Expired MEF Certificate

[Tom Phillips]

I got a call from a family member of Steve's today...

Thanks for the info Chuck.
(I didn't want to click on "like" given that information.)

[The Dude]

Yes, thanks for sharing that, Chuck. I'll be hoping for the best. Bad news, but at least it's news.

[DrGonz78]

Well I am not really religious but I still pray. I think as a group we can all pray for him and send our energies.

[Mick Bailey]

Regardless of what happens to this forum, I hope that Steve's problems get resolved and he returns to good health. His continued efforts to maintain this site over the years has truly been incredible - He really is one of the good guys and I wish him well.

[Dave H]

I would like to know your settings for HTTrack as i have a higher access i may be able to grab more.

I didn't change any settings. I just used the defaults.

[Chuck H]

I'd like to share a story... (warning, off topic but intenened te be relative)

When I lived in San Jose, California I used to fish a creek that was on a "reparian strip" coming down from the mountains into the city. The reparian strip aspect means that there was a determined amount of wilderness left alone on either bank of the creek. In this case it was perhaps twenty yards and then only to about three miles from it's headwaters. After that it was a fully suburban creek with county parks and back yards developed right to the high water mark. Thanks for hangin in so far...

This creek had trout in it. This was sort of a game for me when I lived in San Jose. Find overlooked water that held trout I could use a fly rod for. I had tremendous success on this creek. You could literally hop over it in places and very few pools were too deep to wade across. I caught trout averaging eight to ten inches with the occasional fish over a foot long. This is actually considered decent trout fishing. And I found it in the suburban Bay Area!!! But...

What I've since learned is that the whole region is typically drier than it was for the several years I fished that creek and that this drainage had enjoyed ideal conditions for almost two decades before I ever discovered it. I experienced it in it's best incarnation, as good as it's ever been. and it was never as good before I started fishing it and it's almost a dead stream now after the more recent droughts. I will admit I feel especially clever about it since I had such a good experience and never saw another fisherman on this stream. But as it happens it was a fart in the wind. Gone forever now more quickly than it happened.

That's my analogy for this forum. We don't know how things will end up here (or elsewhere in the future) but we were here when it HAPPENED!!! That means more to me than anyone because I have done all my growth in the genre right here on this forum with the help of it's members. I will alwyays have a soft spot for small streams with what other fishrmen might consider mediocre sized trout. And I will try to find streams like that to fish because I love them. And I will hope to keep whatever can remain intact about this forum and it's membership in my own future. I'll work for it in fact. But whatever happens it has been a very important part of my life. I was here when it happened and it has been one of the most important things that has ever happened to me. tboy (Steve Morrison) is the only reason it did. Further, the long perused Enzo posts that exist here, can also be attributed to Steve's dedication over the last twenty seven years. This is no small matter. Things may change. Things may be lost. Life will go on.

I hope to find small streams to fish that feel familiar and dear. And I hope to meet all of you wherever and however we land for the same reasons. But mostly I hope for Steve.

[tedmich]

maybe already covered, but go to a new ingognito window in Chrome and then hiT Advanced and you can log in, tons of pop up ads because UD doent load but you can get on. Hope Tboy get better and someone figures out security certificate crap. CHEERS ALL

[nosaj]

maybe already covered, but go to a new ingognito window in Chrome and then hiT Advanced and you can log in, tons of pop up ads because UD doent load but you can get on. Hope Tboy get better and someone figures out security certificate crap. CHEERS ALL

Well i know what to do but without proper credentials we are stuck as for the cert it has to be renewed (which also requires proper access to a 3rd party company) then uploaded and installed to the mef webserver). If he give up the server I would be willing to take it over as long as we moved it to vBulletin cloud. 360-720 a year. They will take care of all certs backups updates and have a helpdesk for user issues.
nosaj

[soundmasterg]

Late to the party as I couldn't get in here for awhile. At first I thought it was a small bump in the road, someone forgot to renew something etc., but it sounds like Chuck said Steve is having some medical issues. I was worried about that. Steve has been an angel for all of us for so many years. I convinced him to adopt the pickup forum from where it used to be, and also the Sunn forum from where it used to be. Geez that must have been the mid to late 90's I think. I wasn't aware that he didn't want to run the site anymore. I have a Sandy bridge era blade server in my garage that I am setting up and could host it, but have no time, expertise, or money to keep the site running on my own.

I really hope Steve gets back to health soon! Even though he didn't post much we always knew he had our back here. With all the facebook forums the site traffic is down across all forums, not just this one. Car forums, amp and guitar forums, etc. These forums are better as the info is always saved and there for the taking even years later, but facebook scrolls off and then it is lost. The Ted Weber forum is gone too. They still have the info, but it isn't accessible unless they are willing to provide. The Ampage forum used to have people like Randall Aiken, Mike Soldano, and Andy Marshall from THD who would contribute. A lot of great people here still, so I hope it can be saved.

Greg

[Chuck H]

I wasn't aware that he didn't want to run the site anymore.

To be honest that's just an asumption on MY part. Based on some implication but it could still be perception rather than reality. It could be that Steve just has too many priorities to juggle. That happens to all of us.

[Jon Snell]

It would apear I am not the only one with security issues. If one uses a private web browser and agrees to connect, to what to the browser thinks is an 'iffy' web site, it works but not recomended!
There are many secure servers that offer a free certificate but one needs a savvy software guy to sort it out or pay money out for a certificate through a third party seller.

To be honest, I can't be bothered to use a private web browser as it detracts from what I normally do and won't be using this forum again, until it is fixed.

[g1]

It would apear I am not the only one with security issues. If one uses a private web browser and agrees to connect, to what to the browser thinks is an 'iffy' web site, it works but not recomended!
There are many secure servers that offer a free certificate but one needs a savvy software guy to sort it out or pay money out for a certificate through a third party seller.

To be honest, I can't be bothered to use a private web browser as it detracts from what I normally do and won't be using this forum again, until it is fixed.

Jon, with firefox you do not need to use 'private web browser'. See post #18 of this thread.

[Helmholtz]

My problem isn't the browser (Firefox) but my antivirus which likes to log me out every 20 minutes or so.

Also wondering how safe it is to ignore all warnings and constantly re-open a site with an expired safety certificate.

[Tom Phillips]

... wondering how safe it is to ignore all warnings and constantly re-open a site with an expired safety certificate.

I don't think it's a concern for MEF because we aren't buying items on the site using credit cards and our posts are essentially public. For me, I am able to set Firefox to remember the site so that I don't need to log in each time and my antivirus does not do the logout that you are experiencing.

[Mick Bailey]

Before HTTPS became almost universal (which is quite recent), most forum sites operated on HTTP without too many problems. The main security issue is usernames and passwords are relatively easy to grab by malicious types on an open connection. There's no financial gain to be had with most forums, but there could be a consequential issue if you use the same username and password for online banking, email, etc. Also, its unwise to populate personal details such as date of birth on any forum, whether secure or not. There's the question of email addresses, but billions have been hijacked by other means. At present the main issue is one of trusting the MEF forum and verifying its authenticity.

Check your email address - you may find it's already 'out there' https://haveibeenpwned.com/