Stolen Database

[ifitsmedia]

I recently discovered that there is a large forum run by a large company that has thousands of threads and users in their forum which are exact duplicates of my forum.

The users have post counts identical to mine and all the same posts, so it appears they stole my vb database somehow and imported into their forum.

I contacted the admin about this but I have not received a reply.

What should I do in this case?

[Ramsesx]

That's horrible. If someone steals your db and installs it on his site than you really can't expect that he cares for a reply to you. The only chance is that the provider of this site could do something.

[TNCclubman]

is the site on the same server? how would they be able to do that?

[ifitsmedia]

No it is not on the same server and not the same host. I don't know how they did it.

[Lynne]

Are you sure they didn't just use an RSS feed to create all the posts? Are all the posts under the original users names and the same date and everything?

[ifitsmedia]

Hi Lynn, thanks for the reply.

Yes I am sure they did not just publish an RSS feed. the posts have the same dates and usernames, and the users have post counts identical to my forum in the past.

I even checked and my own username is registered on their forum and has my email.... and my posts are duplicated on their site.

[denman75]

that is so weird ,did u try to log in your admin cp over there ?

[Lynne]

I'd talk to your host about how someone could have copied your database and downloaded it from your server.

[ifitsmedia]

The thing making it more odd is that the forum where the stolen content appears is a much larger forum and all the stolen content is only in one section.

It also appears to be an older version of the database, so I don't think this happened recently. This is just the first time I noticed it.

[CarlitoBrigante]

Not pointing fingers, but talking out of personal experience. You should also check the background of all the techs that you allowed to work on your server. In rare cases, some people will grab a copy of the databases and resell them or reuse them themselves - a database with a good amount of users and threads can be resold on websites like Flippa for thousands of dollars. I would start looking from the cheapest techs you ever hired, and move up from there.

Or, if your server is not secure enough, your machine might have been compromised without you ever noticing it.

In any case, whoever did it committed a serious crime, and you should contact authorities working on these matters in your country.