The Front • A tad overboard (aka, the malcor apology thread)
OK, OK... so there's been a lot of chatter all over the net about this malcor thing.
So, here we go... it was us. No big surprise at this point, right? Basically, it was a lead in to the first mission of MacHeist 2 that got waaay out of hand. So we're apologizing for it and for the trouble it's caused.
We've shut down the malcor blog and all associated sites and malcor chewed on his cyanide tablet so it's all history now.
It's too bad that it spiralled so far out of control because it would've been a great way to lead off this year's festivities, which are about to start very soon. As you know, we always try our hardest to come up with cool missions and we thought it'd be great to have mission 1 have a rogue hacker that was running rampant that you heisters would put a stop to. But then things got a bit crazy and beyond our control, unfortunately.
We really hope that the people behind the "hacked" sites, their hosting compaines, and the companies that create their content management systems aren't looked upon negatively by you all. The intent of everyone wasn't malicious but just to have some fun.
So anyway, I hope we can put everything behind us now and move on to another great season of missions for MacHeist II, which will be here very soon after a few tweaks on our end. 
Thanks, everyone.
edit: links to posts from the "hacked" sites...
Glenn Wolsey: What Really Happened, Sincere Apologies
MacApper: Woops I did it Again
Apple Matters: Sincere Apologies
Last edited by johnred (November 28, 2007 2:51 am)
Thanks for doing that. This helps a lot.
Oh, and can I say, I told ya so.... (about it being Macheist)
Oh, and if you want, you can digg it up as well: http://digg.com/apple/Macheist_admits_t … r_PR_stunt
Phew finally! Thanks John. It was getting hot in here 
I posted my take on this on MacApper if anyone still cares...
Miles Evans
Last edited by milez (November 28, 2007 1:07 am)
Um...they all lost any respect - to MacApper and Glenn there was very little of in the first place - because of this. It's not the fact that they partook as it would've been fine, but when people like some of us here figured it out and realized that it was a total scam and nothing but some promotion either for their own sites or MH, they tried to cover it up. We called you all out on it and you didn't have the guts to admit that you got caught. We knew it. It was all bullshit and a large majority of us could smell it from the start, just none of the sites owned up and rather tried to hide the truth. I know it was supposed to lead up in a decent manner, and it wasn't MH that ruined it, it was the sites acting in an asinine manner that made it what it was.
To MacApper, Glenn, and AppleMatters: may the scene scorn you. You disgust me with the way you managed this situation. It was despicable. We caught on, you acted like ignorant fools in a manner that just proved it was true. You're a sad part of the Apple cult.
definetheline wrote:
Thanks for doing that. This helps a lot.
Oh, and can I say, I told ya so.... (about it being Macheist)
And who was one of the first to call bullshit?
Last edited by Warbrain (November 28, 2007 12:14 am)
I figured. Malcor sounded like something out of MacHeist, I might have heard it before here, I'm not sure.
I agree with Warbrain. The websites involved blew it way out of proportion by not saying anything, and when digg got involved... well, you know.
GlennWosley.com has the respect of me - he's someone I have in Mail's RSS, and when that threw up the nice old "!", it surprised me. It sure would have been nice if someone had "come out of the closet" about this earlier.
It would have been and excellent idea, too bad it got too big. Can't wait to get started on MH2 though!! 
oh for the love of god. I don't get it. Why do you all care? this is absurd. So they put up a pr stunt. Oh, so they didn't own up to it? who the f cares. It was part of the fun. It's not their place to admit it, when they're doing this for macheist. They got something out of this, not sure if it's money, advertising, or what, but these sites did, to get that stuff they enter into an agreement with Macheist that they keep it quiet. These sites were down for a day...so what? how does that effect any of you? why is that deserving of scorn? did these sites have a special "donate your hard earned money to help us find malcor" button i missed? no. get over it, besides, you're all just bitching for no reason, i know a lot of us had fun picking out the pieces to solve the puzzle, and whether it was a real person or not, you still pick through the pieces to find out who it is. so...we found out it was macheist. cool. i welcome stuff like that and especially macheist2
No real surprise here. I believe I was the first to actually say it was gonna be the lead in to MacHeist II after WarBrain speculated it was a PR stunt. Interesting study in how marketing can backfire, however.
Yeah, cool for the CMS systems and hosting companies that get the random black eye for months or years with the left over "site hacked using WordPress on this hosting company... down for 24 hours!" Great PR for the CMS systems and hosting companies for sure! This does not impact the sites that took part, it impacts companies that did not take part! Super move there...
bjames wrote:
Yeah, cool for the CMS systems and hosting companies that get the random black eye for months or years with the left over "site hacked using WordPress on this hosting company... down for 24 hours!" Great PR for the CMS systems and hosting companies for sure! This does not impact the sites that took part, it impacts companies that did not take part! Super move there...
well yeah, i mean clearly, wordpress was considered unhackable prior to this. 
