Category of short stories not visible unless logged in?

[Radrook]

Forum URL: varietygalore.boards.net/


I just found that the entire category of short stories is not visible to persons not logged in?  I never established that criterion. I only made one section Private Stories, inaccessible. If it shows otherwise it was not me.  

[Michael]

Hi Radrook,

The entire category "My Writings" is set as a hidden category. Hidden categories will not appear to anyone. Additionally this category is only accessible to staff.

[Radrook]

Jan 31, 2023 16:12:24 GMT -8 Michael said:

Hi Radrook ,

The entire category "My Writings" is set as a hidden category. Hidden categories will not appear to anyone. Additionally this category is only accessible to staff.

 I will restore it to how I originally set it. If it returns to private viewing only, then I guess my computer is compromised. 

[Kami]

Feb 1, 2023 7:16:33 GMT -8 Radrook said:

Jan 31, 2023 16:12:24 GMT -8 Michael said:

Hi Radrook ,

The entire category "My Writings" is set as a hidden category. Hidden categories will not appear to anyone. Additionally this category is only accessible to staff.

 I will restore it to how I originally set it. If it returns to private viewing only, then I guess my computer is compromised. 

So, I've been seeing several threads from you as of late saying your account or computer must be compromised due to your forum's settings not being what you intended them to be.

I am not doubting you, but this sort of activity does make me curious as to the source. When you check your security log to see when and who made these changes, do they come from your account? And if they do, does the IP or IPs associated with the account at the time these actions were taken match your other activity that you know for sure to be yours?

It's very unusual for a bad actor to compromise a single computer or single account to make small, effectively irrelevant (in that you can change the settings back, and the forum as a whole is still standing) changes to a single forum if they've managed to compromise an entire system.

I wonder if perhaps you live with other folks, or have inadvertently left yourself logged in on another device that's shared, or something of that nature? That is, if the IP associated with your account at the time the settings were switched to something else match other legitimate actions your account has taken.

If however, you discover that the IP associated with your account when these actions were made is different from the IP shown on legitimate actions, your account could very well be compromised.

[Radrook]

Thanks for the information. I attempted to set all my stories back on visible to everyone except for the private category which does not appear under my writings categories.  In short, I am unable to make the category containing stories I wish to maintain private-as private.

I tried to remedy this by trying to shift all the stories under private to a  category that I limited access to. But could not do so as a bundle and would need to do so one at a time. A very tedious procedure.  iSo I have opted to simply place all the writing categories on private until I can figure out away to make the private category really private or else gradually shift the stories to a private  category.

.  I use the private category compose new stories, to store anthologies, and keep stories that I don't want published.  When I finish a story in the private category, I might shift it to the viewable writing category under short stories. But since the system I believed was working isn't working, I will need to figure it out. 


As for tampering, well, I don't live with anyone, have no visitors, and the only who have access to my apartment are the maintenance people and management. I don't think it could be them. In any case, I will try to follow your advice and check the internet provider numbers during the times that the changes were made. I am not too proficient in doing such things. But I will try. Thanks for trying to help.

[Scott]

Radrook -

One thing I noticed that you might consider changing, is that you have two categories with the same name: "My Writings". It's generally best practice not use the same name when naming categories or boards. It can easily lend to taking action on the wrong category/board.

Your stories (i.e. threads) can be moved in bulk from one board to another. Viewing the board (the thread list) as you mouse-over each thread a checkbox appears to the left of the thread title. Tick the checkbox for each thread you wish to move and then under the Actions dropdown select Moderate > Move > Entire Thread. In the Move Thread pop-up dialog, select the board to move the threads to and click the Move Thread button.


My take from reading your last post above is that the issue may be getting the permissions sorted to your liking. In general, since you have no other staff members on your forum, setting the permissions for view and access to "staff" will prevent other members and/or guests from viewing the content. Setting a category to "hidden" without setting a permission will allow others to view the content within the category if they have the URL to the hidden category and the board permissions allow it.

Remember that as an admin, other than a category set to hidden, you will see all the content on the forum. This does not necessary reflect what visitors or members see. If you'd like we'd be happy to review any permission settings to confirm that are set as expected for viewing/access.

[Kami]

Feb 1, 2023 7:52:08 GMT -8 Radrook said:

Thanks for the information. I attempted to set all my stories back on visible to everyone except for the private category which does not appear under my writings categories.  In short, I am unable to make the category containing stories I wish to maintain private-as private.

