hello guys

What is hapenning with Exetools forum ?

JMI, do you know what is happening with exetools?

Hope they are up soon...

Cheers

Nacho_dj

I have no better information than anyone else about why it is down.

Regards,

Well its not a dns issue, most likely moving to a different ISP?

Domain Name: EXETOOLS.COM
Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
Whois Server: whois.paycenter.com.cn
Referral URL: http://www.paycenter.com.cn
Name Server: NS.XINNET.CN
Name Server: NS.XINNETDNS.COM
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
EPP Status: clientTransferProhibited
EPP Status: clientDeleteProhibited
EPP Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 15-Nov-2004
Creation Date: 26-Oct-2000
Expiration Date: 26-Oct-2014

Chris

kittmaster

I don´t understand Chinese ! Best to wait back Server of Exetools.

Well, it is clearly written in english..........

However, my "Chinese to English" conversion simply states that the domain name i.e. exetools, is registered with the rest of the world until 2014 (calendar year). Usually if a site like that get shut down its will have govt involvement. That "appears" not to be the case here.

So your "assumption" of waiting may be a valid answer.

Only time will tell if the site returns. I was mearly pointing out it is not part of a "world" registration issue. Your on a reversing forum yet have no idea how the internet operates?......

Howdy,

exetools.com could be down for a few reasons.
Don't under estimate Aaron, he is a strong willed person.
I am sure the site will come back soon.

Woodmann

no one has a direct contact with him not going through his forum?

<wild guess here>

RELOADED released their starforce tools - within the nfo two websites were named - this one and exetools...

Some guy (starforce rep ?) got the hang of the hoster of exetools and shut the site down...

mmh... I wouldn't bet a single cent on the fact SF crew didn't know ExeTools or Woodmann.
However, their lawyers sues and raise hi words against everyone -sometime making very funny errors, as you can notice on blogs around.

Nonethless, it sounds very strange it pairs with RELOADED kit release, and it might not be a case...
...on such case, with the team for such action -releasing on exetools and posting a link here would have sufficed-I saw scary posts placed by ppl with no interest or reversing knowledge, just excited by the 'news' (@LLXX i too noticed it )

I don't think SF put a lid on ExeTools - but I fear companies that protects with SF might have 'discovered' ExeTools, raising the tone

Hope Aaron can get back, Exetools is very interesting, and a good source of study.

Regards,
Maximus

(ps: the reversing tools are pretty interesting, by the way...)

Exetools back up!

Exetools DOWN again Now?

works fine to me..

Be sure, they know.
But I don't think it's something due to SF too

It's down.
I cannot open it for a few days.

The Exetools Forum has been up and down because it has been receiving a DDOS attack which interferes with smooth operation.

But it has been up much of the time over the last several days, and I have been on it several times during the last couple of days, including today, Moderating and reading posts.

Winndy try dumping your cookie and then try again. Aaron had to make some changes to fend off the DDOS attack!

Regards,

Is it a thing that (more or less) happens from various times? I noted sometime ExeTools weren't down, but just horribly slowed down (ddosed).
I wonder... Most of such machines should be fairly unprotected, so if someone is interested, he might easily ...uhm... Locate the toy that is controlling them and ...Eventually ...Override the kiddie's bot control?

Just a What-If, JMI, I'm not suggesting to really *do* anything illegal!

Regards,
Maximus

Exetools is "down" again as I write this. I believe Aaron has the Forum on his personal server at the moment. I also believe he has some friends who assist him with protecting his computer, but that would not stop all forms of a DDOS attack from interfering with connecting to the server!

Regards,

I just wonder what kind of assholes would like such great forum like exetools to be down...

In my personal opinion...
1) 1+ kiddies that play with botnets (malware should be taken from a weak machine, id, reversed and the net stolen -irritated reversers might not be a missing resource, I think...)
2) some idiot 'sheriff' company that plays on the thin line over exetools because it 'emerged'.

No serious person would do that.

In my personal opinion...

Aaron should to be very democratic and permit the acess all. As well as our
Friend Woodmann. This excite ire in very folks! Are you agree ?

No I don't. More than 90% of those who "join" Exetools NEVER post and they only join with the hope of downloading something attached there. Those people,generally, always fail to read the Posting Rules and continually fill the Moderation que with complaints about why their Post do not immediately appear and/or why they can't download and/or post "Thank You" type post, hoping to get sufficient post count to gain access to the FTP.

The current "membership" is over 6,000, the vast majority of whom don't post. It has been as high as 16,000 before Aaron closed the membership. He opens it from time to time and culls the membership of non-posters from time to time.

Regards,

i think that exetools open soon...

*Aaron should to be very democratic and permit the acess all.

