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submitted by NyteFlower
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TL;DR in summary, a known hacker has been put in the tech staff of FA, known for installing backdoors and stealing user data from multiple projects he's made / worked on. The post details these events and some other things about current problems in FA.

EDIT : http://i.imgur.com/gulMdlu.jpg I made this last night and posted it around, I don't like it but it may be easier to read?

EDIT 2 : Do you have questions you'd like to ask but don't want to get lost in the comments here? My personal skype is Rowedahelicon and I'll answer anything you need regarding this topic, I welcome those who oppose as I may be able to help shed some light.

Hello, I'm writing to this board today in regards to a series of problems that have been going on over the last few months involving Furaffinity and its management.

I'm going to detail a lot of facts here, and it's very important that each part is read. Before I start, let me assure you I am not trying to get anyone to leave Furaffinity, nor am I trying to start drama. I am speaking to you as a concerned individual and I insist you hear me out. That being said, let us begin.

Furaffinity has had a history of problems regarding management, technical issues, and an equal history of those trying to fix them only to give up or fail for some reason or another, either drama ensued or they weren't accepted.

A month ago, a massive DDOS took place on Furaffinity that lasted for a few days. Hours before it began, a gofundme was started (But not announced) asking for 25K USD in donations. During the events of the DDOS, Dragoneer had stated the Gofundme being made on the same day was simply a coincidence and that it was meant to be posted later for more news regarding Project Phoenix.

https://twitter.com/WilliamcaFox/status/523234904629604352 (Williamca announces that the Gofundme was made before the DDOS started)

https://twitter.com/WilliamcaFox/status/523233079616610304 (Williamca gets confirmation of the time it started.)

http://www.reddit.com/r/furry/comments/2jk5mv/breaking_furaffinity_fundraiser_page_created/clcj66p (Dragoneer writes here)

that the"Chase and Sciggles had convinced me to hold off and wait for Phoenix's launch (and I agreed to that).

==

Another thing of interest, if the money isn't related to the DDOS at all, but is instead needed to help out the site, why is some of it promised to Sofurry?

https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/523204272016486400

"And yes, I'll help out SoFurry. Why? They don't deserve this. Nobody does. We're a fucking community. We will stand as one, god damn it."

But why doesn't Weasyl, Inkbunny, or E621 get any? They were also hit by the DDOS.

https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/523237412420734976

But it makes sense considering Dragoneer seems to have a good fascination with Sofurry https://twitter.com/search?q=%40dragoneer%20sofurry&src=typd

**https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/11762820267 "Seriously. If you don't like FA... go to SoFurry and Furocity. They're run by good people. Nobody holds you to one site."

https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/7075165344 "Yiffstar has emerged from its cocoon, and #sofurry (www.sofurry.com) is now live. Congrats, @toumal! GO FEESH!"

https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/523299757050310656 "Fa's back up, but SoFurry's still down. Go give @toumal some motivational cheer. I know the pain he's going through. Fish needs love!"

https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/375619925395513344 "Don't hate SoFurry. Hate the mod who mis-spoke, not the site. Toumal is good guy who has my respect. Mistakes happen."

https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/356254939724517376 "@boko6565 I'm completely willing to partner and assist other communities to better the ENTIRE community - be it FA, SoFurry, cons, etc."**

==

Moving on, what's next?

A few days ago, a journal post is made mentioning that there is a new tech lead, Starrykitty!

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/starrykitten

The most important part of this journal is this quote "starrykitten is joining the Dev/Ops team to help us better organize our tech efforts, improve site performance, answer tech/bug-related tickets and bring more transparency to what we're doing (all good stuff that's sorely overdue)."

Transparency

So let's start with Starrykitty himself, who is it? Well originally the account was made just a few days prior so right off the bat things aren't looking so good. Until someone discovers it's a user by the name of Zidonuke >http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Zidonuke

Need proof? He comfirms it here : http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43154957

Who is Zidonuke?

