Search the Community

For a few months now, VBResults / TMApps has convinced Howie to use his desktop notifications addons plugin that he's been promoting all over the place, in place of the original native app that he was selling a year or so ago, as the answer to all forum admins' questions about the availability of a mobile app for their web sites. FFS, I don't even know what the hell this thing is anymore because it's been through about 6 different name changes. Anyway, it appears anybody on TAZ that uses this push notification of this add-on to get updates on threads, or other alerts, gets redirected to an ad on the tma.li ad network, which is managed by shady and shitty vBulletin mod developer "vbresults". So vBresults gets paid for anybody using this "feature" on TAZ? Lol, is that right? Does Howie even know this? I doubt it. Also, at least on mobile, TheAdminZone.com favicon is replaced with the vBresults' shitty tma.li favicon, which even makes it more confusing for anybody that has TAZ bookmarked. Jesus. Maybe if you have TAZ bookmarked, you deserve that I guess. Of course, Howie isn't around to answer any questions, but to anybody not in the know on how stupid things are on TAZ, somebody would think vBresults was managing TAZ now. A new mobile app!

WTF is this? Log into Facebook | Facebook Some Facebook admin group, but they stole TAZ''s logo? This made my day.... Rules! Welcome to The Admin Zone .... To share information within our group and forewarn Admin /Owner members ... Rules are : 1. No SHARING of posts , even in Pms , unless you ask for permission in thread 2. No NUDES , please adhere to FB guidelines 3. Must provide ALL the evidence if posting .. SS must be provided , the persons FB link , the crime and Not partial SS 4. ALL POSTS WILL NOW be screened and reviewed before posting on wall until further notice , however this may change 5. WE the ADMIN , have the right to reject or remove a post OR person/persons from our group , 6. We WILL NOT tolerate HEARSAY , DRAMA or BITCHING 7. ALL members are screened before entering our Group 8. You may Advertise your groups 9. If you have issues with anyone in group either Block them or keep it out the group ...Do not BLOCK ADMIN ! 10. MUST ALL LIKE & AGREE to PINNED POST ... otherwise Leave Thank you .. Any issues contact Brian Miller or Mags Morland .. Admin/CoOwners [ATTACH=full]2255._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Here's the one from 9/11/2017 Riveting!

If Howie ever decided to give up his control of TAZ and sell, would you purchase it? If so, how much would you be willing to pay? Would you unban all of his banned members? Which of her current 20+ staff would you keep, if any? How many of the hundreds of addons installed would you keep? How would you run it different from Howie? ( #lefttards need not reply )

Title says it all. Post your success stories here.

TheAdminZone's Sandman claims that he's a "big time" audiophile. If he were to make a mix tape (or mix 8track, if that was possible) for Gemma, what songs would be on it? Here are some of my suggestions...

So like, what's the deal? :eyes::scream::sob::emoji_athletic_shoe::emoji_bikini:

So, the fantastic beast himself, Ozzy47 has this at XF2: [ATTACH=full]1264._xfImport[/ATTACH] Let's just take a look back at some of his "childish rantings", "overflow drama", at the same place.... July 4th, 2017 [ATTACH=full]1265._xfImport[/ATTACH] So... talking about people being "butt hurt way to easily nowadays" is typically what the XF2 Demo board was set up for? May 29th, 2017 [ATTACH=full]1266._xfImport[/ATTACH] Well, looks like we found his "original" post on this. A directly copy/pasta, spelling errors included just the same. Mar 3, 2017 [ATTACH=full]1268._xfImport[/ATTACH] Hilarious... you have just admitted to bringing drama from elsewhere onto the XF Demo site. The first part is simply "childish rantings". Dec 18, 2016 [ATTACH=full]1269._xfImport[/ATTACH] Sure, it was a "nursery rhyme". more unneeded drama. Don't attempt to deny it. Nov 22, 2016

Let it be known, I still like Ozzy! He may have trolled us expertly, he may have called us names under a sock account on Gary's site. That is the worst he's done right? So what if he can't really be trusted. Here's the thing. I feel bad for Ozzy, getting thrown under the bus by Gary, and then blindsided by Dr. Rosenzweig after praising at his feet, kissing his ring, and even SHUTTING DOWN HIS OWN SITE TO MOVE SOME HIS MODS TO TAZ. He has no where to go, he needs us! Also, nobody can impersonate Gary as well as Ozzy, nobody. That talent cannot go to waste with Ozzy sitting wherever he sits staring at whatever screen he stares at. Finally, Ozzy needs a new, welcoming, safe space he can turn to. Otherwise, depending on how weak-willed he is, he will go sobbing back to TheAdminZone.com and Howard faster than you can say "Gemma's sock drawer". We've seen this happen time and time again with Lisa, Machine Gun Martyr, Paul.M, and others, MULTIPLE TIMES. We cannot let this happen to our Ozzy, as much as we may hate to admit it. Even Ozzy being Gary's only member, moderator, and BFF is better than the house of horrors The Sandman will put him through to be a TAZ staff member again. Ozzy didn't put me up to any of this. I haven't had any conversations with him. Maybe he doesn't want to come back. Maybe he hates us all, or maybe he's ashamed. Dunno? So who's with me? Who wants to have the Diary of a Madman back?