He was but not anymore.Well he owns the ftp he can do whatever he wants

I'm unfortunately one of those who has joined but never posts. I also rarely download from there, so I guess there's an argument to be made that having an account is redundant if anonymous forum browsing is allowed. I've been caught in previous culls although seemed to have survived any recent ones. It's a shame, I can understand the personal reasons for culling non-posters of the type you describe, but do they really affect the forum in a tangible way? Other than increasing the database size by a few k and perhaps a slight increase in query time. Other mechanisms prevent leeching. Culls also have the side effect of catching legitimate users like myself - I'm sure there are many people who prefer not to post on exetools for their own reasons. I guess we could just post something, but if I've got nothing worthwhile to say I'd rather not post at all.

There is a curious anomaly in that exetools allows anonymous browsing of the Software Release forum, much of which has attachments or FTP references which are of course inaccessible to anonymous users. In that sense it seems like an invitation to register just for the download, precisely the thing that causes the culls in the first place...

ditto

Under Aaron's CURRENT settings, "Unregistered visiters" can actually view and read all the following Forums:

General Discussion;
Software Release;
Windows Crack Tuorials;
DOS Crack Tutorials; and
Chinese Area

Some of the information in the Software Release Forum are links to "offsite" locations for some of the available downloads and those CAN be read by "Unregistered" viewers. The only thing they CAN'T access in those Forums are the attachments, and attachments are NOT available even to "Registered" Members until they have a certain number of Posts.

Regards,

Wow ! I don't even have an account, but it looks like 'ultimate-anti-lamez technique'
(Regarding to these techniques, I am a lam'z....oh ok, even without 'em )

*I'm unfortunately one of those who has joined but never posts.... I guess we could just post something, but if I've got nothing worthwhile to say I'd rather not post at all.

True Dat

Ok, let me clarify my point a little. The problem is thousands of people registering just to get download access, not to participate in the forum. These people clearly don't read the rules anyway otherwise they'd know that simply registering is not going to be a fast way to get the file they want. The information that explains the requirements for download privileges is only available on the rules page, which as I've said is ignored by the "leechers" in question.

So what's happening is people visiting the forum, anonymous browsing through the software release, then attempting to download. This fails and they are presented with a login page, which also offers them the chance to register an account. Human logic as it is, most will register believing this will give them download access. When they find out it doesn't they abandon the account, which in turn leads to the necessary culls. That's the anomaly I'm referring to - if anonymous users couldn't see any attachments it would remove the incentive (on their part) to register.

So perhaps placing a big notice on the registration/login page (where they are guaranteed to see it) that you will not be granted automatic download rights might help solve the problem? And yes, this is extra work simply because people are too stupid/lazy/whatever to read the rules first, but it becomes your (& Aaron's) problem when you have to spend time checking new users and culling.

Just my $0.02.

FYI, I've noticed that "www.exetools.com" no longer resolves, even though "exetools.com" does. So don't be like me, and wonder "where on earth has exetools gone?" for a week or so before it occurs to you to check something that obvious. *facepalm*

I think I need to get more sleep.

Edit: Ok, this is bizarre. It won't resolve at work, but it resolves at home just fine.

Maybe it is simply a cookie issue. Try dumping your cookie at work and try it there again. Working fine here when there aren't server issues, such as DDOS attacks or Aaron doing some work.

Regards,

I haven't been able to access the exetools forum for some time now.
I can ping/access "exetools.com" but not "www.exetools.com".

Clicking on the usual link to the forum gives a "cannot find server or dns error". I've tried deleting my cookies with no change to the error given.
The forum page host can't be found either with ping or resolved with tracert .

I assume most other members can access the forum? What else could be wrong? I don't have trouble viewing any other pages or forums? I hope someone can help .

Thanks,
5aLIVE.

I'm since these problems startedm, unable to access from one ISP while from another one yes.

Aaron was receiving a DDOS attack and may have blocked some IP ranges. I'm only guessing here. I haven't looked at the blocked IP ranges.

Regards

Then mine is blocked too, because I can not connect since 2 weeks ago.

Hint! cough! proxy!

OK, I've checked the IP's used here by each of the above posters and none of them are on the banned IP list or ranges contained in the exetools admincp. Again, delete your cookie, because Aaron was doing some things to block the DDOS attack and you may still have some or part of that process in your cookie.

It is also possible that your own ISP is blocking some services or areas in China, but that is pure speculation on my part. Where there is a will, there is a way.

I can successfully ping both "www.exetools.com" and "exetools.com" and both resolve to:

222.92.105.26

That links to Aaron's homepage, which contains an additional link for the forum:

http://forum.exetools.com

which you might also try and which keeps the prefix "forum.exetools.com" after one logs in.

Regards,

I can reach the forum.

Ok, I took a closer look this time....and the mystery deepens.

