Shall i save the whole blacksheep site challenges and convert that to GWF3?<br><br>The project would take two weeks and i would hand Erik the code/access etc.<br><br>The old site would be abused as senior / premium access <img alt="\":D\"" src="%5C"><br><br><br>GreetZ<br>GiZ
Hi Giz!<br><br>That would be nice.<br><br>I was also thinking about getting the challenge files and archiving them. Doing it by hand is tedious though, so some coding might be in order.<br><br>Of course some challenges would be incomplete (mostly hacking and programming, unless someone has a backdoor ?), while others might be unsolvable without the forum... but a lot of creative work would survive.<br><br><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">The old site would be abused as senior / premium access <img alt="\":D\"" src="%5C"></div><br>What do you mean ?
I have several challenges saved, but usually only the ones that I'm trying to solve and can be solved offline.<br>I agree that several programming and hacking challenges wouldn't be possible to be saved.<br><br>I don't think that reformulating the whole site is necessary, but I agree that an update will help a lot.<br>This design makes me nostalgic, I remember my old days, struggling into some very basic challenges. <br><br>
An update would require an active admin, which we lack. The last sighting of erik was in 2014.<br>As long as the registration is broken, the site is as good as dead, and it might just go down someday.<br><br>Gizmore's idea would allow it to survive as a challenge site as a part of the wechall network, if I understand it well.
Nice to see you around, Gizmore.<br><br>Would it be possible to keep the full site, with styles and everything inside wechall? That sounds great.<br>Matrixman would be helpful here.
There's nothing to say the Erik isn't dead. It is totally plausible that he could have passed away. Or more likely; he has abandoned this site exactly like he said he would. There's no knowing what could have happened to him. The domain name could have been paid far in advance.<br>There have been countless attempts to contact him over the past three years all which have failed. It has been two years since he has even been sighted as active on this site and its been 3 years since Erik proposed to migrate ownership of the site. <br>This site is a free-for-all meaning the first one to break in takes ownership. This site hasn't been updated in a long time, and this includes security updates to the software hosting the website.<br><br>I think it is a realistic assumption to say the end of the site is nearing soon:<br>The Domain Expires on: 13-may-2017<br>That's 6 months left from the date of this post.<br>Start saying your goodbyes.
I'm going to try calling the admin. Hopefully he won't be annoyed.<br><br>==Update==<br>I called the 'admin', which is 'marc bromm' apparently. Conversation lasted about 20 seconds. German guy picks up, but he also speaks English. He says he doesn't own bright-shadows.net.<br>Moral of the story. Unreliable WhoIs inforamtion.<br><br><br>Is it worth sending a letter to the address listed on the whois?
If the site's domain is going to expire, then we should choose one trusted member to buy the domain (help him with money if necessary), and he just have to setup the domain as it is today, pointing to the same ip address.
<div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">pandini0</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">If the site's domain is going to expire, then we should choose one trusted member to buy the domain (help him with money if necessary), and he just have to setup the domain as it is today, pointing to the same ip address.</div><br><br>Some web hosting services provide both the domain name and server space as a single package. If that's the case, when the domain name expires the website will no longer be hosted.<br>If it's just a case of the domain name disappearing, you can still access the site by passing the hostname[bright-shadows.net] in the header of a http request to the IP address of the website. That would require the site to have a static IP address for ever.<br><br>The issue we should be focusing on is that the owner of the site is no longer maintaining it. It would put the future of the website in doubt as it could go down unannounced at any time. With no admininstrator there will be no one to put it back up and that would be the end of bright-shadows.<br>The site is already broken and may continue to break. No one new can sign-up, so the health of the community is rapidly declining.<br>Considering there circumstances, it is reasonable to say the website won't be up much longer.<br><br>The WhoIs information contains someother contact information. Maybe the guy I called is the owner but didn't really understand what I was saying. I felt like the guy I was calling was dismissing me. Maybe it was the owner, but he no longer wants to be a part of it.<br><br>The admin hasn't even accepted my PayPal donation from the 3rd of November. I'll have to cancle it.
While the registration isn't working, its not over yet. <a href="%5C"><img alt="\"link\"" src="%5C">This challenge</a> was to prepare us for when this day came.<br><br><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">To use our service you have to be registered. At the moment we have so many user that it is not possible to register new. Sorry for that!<br><br>theblacksheep</div>
If some of you guys still remember me I'm also there if some help is needed.<br>It was my really first challenges site and I learnt so many things there...<br>I just can't imagine TBS dying.