I tried to remedy this by trying to shift all the stories under private to a  category that I limited access to. But could not do so as a bundle and would need to do so one at a time. A very tedious procedure.  iSo I have opted to simply place all the writing categories on private until I can figure out away to make the private category really private or else gradually shift the stories to a private  category.

.  I use the private category compose new stories, to store anthologies, and keep stories that I don't want published.  When I finish a story in the private category, I might shift it to the viewable writing category under short stories. But since the system I believed was working isn't working, I will need to figure it out.


As for tampering, well, I don't live with anyone, have no visitors, and the only who have access to my apartment are the maintenance people and management. I don't think it could be them. In any case, I will try to follow your advice and check the internet provider numbers during the times that the changes were made. I am not too proficient in doing such things. But I will try. Thanks for trying to help.

If you want to spend some 1:1 time with me via PMs, we can try to sort things out (using screenshots and stuff to make sure that your settings are exactly how they need to be to accomplish what you want to accomplish). Absolutely zero obligation to do so, just thought I'd offer if you were interested.

If you don't know where your security log is, it's in your admin panel, under the "Security" tab in the top right menu (first option). Any actions like changing board settings will 100% for sure be logged here, and there are filter options so you can specifically look for just "Board Log > Edits" or "Category Log > Edits".  If you do this, you can compare the changes you know for sure you made, versus the changes that set your board in a way you did not intend.





There are several possibilities here, since you mentioned you don't have anyone else sharing your living space or device, in no particular order:

1. Someone has specifically compromised your device. This is the least likely because if someone has compromised an entire device to enable them to 'share' your IP, it's far more likely they would commit much more troublesome acts such as stealing banking information or gaining access to more critical accounts, like email or credit cards, than just make some inconvenient changes to a single forum.

2. The settings are accurate to what you set them to, but the settings are not behaving in the manner you would expect. I don't know how likely this is, since if I recall correctly you've been using PB for some time, but there's a non-zero chance of this being the case so I'm including it to cover all bases. An indicator of this case being true would be is if a category or board does not behave in the manner you expect, but there are 0 logs in the "edit" filter of either category or board security logs; if this happens, that means the setting was there from the creation of that board or category.

3. Someone has access to your account from another device / IP. This would imply that someone was able to crack your password and gain access to your admin account. It's not impossible, even if you have a secure password, for it to be cracked. To err on the side of caution, changing your password both to your ProBoards account & your email associated with ProBoards would be a smart move.

The best way to determine for sure is to keep an eye on the security log: if anything else happens to your forum that is a confusing result, or not what you had intended to occur, check your security log ASAP and compare your current IP address (you can look it up somewhere like whatsmyip.com) with any recent actions**

** Note that you may also have a dynamic IP, so you can check past actions you KNOW you made for sure, to compare to the current IP. If they're the same, then your IP is static; if they're different, you have a dynamic IP, but any actions taken within the same time you are online in that moment should be the same IP (let me know if that line doesn't make sense).

[Radrook]

Feb 1, 2023 8:56:04 GMT -8 Scott said:

Radrook -

One thing I noticed that you might consider changing, is that you have two categories with the same name: "My Writings". It's generally best practice not use the same name when naming categories or boards. It can easily lend to taking action on the wrong category/board.

Your stories (i.e. threads) can be moved in bulk from one board to another. Viewing the board (the thread list) as you mouse-over each thread a checkbox appears to the left of the thread title. Tick the checkbox for each thread you wish to move and then under the Actions dropdown select Moderate > Move > Entire Thread. In the Move Thread pop-up dialog, select the board to move the threads to and click the Move Thread button.


My take from reading your last post above is that the issue may be getting the permissions sorted to your liking. In general, since you have no other staff members on your forum, setting the permissions for view and access to "staff" will prevent other members and/or guests from viewing the content. Setting a category to "hidden" without setting a permission will allow others to view the content within the category if they have the URL to the hidden category and the board permissions allow it.

Remember that as an admin, other than a category set to hidden, you will see all the content on the forum. This does not necessary reflect what visitors or members see. If you'd like we'd be happy to review any permission settings to confirm that are set as expected for viewing/access.

Yes, suddenly there are two completely empty categories of writing containing no threads nor sub boards. . Please note that I had  the Private and the public writing categories placed all writing categories under the Humanities section. Those two empty categories that lead to the main page and  that are causing confusion are NEW. So once more I get the impression of tampering. In any case, I will delete them with the hope that this will not happen again . Thanks for the assistance.