[ATTACH=full]1206._xfImport[/ATTACH]

I'll host your site for free.

Took a little effort, but was able to reproduce the phone cancer TheAdminZone is trying to distribute. [ATTACH=full]994._xfImport[/ATTACH]

DogSmoother admitted to being bipolar in the inner circle lounge on TAZ. Makes sense because she strangled two dogs.

Did Howie try to update TAZ to XF2? Was he editing a template? Did he unban Brivium? Find another malware infested test site on the server? [ATTACH=full]758._xfImport[/ATTACH]

This site pokes a lot of fun, and has a lot of laughs, at the expense of TheAdminZone.com, owned by Dr. Howard Rosenzweig of Florida, an Anesthesiologist. Dr. Rosenzweig has a history of putting on a smiling, helpful, public face with his members at TheAdminzone.com, but many times, he lurks in the shadows, having other people do his dirty work against competing web sites, or people he doesn't necessarily care for. Lately, "BASH.zone" and "mrgtb.website" had some bad words between each other: name calling, sarcastic remarks, and the like. Honestly, the usual brick lobbying both sites do. The owner of mrgrb.website (Gary Thomas Bolton, from the UK) went over the line by posting links to my wife's Facebook profile, Linkedin profile, as well as links to news articles my kids have been in. Gary claimed he was going to somehow use my wife's Youth Ministry past occupation against me, and planned to contact her to let her know what "vile crap" I was up to. He also claimed that one of my children were "retarded", and that I was a pedophile and molest my own children. These types of things are obviously way beyond the pale of petty arguments over people on the internet, and everybody on this site called Gary out on it as it being inappropriate. Gary didn't curb the behavior, nor apologize for it. On October 25, 2016, Gary went into a rage on his site for an unknown reason over a discussion about TheAdminZone.com web site (aka "TAZ"). He "outed" the only other member of his own site as being a staff member of TAZ, and posted screen shots of a conversation that Dr. Rosenzweig (the owner of TAZ) had started with Gary. These screen shots showed that Dr. Howard Rosenzweig had Googled my wife and family's information, collected it, and sent it to Gary with the hope that he would publicize it, which he did. Dr. Rosenzweig, having a long relationship with Gary Thomas Bolton, knew that Gary would be giddy with publishing this information, and Gary would also pleased that he could serve Dr. Rosenzweig so well, as a TAZ insider. It was only a short time before this happened that Gary (aka GTB, MRGTB) had his permanent ban removed from TheAdminZone, after years of being forbidden to post there. Knowing Gary has a history of making up fibs and tall tales, I contacted Dr. Rosenzweig via a private message on XenForo.com (the only place i know where we both have accounts, and have conversed in the past), to ask him if he indeed shared the links of my family with Gary, or if Gary had doctored the screen shots to make it look like Dr. Rosenzweig sent it. He still has yet to reply to the message. I was only asking for an apology to me and/or my wife, but even that type of request was too much for Dr. Rosenzweig to even reply to. Also, Gary has never exhibited very good doctoring skills on images, except for adding penises to my headshots. Discussing this with my wife, she was terrified. She's known me 20 years, and she knows that I am active online, and how I like to push people's buttons. She's heard all the stories I've told her about the latest person that was going to sue me for something I never said, or demanding I remove something that this person had said in public. We've never seen anything like this though, A 58 year old doctor egging on an unbalanced person to denigrate my wife and family, and providing the links for him to do it? Anyway, I'm probably not the only person this has happened to, so if anybody would like to provide their own dealings with Dr. Rosenzweig, please submit it here, or send it to me via the contact form. --------- This is the message Dr. Howard Rosenzweig allegedly sent to Gary Thomas Bolton on October 19th, 2016 at approximately 10:53am ET [MEDIA=googledrive]0B3170ocKoZQDT0xPUWJBcnB0UjA[/MEDIA] View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3170ocKoZQDT0xPUWJBcnB0UjA/view?usp=sharing [MEDIA=googledrive]0B3170ocKoZQDeVFBY3FIZl83c1U[/MEDIA] View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3170ocKoZQDeVFBY3FIZl83c1U/view?usp=sharing This is the conversation I sent to Dr. Rosenzweig, asking him if he actually sent the links to Gary Thomas Bolton: [MEDIA=googledrive]0B3170ocKoZQDV2lJNHk0T0dQbFU[/MEDIA] View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3170ocKoZQDV2lJNHk0T0dQbFU/view?usp=sharing More information, NSFW, available in this thread, also in the chat archives (requires registration). mrgtb.website Crash And Burn!

