code.

Vegemite: you may have read a wee bit too many polars. I won't mention Occam's Razor (again!), so for the sake of variety I'll quote Sir Isaac Newton:
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

Regards,

Originally posted by NexDog
Looks like RackShack servers plus poor sysadmin skills are to blame for not catching this shameful action sooner. I'm sorry, but I can't understand how you can expect to run RackShack servers unless you have extensive admin experience or a full time administrator to maintain your network.

I guess I'm just paranoid but we have our servers at the RackSpace Managed Hosting facility where there are full-time sysadmins 24/7 plus we have our own full-time admins and top level techs and I feel it still isn't enough. :D

A chkrootkit would have uncovered this right away.

What does RackShack have anything to do with this? A chkrootkit won't find everything.

What does RackShack have anything to do with this?
I'm under the impression that Alan doesn't have (or didn't have) a full time sysadmin on staff. Perhaps if he had had one this problem could have been detected earlier. Rackshack servers are not managed so you can't ask them to analyse logs etc. Thus a sysadmin is vital. If your servers are at a manged hosting facility you can almost get away with having a system adminitrator on staff.
A chkrootkit won't find everything.
My mistake. :D

Its amazing that anyone thinks MCHost was hurt by this. They weren't.

Alan being young cried about another company supposedly doing something malicious.

Marc being Marc takes a progressive stance and contacts Alan.

Alan see's himself get lambasted for posting unsubstantiated information and does not answer to the thread he f*ing started in the first place.

Marc retains his integrity as Alan hides most of the day. Marc does not hide and continues to try to make the best of it by being upstanding and holding true. Informs his customers, other companies and anyone else that has direct involvment in the situation.

MCHost wasn't hurt by this, Alan hurt Splashost by whining in the wrong place.

Everyone is looking to get a dig in on MCHost and sorry to say this was not it.

Anyone can post anything, if anyone entity has been hurt by this it is WHT for allowing Splashost to post such trite.

Oh dear. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Yet again another newbie client perspective. This is a matter that hosts that maintain a network can only understand.

Alan may be mistaken and it's possible that he may have been a touch rash in posting here but we (the hosts) can understand his sentiments and emotion that caused him to post.
Alan being young cried about another company supposedly doing something malicious.
As was demonstrated in another recent thread, youngsters connected to this industry are the ones obsessed with age. What a nerve you have posting such a comment. You're looking at this from the outside, so stay outside and keep your childish judgements to yourself. :angry: :angry:

Ask yourself, why should Mchost put their ever-growing business at stake and attack Splashhost?

Because you always want more.

What I am trying to say is that a great deal of people in the industry are probably scared of the possibility of loosing even more customers to Mchost

I doubt it.


I think there's a conspiracy in one of these threads in WHT. Either the one where Marc plays goodie and tries to help splash host by providing suggestions for his feeble and insecure servers or when splash host publicly defames McHost or this one where there seems to be an aweful lot of newbies. Take your pick. (No personal attacks intended)

Alan posted on WHT to announce what MCHost, or an individual / company using MCHost's network had deliberately brought down his servers a few weeks ago, and continued to do so using a cgi script.

Alan posted because he felt others should know why his servers kept crashing. I am aware that Pwebtech, amongst others, have seen the evidence and agree with Alan.

Marc posts the progress on WHT, why should Alan repeat what Marc has to say by double posting?

No one had a dig at MCHost. People said if it was true, then it was 'dirty' and 'unprofessional'. People asked Kiwi if it was true.

But some individuals decide to take matters into their own hands and flame Splash Host at every oppurtunity.

Originally posted by NexDog
Oh dear. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Yet again another newbie client perspective. This is a matter that hosts that maintain a network can only understand.

Alan may be mistaken and it's possible that he may have been a touch rash in posting here but we (the hosts) can understand his sentiments and emotion that caused him to post.

As was demonstrated in another recent thread, youngsters connected to this industry are the ones obsessed with age. What a nerve you have posting such a comment. You're looking at this from the outside, so stay outside and keep your childish judgements to yourself. :angry: :angry:

Newbie client perspective? LOL, wrong person, wrong decade.

If the people involved want to post an update as to the situation, that's fine, otherwise I don't see the point in yet another thread of another 12 page thread of speculation and opinions (which was locked), I'd say that's enough.