"Zidonuke was a coder and administrator on F-List, but was banned in February 2011 after spying on users through the use of a TCP dumper.[12] Once discovered, he gave all users administrator access, removed bans, and published the site's code online. F-List Administration spent 5 days restoring the site entirely from backups.[13][14]"

https://www.f-list.net/newspost/158/

Zidonuke has a history of conflicting hacking exploits that has garnered him some problems and distrust with projects and people he has worked with,[7][8][9] such as Pokémon World Online[4][10][11] and Second Life, were he was banned by Linden Labs after reporting and exploiting various security issues with Vivox,[citation needed] a voice service in use by Second Life.

http://pastebin.com/6B8qmdAS

http://www.reddit.com/r/starbound/comments/1uueka/the_starrybound_mod_has_been_pulled_from_our/

http://www.terrariaonline.com/threads/if-youre-using-tmod-or-know-someone-who-is-read-this-immediately.34616/

http://s667.photobucket.com/user/beansta2k7/media/Untitled-1.png.html

http://pwo-wiki.info/index.php?title=Pok%C3%A9mon_World_Online (On July 18th, 2011, a newly appointed PWO developer, Zidonuke (promoted July 14, 2011), deleted PWO's data and server-side coding. The issue began when he became frustrated with criticism from the community through the IRC, and attempted to delete the channel. He also attempted to enforce a rule that prohibited staff from joining the channel lest they be banned from all facets of PWO. [1] However, due to great opposition from the community, he revoked his actions. As consequence to his behavior, he was banned from the chat room. However, he continued to communicate with the channel through other means, even though it was unwanted by most of the channel users. This constant, negative communication continued to put a strain between Zidonuke and the community.}

So in a post about transparency, they fail to mention that they've put a known hacker with a history of problems in the tech lead for FA. Dragoneer has yet to comment, but what does Starry say?

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43155642

"Dragoneer was my next door neighbor and is my co-worker. We interact daily. I have absolutely 0 chance of performing abuse to this website. He was well aware of my history and who I was a long time ago. I've actually been a hidden admin on the FA staff for over a year now. Take it all you want people, but really I'm not wasting my time with you all since you are all pretty openly anti-FA even before I came about."

I've actually been a hidden admin on the FA staff for over a year now.

And also, >you are all pretty openly anti-FA

Except the comments in the journal reflect people asking questions rather than being "Anti FA", wanted to get an answer is not the same outright being against something.

So while you're probably siding with some comments saying this time will be different and people can change, might I direct you to some screenshots from last night.

http://i.imgur.com/GYpj1iY.png (Starry claims to have stopped but is seen logged in just days ago) Via http://www.hackforums.net/ (You need an account to read it)

http://i.imgur.com/zGqREob.png (Starry watched some of the people who openly talked problems with him in the journal last night, as of today he's unwatched them all.)

http://i.imgur.com/Jc5ZvH1.png (A short while after the comments began, they all vanished and where hidden.)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2nGQuoIUAARgJ6.jpg (The reason for the missing comments and the suddenly lack of comment power was due to "performance issues"

However as of right now https://trello.com/c/TvkK2Zim/72-fender-journal-comments-were-causing-performance-issues-and-had-to-be-disabled the entire card is now gone but in the history you will see

StarryKitten deleted card #72 from Completed.

today at 1:28 pm

http://i.imgur.com/4dNYqcI.png (These are the names that were being watched by Starry until earlier this afternoon.)

==

As of right now, the journal comments have been restored for your viewing proof which is why I directly linked to all of them from here, should it go down again, you can see a backed up version here : https://aldude999.net/cache/starrykitten.html

==

Even more!

Remember the hardware donation drive back in Feb of last year, the servers they desperately needed and bought with donated money, do you know where they are?

https://trello.com/c/a9KTMfJd/38-enable-master-slave-replication-from-finn-jake

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149631

It's never even been activated, good use of your money right?

==

And while we're looking into things in progress, how is Phoenix doing anyway? https://github.com/FurAffinity/phoenix/graphs/commit-activity

Well, getting somewhere I suppose.

==

So why is all of this important? Let me go down all that for you.

1. Furaffinity is a free website, if you don't like why don't you go elsewhere and leave these people alone?

Well, I already have, I've been using Weasyl myself since before the Ddos, this isn't about me, what about all the artists you care about? Who need FA to make a living and sell their art? Are you going to tell them to leave? FurAffinity has almost twice as many active users compared to weasyl's active users. You can see this at the bottom of each of their home pages. Almost any time someone leaves FA, they have to come back because not a lot of people follow them to the alternative website, whatever that may be.

For comparison status FA : 13468 Users online — 2153 guests and 11315 registered Weasyl : 1102 users active in the last hour; 7346 users active in the last day. Inkbunny : 254,619 Total Members ; 1,992 Active Members in the last Hour ; 18,354 Active Members in the last Day SoFurry : 367,072 Users (Times were from 8:30 PM Eastern Time)

FA is important, it's badly programmed and run but it serves as the main hub for a lot of communication and artwork. It serves a purpose and is relied in by a lot of people as their source of income. Do you think I'm kind of exaggerating that?

https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/523206121926848512 Dragoneer doesn't think so.

https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/523207500611325953 Dragoneer thinks it can be bigger.

