FAO RedCafe moderators reading thread (golden_blunder). One of our mods registered with your site last night so he could talk privately with your mods. He is still awaiting approval as far as I'm aware hence no contact. Another has just contacted you in the last few minutes via your contact form.
FAO others on RedCafe as there seems to be a lot of confusion (feel free to repost):
1) Two separate RAWK accounts were compromised. One Thursday night and one Friday night. Both accounts had been registered on here for many years and lads well known to moderators. Another attempt to compromise a third account was blocked.
2) The sick parody posts made re: Hodgson/Hillsborough were almost identical in nature and crucially were made from the same IP address which had never been used before on those accounts or the forum as a whole. They also stood out a mile to any LFC fan as clearly being a dig over Hillsborough.
3) Posts removed within minutes. Screen shots appeared on twitter almost simultaneously and contents similarly copy and pasted on to RedCafe and other Man Utd sites. Your moderators have deleted the first post which was copy and pasted but the second (and quotes of it) remain. We appreciate the work you do on your forum with respect to idiotic comments on both Heysel and Hillsborough, as we do with Munich references here, which isn't always replicated elsewhere.
4) This doesn't mean RedCafe/RedIssue/UnitedOnline members or the forums/websites themselves were necessarily responsible for the account compromisation. With Red Cafe it could be just a coincidence with being such a large site with so many members. With the window the posts were on this site being so small, it is probable that you have a few posters just a bit too obsessed with this site and they have F5 fever, constantly refreshing for things to copy and paste in your RAWK Meltdown thread. We used to have the same problem here with fans obsessed with your site. That is why we binned RedCafe Watch style threads a few years back and added your site to the forum filter to prevent people posting links to discourage such slightly worrying myopia.
5) With regards to the release of private details as alleged by a couple of your members (Pogue_Mahone and Zen86) - we have only once released details in 10 years of the site being active. This was to the police who were investigating a fraud re: spare tickets. The individual was successfully prosecuted. As for RAWK releasing personal details (name, address etc) not only would this be illegal and morally something we'd be utterly opposed to, but also something we couldn't do as we don't have any of that information. We only have usernames and email addresses of registered users. The first of the two hacked users was targetted offsite as he's a well known Red and the screenshots were distributed quickly by social media such as facebook.
6) The IP address in question has been traced to a third country from the current locations of both users whose accounts were hacked (one is currently serving with the RAF in Afghanistan which is why we were very suspicious over the activity) and we're continuing our investigations. If a Red Cafe moderator wants the IP address to check their own forum isn't being targetted we'd be happy to pass it on in confidence.
7) If you want to get in contact by email there is a link on the front page:
http://www.redandwhitekop.com/Hope that clears up any confusion and questions.