"3 haters and 3 groupies" "'Excessive White Space" "Sheldum and the Pollack" Those are a couple of great band names that were born on TAZ and Gary's There has got to be other gems littered around these parts.

It's going to happen sooner or later, so I would like to start this thread with an ode to Gary Thomas Bolton :) Oi, oi, oi Oi, oi, oi Oi, oi, oi Oi, oi, oi Oi, oi, oi See me ride out of the sunset On your color TV screen Out for all that I can get If you know what I mean Cigarettes to the left of me And energy drinks to the right Ain't got no gun Ain't got no knife Don't you start no fight 'Cause I'm T.N.T. I'm dynamite T.N.T. and I'll win the fight T.N.T. I'm a power load T.N.T. watch me explode I'm dirty, mean and mighty unclean I'm a wanted man Public enemy number one Understand So lock up your daughter Lock up your wife Lock up your back door And run for your life The man is back in town Don't you mess me 'round 'Cause I'm T.N.T. I'm dynamite T.N.T. and I'll win the fight T.N.T. I'm a power load T.N.T. watch me explode T.N.T. (oi, oi, oi) T.N.T. (oi, oi, oi) T.N.T. (oi, oi, oi) T.N.T. (oi, oi, oi) T.N.T. (oi, oi, oi) I'm dynamite (oi, oi) T.N.T. (oi, oi, oi) And I'll win the fight (oi, oi, oi) T.N.T. (oi, oi, oi) I'm a power load (oi, oi, oi) T.N.T. Watch me explode

Howie likes to consistently use the Goku/Super Saiyan image for his avatar. If you had his account, what avatar would you change it to? I think Pokemon Simisear would be a good choice: http://www.smogon.com/download/sprites/bw/542.png Or perhaps this image from Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet: [ATTACH=full]453._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Amazing, Brad admits to "trying out" paid software by using nulled scripts, and doesn't have a problem with it. There have been a lot of topics like this on TAZ, and it seems a lot of members (and even staff) encourage the practice as "the only way" to try out new software. [ATTACH=full]382._xfImport[/ATTACH] Page 2: [ATTACH=full]383._xfImport[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=full]338._xfImport[/ATTACH] Yesterday, I posted: [ATTACH=full]337._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Ok, this thread is to list the qualifies and things you like about theadminzone.com. It can't be all bad, can it? On the whole, I don't think I have any personal problems with the current moderators, as haphazard and inconsistent as their actions are. That's Howie's fault, really. I think the design is nice, and for the most part appears, to be pretty speedy. That's all I can say at the moment. Maybe more later.

[ATTACH=full]262._xfImport[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]263._xfImport[/ATTACH]

On May 5th, 2016, TAZ had its security breached for the second time. Unlike the previous intrusion, this was a sophisticated attack where the hacker was somehow able to upload a malicious file onto TAZ's test board (perhaps by exploiting a Brivium add-on installed on the old Admin Extra site which was still on the server) which then allowed them to give themselves SFTP access to the nginx user account and run commands. They then altered several core XenForo files in order to begin logging member username/password combinations, logging out members forcing them to log in again, and finally by preventing the File Health Check from reporting the file modifications. Due to some of the safeguards we installed last time we were attacked, were were able to identify this intrusion almost immediately and take steps to block the hacker, limiting the time the login logger was operational to a matter of hours. We then forced a password reset for all members. It's certainly unfortunate that TAZ was hacked again and I take full responsibility for it - the test site should not have been kept on the primary TAZ server nor should the old TAZ sites have been there. The previous intrusion was a much simpler exploitation of a staff member's username/password being harvested from another site and being used to gain access to the AdminCP to alter the login templates. We took a number of steps to prevent this kind of thing from happening again - forced 2FA for staff members and htaccess on the AdminCP for example. There are good things to do, but in a way it gave us a false sense of security that left us vulnerable to the second, much more sophisticated attack. The hacker was not able to gain access to the server root. Using the logs we were able to see exactly what changes the hacker made and undo them. Many other security measures have been put in place to prevent this from happening again, and several more are planned. Please keep in mind that unlike commercial sites, TAZ does not collect sensitive data about its members - we don't collect your full name, address, social security number, or credit card numbers for example. All a hacker can get here is your username, password, and email address. You can protect yourself by using a unique password on each site (or at the very least, use unique passwords on all of your important sites), and not using your primary email address as your registration email address (better to use a secondary email address for forum registrations, a different one for really important sites like banking sites, government sites, etc. and perhaps even a third one for semi-important things like your server hosting, registrar, etc.). Finally, do not put any "secret" information (such as access codes for your server) into a forum's personal or private message system - use secure email for that. If you follow these simple steps on TAZ (or any discussion forum) you won't be at risk even if the site is hacked. Again, my apologies for this security breach. I made some mistakes which made TAZ vulnerable. We are doing everything possible to prevent any further intrusions. Howard (The Sandman)