I can reach the forums (and they even remember who I am) if I use this URL:
http://exetools.com/forum
There might be a cookie problem out there, but that's not what I'm experiencing. I'm having actual name resolution problems (i.e. at the DNS level). I cleared the DNS service's cache, as well as the personal DNS resolver cache on both of my local name servers at the office. I then cleared the DNS resolver cahce on my workstation and tried a few nslookups. I can resolve "exetools.com", but neither "www.exetools.com" nor "forum.exetools.com" resolve. My DNS servers do not forward requests to any upstream servers - they work directly off the root servers.

To make sure that I'm not crazy, I followed the name resolution chain manually. When I query the root servers for "exetools.com", they spew forth the list of the gtld servers. If I query one of the gtld servers for "exetools.com", it responds with a list of exetool's nameservers:
ns.xinnet.cn [210.51.171.209]
ns.xinnetdns.com [210.51.170.66]

Querying either of those two servers for "exetools.com", returns the right address (222.92.105.26). However, neither of them returns a record for "www.exetools.com" or "forum.exetools.com".

Here's the weird twist. I *can* get the right address for those hosts if I make the query using ns.xinnetdns.cn [63.217.31.23], which was not one of the nameservers returned by the gtld servers for that domain. This server also believes (rightly or wrongly) that all of the exetools.com hosts are aliases for "exetools.3322.org".

From where I'm sitting, it appears that there's a DNS configuration problem with the exetools.com domain, and that it's not a localized problem. So far, I haven't found any GTLD root server that gives a different list of nameservers for exetools.com, so this should be a global issue. I suspect that some (if not most) of you who are able to resolve the "www.exetools.com" host may be getting a cached (and fortunately valid) answer, and simply haven't been affected by the problem yet.

For now, I'll just stick to http://exetools.com/forum, since that appears to work alright. If worst comes to worst, I guess I can temporarily add a manual resolution in my HOSTS file.

hehe Tbone right on point

/forum makes it accessible for me from where i am sitting

it has been inaccesible for me at my place for over one month
but i didnt care because i could access it with some linux servers situated
out of my country and could browse with lynx or w3m

i did all kind of possible tricks that google spitted like
ipconfig /flushdns etc etc but it was still no go

forum.exetools wasnt accesible right from my place
and weirdly the link in exetools.com that points to forum was also not resolving

It's not a problem with cache or cookies...
Sometimes I can enter to the forum and then passed a few minutes I can not.

But now it's solved, using exetools.com/forum

Regards

The 'www.exetools.com' address is "only" the address for Aaron's old HOMEPAGE with his old tools repository from circa 2002.

As here, generally a link to the location of the "forum" is required to get to an actual vBulletin forum itself. This is true for things like "http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/" and "http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/portal.php."

For example, "http://www.vbulletin.com/" gets one to the vbulletin "Frontpage", not the "forum." The forum is only one link on what is called the "navbar".

vbulletin.org's goes to a "portal" and they have a re-director which automatically adds back in the "/forum/portal.php" part if one leaves it out. If they have a portal or frontpage and they want you to go dorectly to the "forum" they re-direct you to it, or the direct you to whatever they want you to see first.

You will find such usage for most vbulletin forums. If you only put "www.woodmann.com" in your browser, it will also automatically resolve to "www.woodmann.com/forum/.

Aaron's site does not appear to be set up this way because "www.exetools.com" goes "only" to his pre-existing "homepage" and doesn't go to the /forum/. I believe it has always been set up this way, with the "www.exetools.com" pointing only to the tool site. This is, in part, because the forum came along much later and the Homepage never went away, even though it has not been updated for a very long time.

Regards,

I can access exetools... but the forums seems to be *very* slow.

Sometime slow, sometimes not. It was slow for me a few minutes ago, but better earlier in the day. China is awake now.

Aaron's running it off his home computer and his Chinese ISP is not the best. There is some discussion of this in the Chinese Forum, but the machine translations of these comments are not very good. Makes it hard to moderate those threads sometimes.

Regards

anyway using TOR it definitely works from any ISP. If you install new TORPark or the torbutton it's also very easy to switch from tor to normal navigation.

Try use http://exetools.com/forum/
On my side it work.

<thread hijack>

Shub-nigurrath, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Tor. Do you use it regularly?

</thread hijack>

well, veyr very briefly

it's one of the best choices around, much much better than hideIP platinum, that's a proxy; the TOR network is completely another thing. IMHO if you have government behind even TOR wouldn't help you, but for normal things is the best. Of course slows down things, but it's the price to use.
In the past was a little cumbersome to use, but now thanks to progs like torpark and torbutton is a snap to switch from tor to normal connection.
keep also in mind that if you allow tor traffic through you, your real ip might be tracked for things done by others, just you have to know it.

Thanks you!
it works for me.
But http://www.exetools.com/forum doesn't work.

Howdy,

I do not have any problem at all.

I will say this,
Because Aaron is running his own server, the "pipe" will be very small.
Heap on DDOS and blocked IP'S and it will be impossible for some of you to get access.

Is there a way to solve this problem for those of you who cannot get access.

Only through an unblocked proxy.

Woodmann