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Well, google is reporting www.chess.ca as an attack site again as of just a minute ago. So they don't seem to have done anything to actually fix the problem.
Specifically Google maintains a blacklist which the CFC site is on. The warning states that the last time malicious code was found was on September 1, which was around the time the site was taken down. It also states that the last time the site was visited was September 11. From the looks of it the CFC site is likely to be kept on their blacklist for 90 days regardless of how clean it may or may not be right now.
Google's blacklist is the equivalent of the robot on Lost In Space flapping its arms and warning "Danger Will Robinson".
The ratings database is an application with business logic that as far as I know cannot be bought off the shelf. Are you voluntering to write a new application in MySQL free of charge and support it in perpetuity ?
Someone will have to do it eventually, and probably sooner than later. At some point, the computer running the database will need to be replaced, and what do you think the odds are that the database will run on newer hardware?
It's better to create a replacement now, before such a crisis occurs. Ideally, the existing database would be used for testing the new one. If both databases perform ratings updates identically, then the new one is up to snuff, or at least has the same defects as the existing one.
Would the CFC be willing to publish the contents of the database, the algorithm to perform ratings updates, and whatever documentation it has on hand? Sounds like a good programming challenge, with a life membership (or at least a couple of decent books) as a prize.
Someone will have to do it eventually, and probably sooner than later. At some point, the computer running the database will need to be replaced, and what do you think the odds are that the database will run on newer hardware?
Pretty good actually. The database is an older Access version which came with Visual Basic (4 or 5 most likely based on the 1997 year of updating according to Jonathan Berry but conceivably it could even be version 3) which can be read with a newer version of Access. I know because I support some applications that are similarly constructed though developed with a later version of VB. Microsoft has tools built into its free versions of SQL Server which allow you to take that old data and import it into SQL Server if you want to go that route. Alternatively you can export the data to a text file and then move that into whatever format you wish to use. It is the data which is relatively easy to convert into different formats which is important and not the database.
It's better to create a replacement now, before such a crisis occurs. Ideally, the existing database would be used for testing the new one. If both databases perform ratings updates identically, then the new one is up to snuff, or at least has the same defects as the existing one.
Would the CFC be willing to publish the contents of the database, the algorithm to perform ratings updates, and whatever documentation it has on hand? Sounds like a good programming challenge, with a life membership (or at least a couple of decent books) as a prize.
I would say that the algorithm is published in the section of the CFC handbook and website which describe how ratings are calculated. Even if this were not the case you could infer the algorithm by studying the results of a few tournaments. The contents of the database can be read from the ratings.
I am not techie, so I've been doing my best to follow your posts. Do you agree that the current CFC website is so old, and full of problems, and difficult to maintain and upgrade ( Ed Seedhouse posted:
A quick glance at the code shows an ancient table based layout with no document type declaration, no significant use of CSS, and over a hundred html syntax errors. A site straight out of the 1990's in other words.
No attempt should be made to fix this mess. It needs to be torn down and started over from scratch. " )
that it now is clear it needs to be replaced, and now is the time for CFC to invest the money to get a new one?
Pretty good actually. The database is an older Access version which came with Visual Basic (4 or 5 most likely based on the 1997 year of updating according to Jonathan Berry but conceivably it could even be version 3) which can be read with a newer version of Access. I know because I support some applications that are similarly constructed though developed with a later version of VB. Microsoft has tools built into its free versions of SQL Server which allow you to take that old data and import it into SQL Server if you want to go that route. Alternatively you can export the data to a text file and then move that into whatever format you wish to use. It is the data which is relatively easy to convert into different formats which is important and not the database.
If it can be read by Access 2007 then it would be trivial to export it to a mysql database
All we need now is a notice on the home page letting those getting the Google warning know that the site is clean, and we are just awaiting Google clearance
bob
Last edited by Bob Armstrong; Saturday, 19th September, 2009, 03:03 AM.
Well, google is reporting www.chess.ca as an attack site again as of just a minute ago. So they don't seem to have done anything to actually fix the problem.
A quick glance at the code shows an ancient table based layout with no document type declaration, no significant use of CSS, and over a hundred html syntax errors. A site straight out of the 1990's in other words.
No attempt should be made to fix this mess. It needs to be torn down and started over from scratch.
As discussed a few times in this thread, what google is showing is the old www.chess.ca "temporarily offline" page, so the harm is historical, i.e. google hasn't refreshed its cache. IMHE, for google to refresh often takes weeks.
The webzine, members.chess.ca is still offline.
The drawbacks of web design have existed since Day One. It has always been ugly. The show-stopper is when it becomes bad, a conduit for malware. And it is only supposed to be a legacy site anyway.
Bad and ugly. The good is that in a few days we will have the first issue of Tony Ficzere's CFC webzine. If he makes sound decisions in design, those decisions might be the ones to follow in relation to the rest of CFC content. Yeah, sure, webzine and web site are different concepts, but there might be spillover.
I downloaded www.chess.ca with
wget -x -r -nc -k -np %1
I was tempted to make a "printer friendly" (and no scripts) version of the site (by writing a program to negotiate around the various script, div, form and table elements), but it seems to me that the crucial problem is not the web pages, ugly though they might be, but the server. The CFC server is responding to malicious commands when it should not. Is that correct? If there's malware on any of the actual pages, could somebody point it out to me? Some people who sounded like they knew what they were talking about, used the word injection. TIA.
With regard to scripts, the CFC is still selling stuff (as I understand it, equipment, not books), so the sales database is still useful. Maybe it doesn't need to be on every page but oh well. I don't know why the same script needs to appear twice on the same page. The out of date news section has an html FORM for signing in. I doubt if that is still needed. Then there are scripts for querying the ratings database. This is the most complex scripting page: www.chess.ca/ratings.htm
The rated event crosstables have province and rating period come from drop-down lists, then the list of events is static. New every Wednesday for the current period, but static. That uses an html FORM with post method, less complex than the ratings page.
With the site on my HD, it's interesting to see what it contains. The biggest part is about 20 MB of GLs, dating back to y2k. Then there's about 10 MB of staff photos, both the small ones that get served on the staff page and much bigger ones. Another 10 MB of Scarborough Chess Club News & Views, for which CFC seems to have become a server. A few large photos and documents, several relating to the NATO chess championships. Everything else, including the Handbook, is much smaller in comparison. The wget command doesn't seem to have downloaded the rated event crosstables.
The new webmasters have changed the CFC address and added links on all the pages, presumably programmatically, all at one go, rather than each page by hand. If, as reported by the CFC President, they're having trouble with code, I'd assume it would be the stuff that is not visible to us: the server, the database, the rating, the sales, the membership code.
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