Hello all! You can check recent updates for more details, but here is the month's biggest news in a nutshell: I'm back in the driver's seat at HonestGamers and the site has a new look with a lot of revisions to existing features (as well as a few new ones).
While continuing to modify the site since the launch of its new version (just small tweaks here and there that will make it run better, which most of you will never have reason to notice), I ran into a lot of activity from bots. I have taken steps to stomp that out where I could, but crawlers and bots are part of how the internet works now. The site is now built to prevent endless scraping, but the old version hadn't taken as many measures.
For that reason, I'm suggesting that you update your account password. And if you have used that same password at other sites around the internet, I would advise you to update those passwords, as well.
To be clear, I have found nothing to indicate there has been any unauthorized access since the prior event we knew about in 2016. Additionally, you may have heard about recent security issues affecting many sites on the internet that use PHP, as HonestGamers does. I applied recommended fixes the same day the site's new host reported the security risk.
Most passwords were hashed after the 2016 event that I notified users about at that time, and all passwords currently stored in the database are hashed. Even so, I think an abundance of caution is in order. We should all be changing our passwords at least yearly, and probably more often than that. In a case where a site has just switched servers and gone through such a substantial revamp, all while being swarmed with bots, I believe it makes sense to take extra precautions even though I have no reason to believe they are necessary in this case.
With that news out of the way, I wanted to mention one other thing: historic site traffic records.
Since much of that traffic came from bots, I have retired the old data. As far as I'm concerned, it was meaningless because there was no way to differentiate between human and bot traffic. The site now does a much better job of NOT counting bots. New numbers are much more reliable. But the big numbers on the leaderboard on the Users page have been reset to 0 and begun counting anew. The numbers you see there now, and on your individual submissions when you follow the "Your submissions" link, are as accurate as I can make them.
This is a time for a new chapter for the site, one that builds on the rich history that came before while allowing us to have more fun celebrating games in the months and years to come. Thank you all for being here, and let's keep playing and writing about games!
While continuing to modify the site since the launch of its new version (just small tweaks here and there that will make it run better, which most of you will never have reason to notice), I ran into a lot of activity from bots. I have taken steps to stomp that out where I could, but crawlers and bots are part of how the internet works now. The site is now built to prevent endless scraping, but the old version hadn't taken as many measures.
For that reason, I'm suggesting that you update your account password. And if you have used that same password at other sites around the internet, I would advise you to update those passwords, as well.
To be clear, I have found nothing to indicate there has been any unauthorized access since the prior event we knew about in 2016. Additionally, you may have heard about recent security issues affecting many sites on the internet that use PHP, as HonestGamers does. I applied recommended fixes the same day the site's new host reported the security risk.
Most passwords were hashed after the 2016 event that I notified users about at that time, and all passwords currently stored in the database are hashed. Even so, I think an abundance of caution is in order. We should all be changing our passwords at least yearly, and probably more often than that. In a case where a site has just switched servers and gone through such a substantial revamp, all while being swarmed with bots, I believe it makes sense to take extra precautions even though I have no reason to believe they are necessary in this case.
With that news out of the way, I wanted to mention one other thing: historic site traffic records.
Since much of that traffic came from bots, I have retired the old data. As far as I'm concerned, it was meaningless because there was no way to differentiate between human and bot traffic. The site now does a much better job of NOT counting bots. New numbers are much more reliable. But the big numbers on the leaderboard on the Users page have been reset to 0 and begun counting anew. The numbers you see there now, and on your individual submissions when you follow the "Your submissions" link, are as accurate as I can make them.
This is a time for a new chapter for the site, one that builds on the rich history that came before while allowing us to have more fun celebrating games in the months and years to come. Thank you all for being here, and let's keep playing and writing about games!
"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality
"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world
"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world