Here is an archive containing a good chunk of the /challenges directory (basically everything that is linked and could be grabbed with get requests):<br><a href="%5C"><img alt="\"link\"" src="%5C">https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0c6xsx3hpgi507/tbs.zip?dl=0</a><br><br>The forum is not included.<br>It can be used to \"rebuild\" the site on a local vhost, with a rule to treat php files as html.<br><br>
<div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">harvestsnow</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">Here is an archive containing a good chunk of the /challenges directory (basically everything that is linked and could be grabbed with get requests):<br>https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0c6xsx3hpgi507/tbs.zip?dl=0<br><br>The forum is not included.<br>It can be used to \"rebuild\" the site on a local vhost, with a rule to treat php files as html.</div><br><br>Thank you ! I was thinking about an offline solution checking mechanism, and came up with an idea.<br>For some challenges, those which don't require server side processing, like crackmes, crypto and steganos, we can hash the solution with bcrypt and set a huge cost parameter, so offline checking will be possible, but bruteforce will be waste of time, something that would take like 10 minutes per check would be a good base for the cost parameter for today's machines and for the next 50 years !<br><br>The only problem is that we need people that already solve certain challenges to contribute to this list. What you guys think ?
Solution forums could also be encrypted with a key based on the solution word., and put in the archive.<br>So, has anyone kept track of all the flags, or want to go through 300+ solution forums ?<br><br>I'm not convinced it's necessary. Most challenges have a non-ambigous solution. The guess-heavy ones sometimes have a simple word solution, with small enough entropy that it could be brute-forced anyway.<br>
I would also be glad to financially support the effort to maintain (host, repair, etc.) or rebuild this website.<br><br>-Kad <img alt="\":wink:\"" src="%5C">
I still have Erik as a facebook friend, I said a year ago I would try to contact him but then forgot right away, now I just sent him a message in the hope that he will see it and come read this thread. I'll keep you updated if he answers.
I guess a valid option would be contacting the hosting company, letting them know about the situation, point them to the discussion and asking them to give the actual contact details of Erik or in case he passed away ... give us a backup.<br>As far as I remember, there was another admin, right? What about him?
Im also still here, checking the site from time to time. Count me in in case you need money or anything else.<br>Cheers from Argentina, I hope we can keep this site running.
I got a reply from Erik by email:<br><br>\"I know it's a shame what happened to the website, but I am just to engulfed with too many other things to take care of it. I am happy to hear if you have a plan!<br>Looking forward to your answer, Erik\"<br><br>In any case, I'll try to procure the code and the database. From there we can look further if we rehost it somewhere else, at least we will still have a backup.<br><br>Kind regards,<br>Inferno<br><br><br><br><br>
I also got a reply by e-mail fro Erik saying he's willing to put some time into helping us take over. here's what he had to say :<br><br>\"regrettably I missed what seems to have been the kind of discussion I<br>have been waiting for for so long. In case you and the other people<br>involved, I would be happy to have a discussion with everyone to<br>figure out how to best rescue the site!<br><br>I am willing to spend some time on helping out in the process. What is<br>most important to me is that there is a group of people behind this<br>endeavour to avoid the eventual failure of my one-man \"approach\"<br>during the last years.<br><br>Please let me know what the current status is and if you/we could<br>arrange for some kind of effective discussion in the nearest future.<br>Only Facebook does not work for me though.<br><br>Thank you so much for staying behind the site after so many years! I<br>am hopeful that we can relaunch it, with your and the communities<br>help!<br><br>Best wishes, looking forward to your reply,<br>Erik\"
Great news !! <img alt="\":)\"" src="%5C"><br><br>If we have the code, we can use some modern solutions to prevent challenges from get broken, or at least repair it fast and automatically, like using containers for some challenges or vms.<br>Also, we can publish some more immersive challenges, for example some local exploit or another thing, since nowadays VMs are cheap easy to create some isolation e easy to give access to.<br><br>But focusing on saving this whole website I would recommend to create a solution that prevent this very same situation to happen again in the future. Things like a github account that only admins have access, or another solution to that, but some place where the code and the backup (S3 for example) could be safe, and are easily shared among any other new admin.
So... is there anything happening? Any concrete plans?<br>Frankly I cannot be of any help with hosting or saving the challenges. I could throw you some bucks, though...
