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Dread to Return with Fixes and Some Data Loss

Dread suffered a crash that resulted in the loss of two weeks worth of data, including account changes, posts, comments, and even new account. HugBunter will have the forum up and running again in the next few days, according to a status update posted on the DreadAlert subreddit.

People have taken this opportunity to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Dread.

Attempts to visit Dread last week often resulted in a 502 error or short periods of complete accessibility. One of the Dread staff members, Paris, posted a post about the forum’s instability and issues handling Dread’s rapidly growing user-base.

The 502 Error Displayed by Dread

The 502 Error Displayed by Dread

In one comment on the post, Paris wrote:

We are currently sitting at about 150-175GHz of raw CPU power with the core and the front servers. The vast majority of the CPU usage is on the front servers handling the building and breakdown of all the trash circuits caused by the DDOS attack. In total we have like 50 to 60 CPU cores working constantly just to keep us up.

Its a lot. The server cost is very high. The infrastructure change isn’t really going to reduce the total cost but will make it more economical in the longer term but much higher value.

According to Dread’s creator, HugBunter, the server experienced a crash that resulted in the corruption of the data on the server. The most recent backup is two weeks old. HugBunter also explained that the crash had taken place at one of the least ideal times; he has been working on “new server infrastructure to handle a significantly higher load and provide complete uptime across the board, not only solving our recent 502 error issues, but also ensuring any future Tor DoS attacks would be futile in rendering the service unavailable.” Backups of Dread seemingly slipped his mind. He promised to automate backups in the future.

When Dread comes back it will bring some changes, including “includes bug fixes, optimizations and new features.” He is changing some of the rules as well, although the changes are not likely to have a significant impact on the majority of Dread users or their ability to use Dread. His complete message is available below and a signed version is available here.


HugBunter’s Message

Hi all, Been a while since I’ve necessarily needed to provide an official status update, but we’ve been down for almost 2 days now. This is fortunately not a DoS attack of any kind, however I do have some bad news to bring. I’ve warned for the need of a large update to the platform for a long time as it has became extremely unstable as it has significantly grown over time. Since I rushed the initial development there have been many factors that have caused issues for us behind the scenes on a regular basis, whilst appearing everything is running perfectly to the end user.

Yesterday, our core servers gave in and had a fatal crash which left the whole web server data including the database completely corrupt. We do usually have regular backups made, however this has really caught us off guard since we were in the process of building a new server infrastructure to handle a significantly higher load and provide complete uptime across the board, not only solving our recent 502 error issues, but also ensuring any future Tor DoS attacks would be futile in rendering the service unavailable.

At this point it appears that we have in fact lost around 2 weeks of data from the platform. So any posts, comments, new user accounts, etc within that time frame will now be gone, I can only apologize for this and reassure that this will not occur again as automated backups will be made on a very regular basis from here on out. We are finalizing the new server infrastructure right now as well as providing an update to the platform which includes bug fixes, optimizations and new features. There are also rule amendments that will be going live, which I will discuss at the time.

I cannot provide a specific eta right now, however we are hoping to be up and running within 48 hours at the very most.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Source: DreadAlert on Reddit

27 Comments
It's Called We Engage In A Mild Amount of Tomfoolery
11bf1510
cf770960 Sun, Nov 17, 2019

i think something is up this isnt like hugbunter

47430320
860299a0 Sun, Nov 17, 2019

Smells fishy. He went mia for two weeks previously now this. He runs shops for vendors which puts a target on his back as big as any market admin. IRS chasing him down for tax evasion don’t think he isn’t wanted because it’s only a “forum”. Adding new admins like Paris out of the blue it all stinks. Avoid Dread and Envoy with the large amount of vendors and even market admins on there the feds would love to control it. Think about it they could capture every admin in a single go.

a2d56dc2
11932550 Sun, Nov 17, 2019

People and their asinine intuitions do very little for themselves, or others.
To the first comment, what exactly evidences any truth the statement that this is ’not like him’?
Regarding the second comment, what behavior preceding the last extended period of downtime has been any different to inspire any degree of confidence not currently held? Wouldn’t you agree it would be, at minimum, just as likely for the administrator to be a federal, state-sponsored actor the entire time?

6600a6a8
c8408ae0 Sun, Nov 17, 2019

dude you have the same type style as paris…..interesting?
i don’t know if hugbunter has been arrested but this cant be a coincidence
witchman05 cant even confirm his pgp when he came back.after there was a post from him saying he had been busted
hugbunter disappears
and paris somehow has full control of the servers nah dude this aint right
when has an admin ever given a server to one of the mods?

16f54491
c68422f0 Sun, Nov 17, 2019

Won’t be going back on Dread for a long time. No market admin is going to let anyone access their server period but they did take over Hansa! The claim is Hug has been caught and rolled over probably during the two weeks mia not that he was a fed all along.

9093973b
1251ce80 Sun, Nov 17, 2019

Is that true about Witchman he still can’t confirm his own key?

