Kimler Adventure Pages (http://randsco.com)

Hacked Off

Randsco Headquarters - The thieves didn't use a crowbar to break in and they didn't steal any physical objects. Instead, they stole something more valuable. They hacked into the main Randsco web server and stole Randsco site traffic, redirecting them to a sticky, spammy anti-virus/malware software website.

The break-in occurred on August 8th, but the thieves waited till the 14th to begin stealing traffic.

During this time, Randsco staff were away on a corporate retreat in the wilderness of British Columbia (see accompanying article).

The break-in wasn't discovered until the 19th, but when it was, it was quickly reversed.

"Several of our more web-savvy readers contacted us," reported Scott Kimler, editor-in chief, "They told us that randsco.com had been hacked. We sent each a 'thank you' message and an explanation of events."

Randsco Hacked! Visitors attempting to find relevant Randsco.com articles via major search engines, were redirected to this spammy "Antivirus 2009" website - which included a persistent pop-up alert window and "free" virus scan. Lovely, eh? _{Randsco Newswire}

For five days - August 14th till the 19th - visitors trying to get to randsco.com via the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc.), were automatically redirected away from randsco, to a spammy website.

"The security department is investigating this break-in," said Scott, at a press conference held at the Randsco campus, "While they have reversed the redirection and tightened overall server security, they're conducting a detailed postmortem on the event."

Randsco executives indicated that there would be full disclosure of the relevant details, which will help to expose the criminals and alert other website owners.

"We apologize to any of our visitors about the redirection," said Scott, "It's very frustrating to be searching for relevant data and be directed away from that information, to another website. At best, that website is a 'hard sell' of marginal software. At the very worse, it could pose a security risk to our visitor's personal computers, if they downloaded the executable EXE file."

"The only bit of good news," said Scott, "is that our regular readers - those navigating to randsco.com directly - wouldn't be affected. We know that this isn't much solace for the thousands of people attempting to find information at Randsco via a search engine, but you can rest assured that we've taken measures to prevent this kind of theft again."

Randsco Retreat

Bowron Lakes - Last week, everyone at Randsco.com disappeared into the wilderness. The corporate retreat took place at British Columbia's "Bowron Lake Provincial Park", which is located deep in the Cariboo Mountain range.

The annual retreat was a huge success, focusing on building relationships through teamwork and physical exercise. Randsco staff left their children behind and embarked on a 110-kilometer wilderness canoe trip, where they paddled amongst snow-capped mountains, saw plenty of wildlife and struggled with physical adversity.

"It was great fun," said Rachel, co-editor and human relations director, "we enjoyed fine weather, had some thrilling white water rides and met lots of other adventurers."

The canoe trip lasted 6 days, included just over 100-kilometers of lakes, rivers and streams, and about 10-kilometers of portaging.

The suntanned director of Randsco, Scott Kimler, said during the press conference that readers could expect a photo-filled journal of the trip, in the near future.

Bowron Lakes Sunset - At McLeary Lake, Scott and Rachel were treated to an early evening thunder shower, which rendered the sky on fire! Photo taken from their tent, through the rain, across the lake. Wow! _{Randsco Newswire}

"Here's a taste of the marvelous scenery of the Bowron Lakes," said Scott, showing journalists a projected image of one of the photographs, taken during the Randsco retreat.

Hosting Belgian Visitors

Yellow Point, B.C. Anne and Peter are from Antwerp and they'll be arriving at the Hutton House sometime tomorrow afternoon.

"We've never met Anne or Peter," said Scott, "but know them from their online work."

Anne is involved in maintaining the b2evolution forums, where Scott is a moderator.

"Anne has several websites," said Scott, "Tender Feelings and Hungry Feelings among them."

Rachel and Scott plan on treating their Belgian visitors to some Canadian wilderness scenery, heading by boat to the floating cabin in the Barkley Sound.

Anne and Peter are visiting the Pacific Northwest and you can read about their trip at their TravelPod website.