MY WARNING TO HEALTHRISING MEMBERS TOO

dejurgen

Well-Known Member
As Issie stated before in this thread, both the "Issie" account and the "dejurgen" account have been compromised. While we are technically still able to access our own account, we are no longer the only people who can do. We do not share each others passwords so we are not playing one against the other.

We had previously been the receiving end of attacks for information both technical and personal through various way. After the recent long time shutdown of the Healthrising website, this has escalated to levels requiring technical skills and financial means far exceeding ours.

We remain in the dark concerning the exact attack vectors and what the attackers are after. It is a sophisticated multi-vector attack beyond our expectation, blowing us both of balance very much now. The most likely goal seems to be information, identity theft of who "Issie" and "dejurgen" present or both.

We may sound paranoid, but hacking of websites is unfortunately a common practice and so is identity theft. We never expected to be estimated valuable targets that provoke such concentrated effort on our identities and ideas. Are they really valuable enough to even attempt that?

As Issie said, we both perceive new and less new members adopting much of each of our own style to the point that we sort of were surprised reading multiple comments from different people that were written in a style that we wondered "did I wrote that" or "did the other wrote that". It is our perceptiveness combined with keen mind and observation skills that allowed either of us to try and come up with new and intriguing ideas regarding our joint ME/FM/POTS/EDS diseases.

As to why this happens, we suspect that the same people that were active in stealing info from us now try to increase their skill to edit what they stole in our style, editing away details in the information that has been taken from us, details that point to our true identities. It is hard to edit our work in such way that it sounds like it comes from a totally different person while still retaining the depth and detail in it we did put in our still unpublished ideas and drafts.

So: to all:
* Please do not use a simple password on any account including the HR one.
* Please do not use the same password on your main mail you use to protect any account.
* Please do not trust people you haven't met face to face or over at least video with any personal information including medical information, location of yourself or your doctor, age... EVEN if those people say they want to help you and support you getting things done you really need.
* In short: don't be so naive as we were.

To those who value the information we provided so far:
* We were planning to work for and bring out a far more readable, structured and weeded from the biggest errosr compilation of the things Issie and I worked for for years to decades and do it for free so it is available to all.
* We are badly hit by this nefarious and vile attack on our persons and hearts, on our low energy levels and our will to try and fight for ME/FM/POTS/EDS patients so much in need. We hope to recover from this very hard blow and be able to some how, some day still provide what we see as "our present" to the ME/FM/POTS/EDS community. We both are stunned that hard by this attack that we do not know if we can or will.
* Please screenshot this and store it on your personal computer. We have no idea how long we will be able to keep this message up.
* Please screenshot as many comments of "Issie" and "dejurgen" on the forum and the blogs. We have no idea where this attack starts and where it ends. They are already starting to be edited. The scale took us by surprise. This way, you can help and fight back against bad actors and hackers.
* To the computer skilled ones: please search the internet archives for "Issie" and "dejurgen" info on big search engines that have far better memory and protection against hackers then smaller sites and save it on your local computer.

To those doing this to us:
* You do not only do this to us, but to the thousands upon thousands of deeply ill people we try and help.
* By the efforts we seen before in trying to represent our info as your own in the past, you will likely not be able to present it in a way that helps patients more then it harms them.
* If you think you can make a name in ME-medical history by the information you poached and stole and get away with stealing and impersonating our work and personalities: think again. The archiving of the internet, which we used too, is brutal and very hard to undo. The computer technologies able to detect people impersonating another person including his writing style improve by the day. The trace you leave might go unnoticed now, but as soon as (if or when) you would achieve your goal to reach fame, forensic technology tools will have advanced to the level that a single savvy journalist can expose you for the fraud you committed.
=> You will not achieve your goals. That is, unless preventing and stalling us badly to help deeply sick people is the goal.

=> From now on, distrust anyone claiming to be "Issie" or "dejurgen". From now on, any information we might come out with if and when we'd recover from this attack will share 50%-50% equally shared credits. We were equally important and vital in coming up with it. From now on, if you detect another account writing in our very typical styles, be very cautious including if those accounts claim to be the new "Issie" and "dejurgen".

Sad regards and a broken heart,
dejurgen
 

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
As Issie stated before in this thread, both the "Issie" account and the "dejurgen" account have been compromised. While we are technically still able to access our own account, we are no longer the only people who can do. We do not share each others passwords so we are not playing one against the other.

We had previously been the receiving end of attacks for information both technical and personal through various way. After the recent long time shutdown of the Healthrising website, this has escalated to levels requiring technical skills and financial means far exceeding ours.

We remain in the dark concerning the exact attack vectors and what the attackers are after. It is a sophisticated multi-vector attack beyond our expectation, blowing us both of balance very much now. The most likely goal seems to be information, identity theft of who "Issie" and "dejurgen" present or both.

We may sound paranoid, but hacking of websites is unfortunately a common practice and so is identity theft. We never expected to be estimated valuable targets that provoke such concentrated effort on our identities and ideas. Are they really valuable enough to even attempt that?