4e902498
be2c1990 Sun, Nov 17, 2019

witchman yes he disappeared and reappeared with the promise he would verify his pgp but he never did

09f1438f
df777960 Sun, Nov 17, 2019

@It’s not right: What makes you think HB is American, to give a fuck about the IRS ?

e87820eb
9ef1a750 Sun, Nov 17, 2019

American or not the IRS will still be looking for him.

3e53fde2
847ef650 Mon, Nov 18, 2019

Dread is a pit of evil anyway.

4e4ec35c
9bf4b700 Mon, Nov 18, 2019

You guys are dicks, most of you. You start bitching whenever there’s a slight problem with Dread and when it’s back up you forget all about it and go write crap guess were: on Dread. Nice.

b9f306a7
4bddfc30 Mon, Nov 18, 2019

Looks very much DREAD got busted, there are similarias to the Hansa bust in 2k16, first Witchman disapears, ‘’loses’’ his PGP key 2 times, then hugbunter disapears aswell and then Paris has Admins rights?

Dread is busted, we all should assume that

8d684d80
40e596b0 Mon, Nov 18, 2019

Dread returns with fixes = feds have complete control over dread now.

7150cf8e
5e935d60 Mon, Nov 18, 2019

i dot know guys i think dread is finished there is noway it not run by feds now you can still buy from me on emptire

aa91b49e
717b0840 Mon, Nov 18, 2019

When did Paris first show up? Was it during the two weeks Hug was mia? Was Paris around before?

535e8450
7edf2f10 Tue, Nov 19, 2019

Paris been there for a while. He used to be a mod long ago before he got promoted to admin. So much FUD and hate here in comments imo.

2ae4edb1
8f650d00 Tue, Nov 19, 2019

stfu paris everything you dont like if FUD

d77a6334
ed1f5b40 Tue, Nov 19, 2019

U must be a noob guy if u think bunter still running dread. Its full of nasty pigs that want to make their food by chasing the wrong people. They all should be kill like comunism!!

714ee281
4ac66840 Tue, Nov 19, 2019

All the FUD above is GP, a worthless POS.

f1cdec49
30b18c80 Tue, Nov 19, 2019

Someone fetch this malnourished youth his formula and a Pilate. He’s obviously long overdue for a good, old fashioned nap.
Maybe after he wakes up, loosens the straps on his hockey helmet, and has a juicebox- he’ll consider reading the whole message and infer the actual position I took.
Have never even once spoken with Paris. …and to be accused by someone who prays at the altar of subjectivity!

For a (self-)certified pattern recognition, and typehandwriting analysis expert, you sure are a special kind of slow.
Fucking dunce!

650332b1
56125910 Tue, Nov 19, 2019

Every time I tried using dread it would take me back to home page no matter what I clicked on

a4f870d1
72ddc520 Tue, Nov 19, 2019

stop spreading fud pata4 we know you are paris and you work for le
only a fucking retard would believe dread is safe what the fuck are you talking about juiceboxes for are you autistic or something?
Lets set the record straight
1 hugbunter has been arrested by fbi
2 witchman has been arrested in the us and had his acount taken over
3 paris is a fed plant
anyone who says otherwise is just spreading fud we all know dread is run by feds but we need to spread the word people.

1565395c
f64c50c0 Tue, Nov 19, 2019

I am starting to come to the conclusion none of this makes any sense i mean how does paris have access to the servers anyway if he is just a moderator?

ef10235c
22422150 Tue, Nov 19, 2019

where do people go if they dont want to use dread anymore the hub is shit and envoy is cringe

28bced48
dff157d0 Wed, Nov 20, 2019

@Pata4isacop
It’s difficult to determine whether you’re actually dumb enough to not deduce I was suggesting it has been operated by law enforcement since its’ inception, or if you’re some 400lb freakshow ala Penismith. Have you lost your adopted mother’s jitterbug again and passing time here at the library public access point since you’ve no way to congregate amongst your own on LiveLinks!?

c54ca6da
36745430 Fri, Nov 22, 2019

Beware vendors, don’t share shit with any of the moderators.

1091598b
e7f351a0 Mon, Nov 25, 2019

So… Instead of fear mongering heres what you need to do - and I’ve been around since the early sub days several years ago and have seen way worse things happen (like AB and of course one of the worst, all the subs including main getting perma banned) and at that point our backup plan was based on the 4 people who used Avengers and me and W2C who placeholdered a lot of Voat accounts to ensure that they were verifiably obviously given to who they belonged to if shit ever hit the fan so people wouldn’t be entirely left in the dark out of nowhere… Dread was cool, I never was into it yet I admired Hug from his work around the times of the demise of AB and Hansa and I am to have been apart of ensuring the community would come back together despite the obstacles that are enforced by dudes with gun at your head. I faded out right around when Dread saw a peak user registration and people were ecstatic to be able to reconnect to old faces. I was tired, as many will attest active members of this community dedicate hours on hours to answering and helping with the same problem we’ve posted and helped people with 100000 times over without fuss (usually) because opsec is paramount and if people didn’t feel like they could comfortably post in order to get help with security issues and flaws then this whole thing that we love so much would become a hellish version of its previous self. Without a community that acts as basically a representative and homogenous...

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