Whoever was leaking the password was doing it pretty fast, as it got re-leaked shortly after it was changed.

Damn I just remembered about the 7927 and then saw the notice

There must be a way to sort this out, it happens too regularly - can it not be setup so that each member has their own password and that way you know which one has been leaked and by whom ?

You know, the same sort of thinking that Sinofsky has put in place to prevent Windows 8 leaks, each password is tied to an account ?

I wonder how they access the password if they don't sign up, I always wonder myself.

The person leaking the password has to be a member, non members can not access that info

Somewhere, some of the staff have said they were working on a system like this, but when you have 1176 members and counting in Advanced Membership, it's a slow job.

True... unless there was a mod put in place that generated unique passwords for the FTP that were

1. Tied to each account requesting it, and

2. Only worked one time login and expired.

It shouldn't be too hard to make a system that ties user accounts to ftp accounts. Though you'd need some special FTP server software that can have the users and pawwords altered by another program

Rest assured there are ideas in place which will help to identify whomever thinks it's a good idea to leak the password (read: idiots). I won't go into detail but this issue has been discussed in great length between mrpijey and Andy, and the solution(s) which they've come up with are pretty much foolproof.

I feel very sorry about this happening to our administrators (more overwork for the), and likewise for the many users who are now bound to wait (God knows for how long). Of course they can wait another one or two weeks, but thier enthusiasm is shrinking.

Maybe if Betaarchive made their own program for the downloads, not sure how hard or legal it would be though.

We already have a potential solution which is being worked on as I speak. There is no ETA yet though.

Is there a better way to restrict access to the FTP or figure out who leaked the password? It would probably be a real pain if not impossible to have a unique FTP account for each user, but if it was possible it would be easy to figure out who leaked and ban them.

It's certainly not impossible with ~1000 users currently and only a couple members getting added every so often. The time-consuming part would be to get all of the members their own FTP user account.

Such a unique system (though a bit different than you described) has been planned for the future.

Until then I think we should all let the staff handle it, they seem to have some plans being put in action already and I am sure if there was anything needed they would ask .

Admins, do you have IP address logs? How about comparing IPs of all users that logged into the FTP server to latest IPs of AMs on the forum?

mrpijey, I send a PM to you, here's what I suggest (direct copy of my message):

guy which share files is full retard

Oh boy, this is quite fun, just contacted the software vendor and integration isn't too bad.

Thanks for all the ideas people, but thanks to the various input I've formed an idea which is now being worked over by Andy. So we have a solution that should work as we want it without the problems we have today. Some of your ideas were pretty... out there . But most were quite sensible and Andy and I have worked through some of the ideas in the past and rejected them because they were either too hard to implement, or too troublesome to administer. Either way, thanks for the help.

Keep in mind also, this event has shown what this community is best at - coming together, sharing ideas and offerings of help. Both Andy and I greatly appreciate all the help and that even during troublesome times we can come together and come up with a solution. Makes this all worthwhile.

The FTP is now back online with a new method. The link in the navigation now works but please read the page carefully. Updates will follow in the coming days and weeks.