As Issie said, we both perceive new and less new members adopting much of each of our own style to the point that we sort of were surprised reading multiple comments from different people that were written in a style that we wondered "did I wrote that" or "did the other wrote that". It is our perceptiveness combined with keen mind and observation skills that allowed either of us to try and come up with new and intriguing ideas regarding our joint ME/FM/POTS/EDS diseases.

As to why this happens, we suspect that the same people that were active in stealing info from us now try to increase their skill to edit what they stole in our style, editing away details in the information that has been taken from us, details that point to our true identities. It is hard to edit our work in such way that it sounds like it comes from a totally different person while still retaining the depth and detail in it we did put in our still unpublished ideas and drafts.

So: to all:
* Please do not use a simple password on any account including the HR one.
* Please do not use the same password on your main mail you use to protect any account.
* Please do not trust people you haven't met face to face or over at least video with any personal information including medical information, location of yourself or your doctor, age... EVEN if those people say they want to help you and support you getting things done you really need.
* In short: don't be so naive as we were.

To those who value the information we provided so far:
* We were planning to work for and bring out a far more readable, structured and weeded from the biggest errosr compilation of the things Issie and I worked for for years to decades and do it for free so it is available to all.
* We are badly hit by this nefarious and vile attack on our persons and hearts, on our low energy levels and our will to try and fight for ME/FM/POTS/EDS patients so much in need. We hope to recover from this very hard blow and be able to some how, some day still provide what we see as "our present" to the ME/FM/POTS/EDS community. We both are stunned that hard by this attack that we do not know if we can or will.
* Please screenshot this and store it on your personal computer. We have no idea how long we will be able to keep this message up.
* Please screenshot as many comments of "Issie" and "dejurgen" on the forum and the blogs. We have no idea where this attack starts and where it ends. They are already starting to be edited. The scale took us by surprise. This way, you can help and fight back against bad actors and hackers.
* To the computer skilled ones: please search the internet archives for "Issie" and "dejurgen" info on big search engines that have far better memory and protection against hackers then smaller sites and save it on your local computer.

To those doing this to us:
* You do not only do this to us, but to the thousands upon thousands of deeply ill people we try and help.
* By the efforts we seen before in trying to represent our info as your own in the past, you will likely not be able to present it in a way that helps patients more then it harms them.
* If you think you can make a name in ME-medical history by the information you poached and stole and get away with stealing and impersonating our work and personalities: think again. The archiving of the internet, which we used too, is brutal and very hard to undo. The computer technologies able to detect people impersonating another person including his writing style improve by the day. The trace you leave might go unnoticed now, but as soon as (if or when) you would achieve your goal to reach fame, forensic technology tools will have advanced to the level that a single savvy journalist can expose you for the fraud you committed.
=> You will not achieve your goals. That is, unless preventing and stalling us badly to help deeply sick people is the goal.

=> From now on, distrust anyone claiming to be "Issie" or "dejurgen". From now on, any information we might come out with if and when we'd recover from this attack will share 50%-50% equally shared credits. We were equally important and vital in coming up with it. From now on, if you detect another account writing in our very typical styles, be very cautious including if those accounts claim to be the new "Issie" and "dejurgen".

Sad regards and a broken heart,
dejurgen
I'm very sorry to hear that two of our best and most knowledgeable and dedicated posters are having such trouble. We are trying to figure out what's going on.
 

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
It took several weeks but we offered to do a deep dive into any posts or accounts or comments on the website that might have been hacked altered in any way. There are various ways to do this and we believed we would have learned if any malicious activity had taken place. Unfortunately, since we weren't provided with any of the suspect posts, accounts, etc. so we were unable to do this.

I want to point out that it is very hard to hack accounts on the Forum software we use. We use the most highly regarded and secure Forum software available, and in the years overseeing the much busier Phoenix Rising Forums, and now with these Forums, this is the first time anyone has brought up the possibility of an account being hacked. Just to take one feature, the Xenforo Forum software we use does not save your password. Only you have access to your password and only you can change it.

I'm sorry that two such productive members of the Health Rising website/Forums are no longer participating but I feel confident that the Forums have been and are secure and will continue to be.

As we attempted to address Issie's and DeJurgen's concerns but didn't get their cooperation in doing that and therefore couldn't determine if a problem existed at some point this thread titled "MY WARNING TO HEALTHRISING MEMBERS TOO" - is going to be removed.

It's not fair to Health Rising to have unsubstantiated claims like that be prominently displayed, and it's not fair to the members some of whom have expressed concerns about the Forum security.
 
Last edited:

JES

Active Member
It seems highly suspicious to me that a hacker would have gained access to (from what we know) only two forum accounts and those two accounts happen to belong to persons who are "connected" and almost always post together. It sounds like they used the same password in HealthRising as in their mail and probably other services, which means their passwords might have been hacked via any of the other services they use, or through a local attack on their computer if they share the same household.

Either way, thanks for clearing it up. As a guy who works in IT, to me it seems clear that the chances are very small that this unfortunate event has anything to do with HealthRising forums. XenForo and other forum software that is kept up-to-date is almost never the source of something like this.

Unfortunately there are countless sites online with outdated tech from which passwords can easily be leaked. Firefox actually provides a handy way to check if any of your saved passwords have been leaked by typing about:logins into the address bar.
 

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