成人X站

A Facebook group run by local volunteers and meant for sharing images and stories about Seattle area history has been taken over by hackers.

The now-hacked page is called 聽It鈥檚 not unlike similar organic, grassroots Facebook groups or initiatives founded and run by volunteers to celebrate local history in their respective communities around the world.

Late last week, hackers impersonating page administrators 鈥� those Facebook users and group members who have privileged access for managing the page, including approving which posts are accepted and rejected 鈥� took over Seattle Vintage. They kicked off all the legitimate page administrators and began making changes to the content, likely as a precursor to some kind of attempt to 鈥渟ell鈥� administrative access to the page to other hackers.

Doug Palmer retired after a long career in retail in the Seattle area. He鈥檚 a longtime member of Seattle Vintage and often posts on the page. Once he was aware of what was happening, he began looking into what appears to be a pair of individuals who are responsible for the hacking attack.

鈥淎fter I started researching and searching the Internet for their names,鈥� Palmer told 成人X站 Newsradio, he determined 鈥渢hey’ve taken over and then resold 30 different pages at least.鈥�

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By 鈥渞eselling,鈥� Palmer says he believes that there鈥檚 a market for pages with large numbers of followers. The model, Palmer says, is to gain access to the page via the page administrator function and then eliminate the legitimate administrators. Next, the hackers might change the name of the page themselves, or, sell administrative access to some other malevolent party who will then use the page to create promotional posts for some kind of product or service 鈥� likely completed unrelated to the content being posted on the page before it was hacked.

To be clear, there鈥檚 no 鈥渂lack market鈥� for Seattle history; the value of the page to hackers are Seattle Vintage鈥檚 155,000 followers 鈥� most of whom probably have no idea yet that Seattle Vintage has been taken over for unseemly purposes.

However, many Seattle Vintage users are aware and have attempted to report the hacking to Facebook. Unfortunately, says Doug Palmer, there appears to be no mechanism in place within the Facebook system for reporting exactly what happened to Seattle Vintage.

Facebook鈥檚 failure to provide such a mechanism has so far not discouraged Palmer.

鈥淚 put comments on both [Facebook founder and CEO] Mark Zuckerberg鈥檚 personal Twitter and Facebook accounts, Facebook’s Facebook and Twitter accounts; I reached out to Kim Schrier, my [congressional] representative, on her contact form; also [Senator] Maria Cantwell; [and] the Consumer Protection Division of Washington the Attorney General’s Office,鈥� Palmer said. 鈥淚 also reached out to the FBI.鈥�

鈥淭he only reply I’ve gotten so far is when I reported the two profiles鈥� of the hackers, Palmer said. 鈥淔acebook’s bot messaged me back [. . .] it said these two people 鈥榟ave not violated our community standards, so we have not removed their profiles.鈥欌��

Palmer has also attempted to determine the hackers鈥� actual whereabouts, but this has proven tricky.

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鈥淭he two hackers say that they’re headquartered out of Berlin, and list a phony company’s name that doesn’t come up anywhere in any Internet search,鈥� Palmer said. 鈥淎nd their WhatsApp account number is registered to a cell carrier in Kyiv, Ukraine鈥� Palmer continued. 鈥淚f I Google the two hackers鈥� names together and separately, it comes up [as] two ladies who went to school and college in the Kashmir district of Pakistan.鈥�

Meanwhile, the founders of the now-hacked Seattle Vintage have launched a new group and page called 聽As of Thursday morning, it has just shy of 1,000 followers 鈥� so not quite 155,000 just yet.

That number of followers and the resource that the original Seattle Vintage had become represent countless hours of serious and thoughtful work by thousands of Facebook users who have shared images and stories on the page 鈥� and, yes, probably hundreds of thousands of hours of good old-fashioned scrolling by many, many more page users.

David Ruble grew up in Seattle and was one of the most prolific posters on the original Seattle Vintage page.

鈥淚n the last five years, I posted a lot of personal stories, artwork, you know, historical vignettes,鈥� Ruble told 成人X站 Newsradio late Wednesday.

鈥淥ne of the very special things about Seattle Vintage is we consider it all a very safe space to share our personal experiences growing up, our collective experiences growing up,鈥� Ruble continued.

Ruble is proud of the work he鈥檚 put into his posts for Seattle Vintage, and of the responses he鈥檚 received over the years as people 鈥渓iked鈥� his posts, made comments, or shared photos in dialog with Ruble and the other Facebook users 鈥渆ngaging鈥� with the content.

鈥淎s of last Friday, I had 330,000 engagements on Seattle Vintage through my stories, and so it’s a big loss,鈥� Ruble said.

Like Doug Palmer and many others, once he was aware of the hackers, Ruble removed all his content from the old page.

鈥淚t was tough to delete them, let me tell you,鈥� Ruble said, 鈥渂ut I did not want my original content to fall into the hands of international cybercriminals.鈥�

As he shares what he鈥檚 been going through over the past several days, Ruble, who鈥檚 in his early sixties, comes across as crestfallen but also defiant.

鈥淭hey can steal the site, but they’re never going to get the community — they can’t steal us,鈥� Ruble said. 鈥淎nd I think that’s the point. We can start over with a new site, and we have started over with a new site, they will never be able to rob us of the community that we have.鈥�

成人X站 Newsradio has reached out to Attorney General Bob Ferguson鈥檚 office for their reaction to this development and to see if any Washington laws or consumer protection policies have been violated, or if there are steps that Facebook could be taking to provide the true administrators of the Seattle Vintage with further assistance to remedy the problem. We have not yet heard back.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

You can hear Feliks every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle鈥檚 Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O鈥橞rien, read more from him鈥�here, and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast聽here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks鈥�here.