2. Well maybe this new guy won't be so bad?

If you look above at how Starry handled people finding out about his secret, you will understand that his reaction to suddenly remove all the posts and watch all the people against him is a precursor to worse things to come.

He should have known that someone with a history like his would have gotten a response like what the community gave him last night. He should know better than to immediately try and silence everyone concerned for their website. What he did isn't right and anyone should be able to understand that.

3. Well what harm can Starry do?

-He's been caught spying on people before. -He caused F-List 5 days of downtime in order for them to undo all of the damage he caused. -He deleted all of the data and accounts from an online game because he was tired of dealing with the community. "I'm sick of you all. I'm dropping the database and deleted the backups" - http://s667.photobucket.com/user/beansta2k7/media/Untitled-1.png.html

Again, I am not trying to rally forth a hate mob, or get anyone upset, but I am asking you all to really read and understand what is happening here and what is at stake should things keep up like this. There are so many events that have taken place on FA that people just accept and forget about because as long as the site works, it's not their problem.

But these things keep getting worse, and nothing is being done to fix these problems. I dare say with the addition to Zinoduke, the risk is much higher than before. The site is still slow, the hardware they bought with your donations is being wasted, money is going places that it shouldn't be, and a community of hard working, readily available people are being ignored in favor of friends of Dragoneer, even when they continue to show they cannot be trusted.

I, like a lot of people here, I'm sure, don't want to see FA die. I do have my own problems with it, but there is only so much I can do on my own. As a community, I think we could really make something happen.

submitted by rowedahelicon
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submitted by WolfRun24
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TigerTails Radio Season 8 Episode 35
The latest episode of TigerTails Radio. For previous episodes, visit http://www.tigertailsradio.co.uk From: TigerTails Radio Views: 22 1 ratings Time: 02:32:11 More in People & Blogs

submitted by tittysmuggler
[link] [7 comments]

submitted by cuddlypants
[link] [26 comments]

submitted by DSTakumiDerp
[link] [5 comments]

Something that gets exhausting as an artist, for me anyways, is that spending more time and effort on a drawing doesn't result in more people noticing, or caring when they notice. I realize I'm not a huge attention-grabbing artist, but when this simple page of sketches (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15022648/ ) gets more attention overnight than this in its lifetime (http://www.furaffinity.net/full/12904474/ ) it gets really disheartening and I don't want to put a lot of effort into pieces anymore. I know there are better artists than me here, so does anyone have similar experiences or advice for dealing with losing motivation to put effort into a drawing?

submitted by Sefris
[link] [30 comments]

So apparently, your personality reflects on your fursone. I'm have trouble find mine. I guess summarizing me is i like to read and is pretty nice sometimes, but i get aggressive when i play competitive games, also i play video games alot too :P. i know this is asking for a lot, but im just seeing what i am. thanks for reading

submitted by Marcadude
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Lack of decent sites? The drama? What do you think one of the biggest faults is?

submitted by DSTakumiDerp
[link] [76 comments]

submitted by Ellen-Natalie
[link] [17 comments]

So yeah, My name is Elliot an I'm a snow leopard from London, England. I first identified myself as a furry a year ago, this subreddit being one of the main reasons I made this account. At first I was a bit shy, but I soon realized what a nice and friendly community this was. I know it's a little late after being here for so long, but as they say, better late than never. :)

submitted by Fudgeface413
[link] [11 comments]

Last week [adjective][species] featured Paper Bag, a short film exploring the furry condition. It is an autobiographical documentary (of sorts), made by and starring Jean-Baptiste Gaudet, aka Panda Man.

I interviewed JB about Paper Bag, talking about the structure and content of the film, his relationship with Panda Man, and—of course—the contents of the paper bag itself.

We also have a short one-page comic to share, that acts as a companion piece to Paper Bag:

Click through to image source on Fur Affinity

[adjective][species]: I wanted to start by asking about the two-part structure of Paper Bag. You rely on black & white and noir conventions in the first half, before shifting to high-contrast colour and narrative immediacy in the second half. The change coincides with the detective’s discovery that he is fictional. Can you tell us a little about your reasons for structuring the film in this way?

