Can someone post that temporary site (fics2.freechess.org port 23) on the fics facebook group? It works fine and will be quite suitable until FICS comes back up if people will get there, and there are a lot of people moping around the facebook group. I'm not a member of the group and can't post (and I don't want to be a member of the group because of reasons).

I too have become a big fan of chess.com, and I don't play on FICS anymore either. However I do not see this thread as the appropriate place to debate their respective merits. Regardless of whether FICS is your personally preferred location for internet chess, I think you should be able to agree that its existence, and its commitment to providing a free place to play chess online, is admirable, and that this attack on the server is unfortunate. So let's not have any further discussion in this thread about other servers, and the relative merits thereof. And certainly let's not use this thread as a place to criticize FICS.

This thread is about the FICS Hostile Takeover, the efforts being made to restore the site*, temporary alternatives (for people who DO prefer to play at FICS, but currently can't), and other directly related topics.

*And I would like to offer major kudos to the people who are working so hard on this. I too played for many years on FICS when I was a student (and "free" meant a lot more to me than it does now.) It's a great service and community, and I really appreciate the work that you are willing to put in to maintaining it and attempting to restore it.

Received a message from chaostheory today :

there are good news and bad news regarding the server outage. the bad news is that it will last for about a week. the good news is that very little damage was done by the hacker. (...)

another good news for those of us who are addicted, is that you can now connect to the FICS backup server:

connect to fics2.freechess.org, and use port 5000

FICS2 runs from a backup made tuesday the 16th. Please keep in mind that no activity (games, ratings, messages, etc.) from this temporary server will be transferred back to the real FICS, once it has been brought back online. Note also that the FICS email systems (support, abuse, etc.) will not be working until FICS resumes normal operation. the temporary server also has limited bandwidth but is good for chatting and playing casual games.

obviously the bots, including mamer, will be unavailable. (...)

see you on FICS2

regards
chaostheory

ty for the info Gorgonian

I get this message when trying to connect with raptor:

Connecting to fics2.freechess.org 5000 with timeseal ... Error: java.net.UnknownHostException: fics2.freechess.org


So... how do I get on the temp server?

try port 23

Try With Thief or Jin. In my case my ISP has blocked the port 5000 (I don not know why) and I connect trough port 23.

I couldn't connect with Raptor or Jin either but can with Babas on port 23 (use advanced options).

Server is unsurprisingly very slow but there are regulars here (mostly to chat) anyway

Thank you Gorgonian and Chessty and everyone else who has worked to keep FICS going for so many years. I have played about 25000 games over 18 years or so after leaving the parent site before I had to pay. If there is anything that I can do now to help let me know.

toe

Tx Gorgonian.... chessbroker here... pp

wonder when it will be up and running again.. on chess.com now.l

Such a low crime to do that to a free server with no commercials whatsoever... I hope they go to jail.

and tx to everyone who runs the site and tries to get it up again. thumbs up.

Crazy to hear; hope FICS gets things back up and running soon. I haven't played there in a while, but have fond memories.

I still cannot figure out how to login to the backup site? How do I change ports to either 5000 or 23?

In BabasChess in the "connect" menu press "advanced" then uncheck "default" and add the adrdess and the port.

Things seem to be going their way. On a more official tone, news 1506 on alternate server is :

1506 (Fri, Jul 19) FICS was compromised.

The FICS Chess Server was compromised on July 18, 2013, and it had to be shut down. Until it can be repaired, this temporary copy of FICS will be available for use. Please keep in mind that no activity (games, ratings, messages, etc.) from this temporary server will be transferred back to the real FICS, once it has been brought back online. We don't have an expected date for the return of the real FICS, but most likely it won't be before Friday, July 26, 2013. Note also that the FICS email systems (support, abuse, etc.) will not be working until FICS resumes normal operation.

Posted by mattuc.

This is very suspicious. Type "FICS" into Google; I could swear that there are fewer references to the chess server today than there were before the hacking event.

And why is the freechess.org website not working? The server itself may have some sensitive data, but the website itself always seemed somewhat basic. Why hasn't someone left a "service will be restored soon" message, or something to that effect? Certainly it can't be too difficult to restore the basic webfront?

If I were working on the server, I'd want everyone to know that it would be back ASAP. Instead, there's only this lousy thread. There's really very little else on the web that indicates that it will be back in any other form than fics2.

FICS is back up.

FICS is back.

However some babaschess users (and others) might have a problem using timeseal (I can't connect using timeseal). If this happens log without it (using advanced connect options) but don't count on playing blitz.

I hope this will be solved very soon !

Try connecting with the IP address instead of "freechess.org"

They patched the server to attempt to fix the problems with babaschess+timeseal. Appears to have worked.

FICS staff is now discussing removing bughouse support from the server because of not only this recent hacking attack being by a disgruntled bughouse player, but a long history of abuse and general horrible behavior from the bughouse "community" there.

I hope they do.

Wouldn't it be better for humanity to just remove bughouse players entirely...?

yes. 1000 times yes.

That's pretty dumb.