text_areas: DISABLED!

Message

CrewWolf · #1 Post by **CrewWolf** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:17 am

I don't know if it's a big deal or not for many of you, but TNT seems to have disabled the code for making text areas in petpages. People who have adoptables and such on their lookups are now a bit miffed. Word is that people were able to put cookie grabbers or some other such malicious code in them, but paranoid as the neoboards are, I don't know whether its true or not, but it seems reasonable enough.

everconfused · #2 Post by **everconfused** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:22 am

Oh goodie. Why don't they just clear everything and be done with it? That's actually what I was expecting - lookups, shops, etc. all cleared and unable to be edited until TNT was certain that they had the situation completely under control, things more secure and safe. Then allow people to do less fancy things, but still personalize to some degree.

Just clearing text areas is, IMHO, not going to do anything to help with this situation. There's already so many things that get blocked on petpages, they could just add whatever the code or extension that's been allowing the cg's in the first place.

Oh well, there goes my pets' help pages, since they all had text areas. Kinda hard to have tutorials with code without putting them in text areas unless you're going to sit there and put spaces in everything. And that would probably trigger some sort of filter too. Bleh.

Time to go clear my petpages, I guess. They will make no sense and I really can't be bothered to try to figure out how to do all that work over in a way that will be acceptable.

The least they could have done was put something in the news letting people know that this was now either temporarily disabled or was not going to be allowed anymore. Just say there were problems with it or something vague. There are going to be upset people - the ones who made all these pages and the ones who use and depend on them.

The Wonder Weezel · Fri Jan 20, 2006 5:01 am

they didnt tell us about it on the news page because they dont want the general public to know they are having problems and for people to freak out all over the place and for them to get a bad rep... but they really should be working on their protection systems. I mean, they are EXTREMELY popular right now, and being as its a game website for kids, and quite popular, its going to be a huge target in the future for hackers with free time... i think. They really should hire a person or two JUST to build up their defences and fix things like that... find loop holes and patch other ones and ... yeah.

Im just waiting for the day some experienced hacker comes on and just *hopes* that 2 million 10 year olds log on to find "NEOBOOBIES" on the front page.... oh boy. Im only saying it, because.... with neopets popularity, and lack of defense.... i bet it WILL happen within the next 2 years.... thats my assumption. :oops:

Alex · #4 Post by **Alex** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 5:43 am

Now would probably be a good time to save another copy of my codes on my lookup and petpage..

Cerise · #5 Post by **Cerise** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:43 am

Aw, I used text areas on one of my petpages for buttons to link back. But if something like this honestly prevents cookie-grabbing etc, I dont mind. My petpage has already suffered in the hits department in the past weeks anyway.

Ake · #6 Post by **Ake** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 1:11 pm

I actually wish--seriously... I want TNT to clear every lookup, guild, shop, petpage, etc. and temporarily take away everyone's ability to edit them. Sure, a lot of people would be upset about that, but don't you think you'd be more upset if you lost your account to a cookie grabber? :roll:

Too many people are still getting their accounts stolen, and TNT doesn't seem to be responding to the reports sent in by people begging for them to help. At least they're not responding to the reports my friend (who lost many of her accounts) sent in.

I don't think I'm going to keep my Premium account past the free trial if TNT hasn't gotten things under control by the time those 15 days are up. It's not worth paying for something if I'm going to be limited on how I can enjoy it.

mogster500 · #7 Post by **mogster500** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 2:11 pm

I can't go to edit my petpage anyway. I have a lot I still need to back up.

Armi · #8 Post by **Armi** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:56 pm

I actually wish--seriously... I want TNT to clear every lookup, guild, shop, petpage, etc. and temporarily take away everyone's ability to edit them. Sure, a lot of people would be upset about that, but don't you think you'd be more upset if you lost your account to a cookie grabber?

Psh...not unless they give use warning. >_> Some people might not have backed up their HTML coding, so if there was a huge wipe, there would be POed people. Not fun losing HTML coding when you're not a pro at it.

Sterl · #9 Post by **Sterl** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:09 pm

Well, just thought I'd post and let people who don't know this already know a little trick to posting the html for something without a textbox. Just put <xmp> at the beginning of the html that you'd like to post, and then </xmp> at the end. It won't be in a textbox, but it'll still be shown and will also be able to be copied. Hope this helps someone at least

everconfused · #10 Post by **everconfused** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 6:25 pm

mogster, I didn't try going to edit page, as I did log in last night and it seemed no one could edit or even get to their pages via pet central.

I was able to view one of my pages by just typing neopets.com/~petname. See if that works for you - you can right click, view source and save your page coding that way maybe. Hope that works for you! If you are able to, just be sure to really look at all the code in your page to be sure it's safe when (if) we can edit pages again.

Armi, I can see a reason to clear everything without letting us know first - if there is an unknown cg on a lookup, etc. and the code is saved then later put back up, unless the filters are set (which I'm sure they will be) to find and block things, potentially that cg could be put right back if people just c&p their code back. Especially css/html challenged (which I can be). Not everyone is going to sit and read through all that and be able to see that something's different. Think of people who use premades, some of them have no idea what anything is - not putting people down who don't, quite the contrary.

Sterl, I saw that posted on a board. Unless they've 'released' them, petpages haven't been able to be edited. Also, I wouldn't mess around with anything right now. If text areas are disabled, whether it's temporary or not, I wouldn't try getting around it by using a different code. That's just me.

I'm with Ake at this point, just clear everything. A few people said that their petpages had been reset to default. If that's what it takes - resetting petpages, clearing lookups, shops, etc. and stopping us from being able to add anything at least short term to stop this, then I say go for it.

Anyone who even thinks their account was compromised, even if they still have it (not all accounts were frozen) should, IMO, go and clear their own lookups, etc. just to keep themselves from being an unwitting part of this.

Troggy7 · #11 Post by **Troggy7** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 7:53 pm

Now how am I suppost to manage my adoptables? D:

Matt · #12 Post by **Matt** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 10:56 pm

In order to stop HTML from being HTML, replace all <s with > and all <s with <

There are loads of codes which give you text areas, so just put it in one of them

everconfused · #13 Post by **everconfused** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 7:07 am

It may be a hit or miss kind of thing, but my pages are back - with their text areas. Some people are saying they still can't access their pages, but if you just use the www. neopets.com/~petname, you should be able to at least look at your page (or any others), even if you can't edit right now.

Some things are apparently being blocked in html - dice escape avatar, the word window and some people are having problems with links (within the site links) - they're coming up blocked.

That's all I know for now.

Butterflyhornet · Sat Jan 21, 2006 12:35 pm

When did this happen? I just noticed it this week when I went to back up my pet pages. Thankfully though I plan to take my Lupe adopts down to make new images, but with my ruki?

It surprized me to see all the -blocked- on my page ad my link back images doubled. Not in a good way.

I think I can go ahead and clear the pet pages I backed up.

kuroro · #15 Post by **kuroro** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 3:27 pm

My, this is all very confusing. Just when I started to like editing around my pages (was also starting to draw some neopets again, so I had images now), things get disabled.

I say it again, I wish Neopets would inform us when they do something like this. Just a minor sentence, of what has/going to be changed. Now it's just confusing and trial and error.

_edit_ I'm not against wiping everything *temporarily*, but only if they warn us first. Which I highly doubt, because they never seem to warn us.