JB Gaudet: It is a student film I made at the end of my third and final year of Bachelor’s degree. First year was mostly theory, 2nd year was focused on fiction and 3rd year was focused on documentaries. I was therefore asked to make a documentary and that… didn’t suit me. At all. I like watching some from time to time but I had neither the will nor desire to direct one. But I had to make one. So I asked myself “how can I make a film that could feel like a documentary and could be considered like one while it actually was pure fiction”.

Then I saw this. The video that justified the return of the Nostalgia Critic and explained what relationship Doug Walker had with his character. I realised I had something similar but with my Fursona “Panda Man” through the stories I wrote. So I decided, like Doug Walker, to arrange a meeting between my character and me. Since he was a private detective, the best way was to send him on an investigation on me.

I chose black and white for the first part because it’s all from the point of view of the character who is a pure Film Noir archetype and color for the 2nd part which is from my point of view. And so, there is first a fiction that leads to documentary about myself and my relationship between a fictional character and I and how we look at and face reality.

The color scheme is simple in that regard. Since Panda Man is a private detective and a classical Film Noir figure, black and white was an obvious choice for his part as it set the right mood and an easily recognisable visual code for most viewers. When Panda Man disappears and leaves me alone, he becomes the voice of the camera that I talk directly to and since the “fiction” has left the movie, all that is left is me and therefore the colors of reality coming back. The high contrast is not a conscious choice, I am color blind and I trusted my friends on this but they told it reflected my hypersensitive state in the “face camera confession shot”.

[a][s]: It’s interesting that you say that Panda Man is a classical film noir figure, when he also represents a version of yourself. It is common for furries to try hard to create something unique about their fursona beyond just the species, whereas Panda Man is closer to a simple archetype. Did you make him a simpler character for the film?

JB: Indeed. That’s because unlike in the stories of my FA gallery he isn’t personally concerned by the events or the story, so he appears more like a plot tool than a real character. But that’s only because he doesn’t have the time to express complex thoughts, he’s onscreen for less than 5 minutes whereas I am for over 10 minutes.

[a][s]: It seems like the switch from black & white to colour signals a switch from the ‘imaginary’ part of the film to the ‘real’ part of the film. Panda Man largely disappears for the second half, and the story becomes directly personal, a truer exploration of your own feelings.

I wonder if you feel it is a weakness to have two identities – Panda Man and JB? Does Panda Man exist so you don’t have to face the reality of being yourself?

JB: It’s not a weakness to me, he’s more of a shield that helps me trudge and face reality. I’d prefer to be strong enough to face it head on like a strong lone wolf but since I can’t do that, rather than not advancing, I prefer his help to being helpless.

[a][s]: Who do you personally prefer: the cool, lone-wolf narcissist of Panda Man, or the introspective and complex JB?

JB: Panda Man. He always knows what to do, how and where to go. I don’t.

[a][s]: Over time, have you become more like Panda Man? Has Panda Man become more like you?

JB: I have become more like him, less ashamed of existing and less afraid of showing off my talents.

Panda Man has become more detailed and more complex as a character but has never started to resemble me. He has always been like an archetype, easily recognisable, uncorruptible and unchangeable.

[a][s]: I was chatting with a furry researcher recently, talking about the differences between character and self: the closer each of us are to our furry character in personality, the happier we are likely to be.

I wonder if you have observed this – as you have become more like Panda Man, have you become a happier person?

JB: I have indeed. I fall back into “depression” whenever I lose my job or don’t have any plans/projects which is totally different to how Panda Man would act. He never lets himself go.

[a][s]: In the first half Paper Bag, Panda Man is quite dismissive about certain traits he discovers about you – I guess those are the sorts of things that might make you fall back into “depression”.

But among the negative things he discovers—overweight, poor little rich boy, inability to finish projects, lack of friends, etc—he also discovers your homosexuality. Panda Man seems to be negative about that as well. I wonder if that is a deliberate choice?

JB: He’s critical about it but not negative.

After the first call with me, he thinks he’s figured it all out: a gay couple case of jealousy. It is linked to France’s recent acceptance of gay marriage over 2 or 3 years ago and just means that, it´s not because gays can marry that marital disputes won’t appear. Since straights have gone through such things in the past, they’re “used” to it. It is commonplace. Gays don’t and they will do the same backstabbing divorce shit when divorcing like it was new.

And the thing he’s critical about isn’t homosexuality itself but more my relationship toward what being gay means in France in 2013 and the details that still bother me about it when they shouldn’t. Mostly how I still have to hide to whom I can say it to because they might be homophobes and unaccepting.