Hello <img alt="\":wink:\"" src="%5C">,<br><br>I am moved and delighted to find that so many of you are still active and care for this website!<img alt="\":sun:\"" src="%5C"><br>It played a huge part in my live for many years, and that was mostly because of you - this wonderful community of amazing people. <br><img alt="\"-_-\"" src="%5C"> Thank you all very much! <img alt="\"-_-\"" src="%5C"><br><br>There are many things I have to consider right now, so just a few quick comments:<br><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">Senseless</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">There's nothing to say the Erik isn't dead.</div>Who knows? I might be alive, or I might be speaking to you from the other side... <img alt="\":devil2:\"" src="%5C"><br><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">Senseless</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">I think it is a realistic assumption to say the end of the site is nearing soon:<br>The Domain Expires on: 13-may-2017<br>That's 6 months left from the date of this post.<br>Start saying your goodbyes.</div>Our host informed us that it is a standard procedure according to the Expired Registration Recovery Policy, and the domain registration will be extended automatically by them. Certainly rest assured that the site is not going down anytime soon.<br><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">harvestsnow</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">Here is an archive containing a good chunk of the /challenges directory (basically everything that is linked and could be grabbed with get requests):<br><a href="%5C"><img alt="\"link\"" src="%5C">https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0c6xsx3hpgi507/tbs.zip?dl=0</a></div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">harvestsnow</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">Solution forums could also be encrypted with a key based on the solution word., and put in the archive.<br>So, has anyone kept track of all the flags, or want to go through 300+ solution forums ?</div>I just secured full backups of the site (all files and databases). There is no need for copies like that. We are thinking about hosting the site elsewhere with access to more developers, but even at our current host, the contract is not running out and bright-shadows.net will continue to be accessible.<br><br>Cheers,<br>Erik
I'm late to the party - but I'm still here as well.<br><br>I log on out of nostalgia most of the time, and truth be told I've forgotten a lot of my completed challenges as I've worked in a totally different field for a decade - age takes its toll on the ol memory (though I still run Slackware <img alt="\";)\"" src="%5C"> )<br><br>Last time I logged into the IRC it was dead <img alt="\":(\"" src="%5C">
Web Developer Here to the rescue. If you guys need any help. Please do let me know.. TBS means the world to me.. Is part of history and I don't want to let that go...
I just keep getting * Disconnected (Remote host closed socket)<br> Cycling to next server in brightshadows...<br>* Disconnected ()<br>* Looking up irc.wechall.net<br>* Connecting to irc.wechall.net (85.214.110.118:6697)<br>* Connected. Now logging in.<br>* Disconnected (Remote host closed socket)<br><br>And on and on.. an issue with rubbish blocking of VPN's? I guess I could try without but hey that would be sensible.
The last survivor was here. Could I really be the last man standing? <img alt="\"-_-\"" src="%5C"><br>There is only one challenge left to complete. Hack the site and upload the challenges to GitHub. Forgot the password to my main account as I havent used this site in so long. At least we can still make accounts and use the site, kind of.
<div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">Senseless</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">The site is dead.<br>gg</div><br><br>Well at least the site is still up and you can also solve some challenges. <img alt="\":D\"" src="%5C">
life sign<br><img alt="\":laola:\"" src="%5C"><br>I'll try to find some time in December. Anyone with advice/suggestions/offers to help/cups of tea/... welcome!
This site was one of the things that got me into programming back in the day. Though I am not nearly good enough to solve all of the challenges, it would be good to know if I can do something to help to keep the site up or to archive it somewhere.
Indeed... I also rare times access to the site... just to see if something happens.<br><br>Erik & TheBlackSheep created a nice creature \"Bright-Shadows\"...<br>When I started here I even didn't know what should be \"look at the source page\"...<br><br>Was, has been and unfortunately I'll remain a hotel-co-worker. But love IT<img alt="\":pc2:\"" src="%5C"> and learning<img alt="\":teach2:\"" src="%5C"> (just unfortunately, it's not easy when you are alone)... that's it.<br>Greetz to ALL my Dears
Yes, challenges working. I solved a few after they are closed down, but those are only the static ones. Don't know if the web-challenges still working. Challenges which requires manual checks are not working, because most user are gone. Personally I find it still awesome that the site is somehow accessible <img alt="\":)\"" src="%5C">
As usual... good job Giz! (Did you lost your towley account?) <br>Btw, only part of the challenges are saved, for example if the challenge is a multipage challenge only the initial page is saved. I know it is impossible to save that (like solutions) without spoiling the chall.<br><br>Happy new year for everyone still around!! <img alt="\":drink4:\"" src="%5C">
Hi all,<br><br>I'm working with Gizmore to save TBS, and I'm currently focusing on the data dump.<br>We already have downloaded a big part of the forum, except some solution topics that we have no access to. <br>If you want to contribute, please see https://github.com/xaav2/TBS_forum => list of missing topics and program to download them<br>You can also try to solve additional chalenges in order to unlock as many forum topics as possible <img alt="\";-)\"" src="%5C"><br>In the mean time, I've started to browse through all challenges in order to identify the hidden pages.<br>So far, i've downloaded all the hidden pages of JS challenges and I'm working on the Java challenges
Great!<br><br>I executed your script (after making sure your are not messing with my computer <img alt="\":D\"" src="%5C"> ) and found 99 new topics. Where can I send you the db file?<br>Guess we need matrixman here...<br>If you need any help, just say it.<br><br><br>Greetings
<div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">ch0wch0w</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">Great!<br><br>I executed your script (after making sure your are not messing with my computer <img alt="\":D\"" src="%5C"> ) and found 99 new topics. Where can I send you the db file?<br>Guess we need matrixman here...<br>If you need any help, just say it.<br><br><br>Greetings</div><br><br>wow, good job!<br>the easyest way is to send me a wetransfer link by PM. (for example, send the file to yourself, get the link, then send me the link - this way your email address remains private and we respect GDPR <img alt="\";-)\"" src="%5C"><br>or you can just send the file to solution.checker@mailfence.com
<div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">Xaav</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\""><br><br>wow, good job!<br>the easyest way is to send me a wetransfer link by PM. (for example, send the file to yourself, get the link, then send me the link - this way your email address remains private and we respect GDPR <img alt="\";-)\"" src="%5C"><br>or you can just send the file to solution.checker@mailfence.com</div><br><br>PM sent!