John,
This will be my only post at macheist. I cannot even begin to tell you how annoyed I was to read of this. As someone who spends a few hours a week hacking php/cms sites in my spare time, I think I speak for a lot of folks when I write:
I DO NOT APPRECIATE HAVING MY TIME WASTED.
I spent quite a few hours this past weekend tweaking backups, examining logs, and checking WP code to see if any of my code/sites could be vulnerable. I have already expressed my displeasure to MT for playing along with Glenn and rest assured that I will be writing each and every developer participating in your silly contest to let them know what I think of your PR skills.
Regards,
Graham
bjames wrote:
Yeah, cool for the CMS systems and hosting companies that get the random black eye for months or years with the left over "site hacked using WordPress on this hosting company... down for 24 hours!" Great PR for the CMS systems and hosting companies for sure! This does not impact the sites that took part, it impacts companies that did not take part! Super move there...
Malcor never said he used any CMS/hosting company vulnerabilities to hack the sites. I always pictured malcor more as a social engineer then a wordpress exploit finder... he is good at working people over. This would have been a key plot thing later in MH II had things gone as planned.
Remember, the most vulnerable part of the security equation is people.
So obviously you missed my point completely...
scottm wrote:
bjames wrote:
Yeah, cool for the CMS systems and hosting companies that get the random black eye for months or years with the left over "site hacked using WordPress on this hosting company... down for 24 hours!" Great PR for the CMS systems and hosting companies for sure! This does not impact the sites that took part, it impacts companies that did not take part! Super move there...
Malcor never said he used any CMS/hosting company vulnerabilities to hack the sites. I always pictured malcor more as a social engineer then a wordpress exploit finder... he is good at working people over. This would have been a key plot thing later in MH II had things gone as planned.
Remember, the most vulnerable part of the security equation is people.
Umm yeah, "malcor" may not have but did you not figure people would link the "hacking" of the site with the software powering them, nor the lack of ability of the hosting companies to "fix" the sites until "malcor" allowed them to?!? So you start having people guessing, and blogging about the how/what and why... people thinking are my sites vulnerable (look just two posts ago in this very thread), and running to their CMS providers and hosting providers going "they got hacked, are we safe?" So indeed you did cause this, even without "malcor" mentioning things on his own, people assume, and then panic, then post it across the web as fact... hence the actual people and companies impacted, not your site or the Mac/Apple related site you "hacked"... Typical lack of thought into cause and effect from your actions.
Last edited by bjames (November 28, 2007 1:32 am)
bjames wrote:
Umm yeah, "malcor" may not have but did you not figure people would link the "hacking" of the site with the software powering them, nor the lack of ability of the hosting companies to "fix" the sites until "malcor" allowed them to?!? So you start having people guessing, and blogging about the how/what and why... people thinking are my sites vulnerable (look just two posts ago in this very thread), and running to their CMS providers and hosting providers going "they got hacked, are we safe?" So indeed you did cause this, even without "malcor" mentioning things on his own, people assume, and then panic, then post it across the web as fact... hence the actual people and companies impacted, not your site or the Mac/Apple related site you "hacked"...
Hence the apology in my post. Did you miss that part?
No, but I highly doubt every reference to these hacks across the net are going to magically get cross-references back to this apology either. Hence my reference to the black eye that will last for months or years within Google searches finding original "hacked" news stories with no follow-ups. Anyway, its all fun and games right...
I think the initial idea was pretty cool, but you shouldn't have made him as nerdy looking and evil. You should have made it more obvious that it could be part of a game. As in you should have had slicker designs, a real website for Malcor, etc.
My first and only post on these forums, I bought the last mac heist package but will by nothing else from this disreputable company.
You arseholes wasted everybody's time with a cheap stunt that made a lot of hosting firms look bad. Further more you actually encouraged many mac haters to think it's 'ok' to hack Mac sites.
Disgraceful.
I have to agree. Why would anyone say they want to be involved with MH2 now!? I cant believe the people who said they are looking forward to it off the back of recent revelations.
I would also baulk at the idea Indie developers would want to be associated with this project now.
It also cost me real time in my workplace checking a few things out.
So.. uh. Seeing as Malcor was a huge part of mission 1, does this mean that MH is going to be delayed?
Query wrote:
So.. uh. Seeing as Malcor was a huge part of mission 1, does this mean that MH is going to be delayed?
Haha, it wouldn't be MacHeist if it wasn't, right?
I'm less opposed to this idea now that I see it was for MacHeist and the whole charade was going to be revealed eventually. I didn't like the idea that it was all for traffic to the sites.
Nah, the hacker was a pretty cool character in the story, but not a completely necessary one. We'll have to modify some stuff I guess, but nothing too serious. Don't worry guys... it'll be good.
I accept your apology. Although it definitely got out of hand, if I had seen this plan before it happened, I probably wouldn't have expected this either... Excited for MacHeist 2, hopefully it won't be delayed from its December 7th launch (In the other thread, definetheline posted that he had sources that confirmed both that, and that MacHeist was behind the malcor attacks, he was accurate on one point, why not the other?)
Well, I expect no mistakes on the Macheist 3 front. Right?