[a][s]: Paper Bag is different from most furry films because it explores furry as it relates to identity exploration. Other furry-made short films have tended to just be dramatic stories that happen to involve anthropomorphic characters, e.g. Bitter Lake or Kaze Ghost Warrior.

I was wondering if you could talk about the furry aspects of Paper Bag, and talk about how you’re being different from those other films while still being ‘furry’.

JB: I think Paper Bag is different from others because it doesn’t use the furry fandom or furryness as plot device or an excuse for a pointless/cliche/predictable/formulaic movie. And as you said it explores the question of self identity through the fursona. The fursona not the fandom. The deeply personal aspect of this movie I think makes this movie works so well and explores the very old question “who am I?” in a previously unexplored/little known way.

[a][s]: In the second half of the film, did you consider having Panda Man appear as an anthro character (rather than a human) once his true nature was revealed?

JB: No, I didn’t.

[a][s]: I wanted to ask about the paper bag itself. You mentioned in an earlier conversation that an early draft of the film revealed its contents, but you decided to change that in the final version. Can you talk a bit about why you made that decision?

JB: It was during a reading of the script that my script doctor and friend Grégoire Cutzach advised me not to because it would be best to leave people guessing what the hell is hidden in the paper bag and putting what THEY wanted in it. The mystery, he said, is more suggestive than the Truth.

The advice was sound and coherent so I listened to him.

[a][s]: Finally, it is the contents of the paper bag that are the reason you’ll “end up single”. It’s a bit of a downer, and also a bit surprising given that you come across in the film as honest, disarming, and actually rather charming.

I imagine that the contents must be something to be hidden below everything else: the homosexuality, the furry alter ego, etc. Must you always hide something from the world, in order to be able to exist in it?

JB: Thank you for the compliments. (^_^)

It is something entirely hidden indeed. And yes because there are things we choose to consider “private”. And what is private is either something you keep to yourself or tell to the few friends close and trustworthy enough. And the reason they are private is that the world won’t accept, doesn’t want to deal with or simply doesn’t care about them.

The contents of the bag are private but weighted so heavily on my mind it justified the writing and making of the movie. I needed to express myself about it and the movie was the outlet I needed. Except those who worked on the movie with me, no one knows nor guessed the content of the bag. Hearing what other people would put in it helped me came to terms with its content.

submitted by Shadycat
[link] [18 comments]

♬Because I’m Tacky!!! ♬

 

submitted by blackminorscales
[link] [1 comment]

Author: Hello, Papabear, it’s me again.  For these last 2 weeks I been feeling very upset about something in the furry fandom. I feel like the artwork in the fandom can overshadow everything else in the fandom, like writing. Now I’m not really mad at artists, but it really burns me up when furs go […]

Dear god! Where have you been, Furballd?! We’ve missed you so much…I think?

This week, the Furballd crew return after the Uni hiatus to bring you the giggles, the squiggles and the wiggles of what’s been going on during the break.  We give you guys the rundown of what we’ve been playing, watching and doing; while being some crazy, funny peeps at the same time.  Plus we give away some free stuff!  So listen in to know how to win.

If you have any news stories, topic suggestions or general fun stuff for us that you want read on air, send it along to furballdletters@gmail.com, or check out our Facebook and Twitter pages.  Also go to our Patreon page if you want to support us with cash-money.

It’s good to be back.  Bye for now, but not forever!

This week’s song is “Cleaning Out Axis” by Midee.  You can find the song on OCRemix here.

News!

Here is a list of news that was sent in to us by Wolfman (dudebroguypersonmatefreind) 74:

Vagina cookies for school kids!

Red Bull gets sued for being shit!

Woman uses a potato as a cock block!

Man attempts to run across the ocean in a bubble!

Man kills friend for poking his wife on Facebook!

Boob truck causes car crashes!

Auzzie man drive a plane to a pub!

 

 

Episode 78 – Comeback - Dear god! Where have you been, Furballd?! We've missed you so much...I think? - This week, the Furballd crew return after the Uni hiatus to bring you the giggles, the squiggles and the wiggles of what's been going on during the break.

submitted by Tomiix
[link] [3 comments]

I know I've posted this before, but I'm posting again to get a new and (hopefully) bigger set of responses, I love hearing your stories!

Even if you've only been a mascot or have suited for a business or charity event once, I'd love to hear about it!

I'm also hoping to become the UCONN mascot when I (also hopefully) start there next year. Any advice would be appreciated, as well.

submitted by Infamous0823
[link] [10 comments]