Challenges are more tricky to copy than expected.<br>It seems like we have to re-implement them one-by-one (almost) <img alt="\":(\"" src="%5C">
Hello All my Dears,<br><br>I have to say, that I just write small code snippets for solving challenges. And learned everything I know about just with tutorials.<br><br>So I'm not good in debugging. Tried to run following Xaav's README.md but I get:<br><br>[occasus@LearningBox][~/WeChall/TBS_forum]$ ./crawl_missing_forums.py ce2afc1b61a89fe120b77a159cde04a3<br>./crawl_missing_forums.py: line 4: from: command not found<br>./crawl_missing_forums.py: line 6: syntax error near unexpected token `('<br>./crawl_missing_forums.py: line 6: `def string2timestamp(d):'<br><br>Is something wrong? I opened the script in PyCharm, but am to able to understand the errors.
<div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">occasus</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">Hello All my Dears,<br><br>I have to say, that I just write small code snippets for solving challenges. And learned everything I know about just with tutorials.<br><br>So I'm not good in debugging. Tried to run following Xaav's README.md but I get:<br><br>[occasus@LearningBox][~/WeChall/TBS_forum]$ ./crawl_missing_forums.py ce2afc1b61a89fe120b77a159cde04a3<br>./crawl_missing_forums.py: line 4: from: command not found<br>./crawl_missing_forums.py: line 6: syntax error near unexpected token `('<br>./crawl_missing_forums.py: line 6: `def string2timestamp(d):'<br><br>Is something wrong? I opened the script in PyCharm, but am to able to understand the errors.</div><br><br>Are you using python3? Also you need to install some libraries BeautifulSoup, sqllite3 and request (using pip or easy_install)<br><br>
<div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote_headline\""><img alt="\"Quote\"" src="%5C">Quote from <a href="%5C">ch0wch0w</a>:</div><div class="\"tbscode_standard_quote\"">Are you using python3? Also you need to install some libraries BeautifulSoup, sqllite3 and request (using pip or easy_install)</div><br><br>Dear ch0wch0w,<br>I'm feeling a bit stupid right now posting too early. I just realized the following (thanks to your post):<br><br>[occasus@LearningBox][~/WeChall/TBS_forum]$ python<br>Python 2.7.18 (default, Apr 20 2020, 20:30:41) <br>[GCC 9.3.0] on linux2<br>Type \"help\", \"copyright\", \"credits\" or \"license\" for more information.<br>>>><br><br>In fact, I installed the needed things (otherwise: I would not have been able to solve challenges around the Chall-World[/i]). When scripting, I always did things through PyCharm. In this case I simply made Xaav's script executable and apparently the default python is the 2.7??? I didn't thought about \"defaults\"... TheVamp helped me too to point my view in this. Now I'm going to search for articles. Since I have all packages installed but also:<br>python2<br>python2.7<br>python3<br>python3.8<br>python3.9<br><br>Apparently 3 version at the same time...<br>Sorry <img alt="\":pc3:\"" src="%5C"><img alt="\":read:\"" src="%5C"><img alt="\":angel:\"" src="%5C"><br><br>EDIT: Above the [list type='o'][/list] doesn't showed.<br><br>Anyway it worked <img alt="\":D\"" src="%5C"> right now... too much beer.<br><br>74 topics are beeing sent to Xaav <img alt="\":)\"" src="%5C">
Hi All, <br><br>in my quest to recover all hidden files from TBS, I'm conffronted with a problem. I managed to solve all JS challenges and recover all hidden files, And I also solved a part of the Java challenges.<br>My problem is that I'm unable to decompile the last 3 Java applets:<br><br>/challenges/applets/quangntenemy_lifeapplet/index.php<br>/challenges/applets/chimbo_jpacman/index.php<br>/challenges/applets/quangntenemy_javalesson2/index.php<br><br>can someone point me to a decompiler able to decompile thos applets?<br><br>I already tested all decompilers available on http://www.javadecompilers.com/ without success<br><br>Thanks!