This is a law passed in 2014 in order to help protect members of web sites when those web sites experience data breaches. Read about it here: Senate Bill 1524 (2014) - The Florida Senate In part: This rule appears to fit the situation that TAZ recently experienced, data breaches, possible vulnerabilities, password hacking attempts, with not much information from TheAdminZone.com LLC. I'd like to keep this thread updated with facts about information that people DO KNOW about these hacking attempts, breaches, or whatever is going on at TAZ. As I understand it, there have been at least 3 known incidents of security breaches at TAZ. ------------------------------------ In one instance, late May 2015, a password reset was performed for all members on TheAdminZone.com. At the time, members were told that a staff member's account had been "hacked" by a member of the Vietnamese site, Brivium.com. The staff member had accounts on both TAZ and Brivium.com. At first, there was an explanation that the staff member's password between TAZ and Brivium were "similar, but not identical". I'm still curious as to why that information was needed, as even a "similar" password wouldn't gain a hacker an advantage to accessing the TAZ forum. Later, claims were made that the Brivium "hacker" somehow installed a keylogger on the staff member's PC, and the TAZ password was then lifted from this staff member's account. After much discussion, the majority of members came to the conclusion that the staff member had simply used the SAME password on both sites, which allowed somebody with access to the Brivium forum database to access the TAZ staff member's account. Once the "hacker" had access to the TAZ staff member's account, the "hacker" attempted to remove posts on TheAdminZone's forum that were critical of Brivium.com. As a result of this breach, the staff member had their password changed, and all members of TheAdminZone.com had their passwords reset. As far as I know, I don't think the staff member was identified, whether they still are a staff member, nor if it was found out if Brivium was the real perpetrator. There was also no evidence provided that anybody had installed a keylogger on the staff member's PC. ------------------------------------ In another more recent instance, on or before May 13th, 2016, server problems and unavailability were present, and then a full member password reset was performed. The explanation was thus: TAZ Security No further information was provided. The only thing evident from that description is that the mention of 2FA, and "small number of accounts" means that there was an attempt to overtake another staff member's account. Was the hacking attempt successful? What was stolen, if anything? Why the password reset? What is the update? Will Brivium be blamed again? As of today, the official answer to that question is that the administrator is still looking into it. On May 13th, prior to this announcement, it was discovered that old installations of TheAdminZone's forum software were still located on the server, and that addons developed by Brivium were installed on at least one of these installations. It was surmised that these Brivium addons may have been the reason for the password reset announced on May 16th, but no connection or information has been forthcoming identifying or explaining the 2 incidents. ------------------------------------ I thought there was another password reset incident, or something defined as a "hacking attempt", but I can't find it at the moment. I'll update the thread to fix my mispellings, and to try better grammar.

"An Official Guest Viewer Review" I do have an account, this is just as viewed when seeing site as a guest. (y) Pros Design Nice theme implementation from the Pixel Exit team of @Russ and @Steve F . The theme flows well, and everything looks to be in place and follow the theme design as a whole. On the forum home, the slight edits made to the widget blocks look well. Just about everything these two have touched turned out golden, and the work done here is just solid proof. Excellent choice hiring these two @The Sandman . Kudos. Activity Nowhere remotely near its heyday in posting, but there are topics that see activity. The vast majority have nothing pertaining to administrating a forum, but there is posting going on. Unfortunately, sites do have cons as well, here we can go over these. (n) Cons Advertisements Overboard. 4 or 5 on every page viewing from mobile. The footer advertising area seems to serve no purpose, especiallyadding in the fact it's removed on mobile. The newly added app by @vbresultsdoesn't add anything, sans an icon on your phone as well as a giant "install this banner" at the top, and push notifications that appear after your Gmail alert does. Security (or lack of) Is been 22 days since the site went down. There has yet to be an "official" statement on what caused the breach, what info was tampered with, anything. After this last breach, my account information must have been exposed, add the brand new email I use for Netflix (which coincidentally is the sane email as used at TAZ) had suddenly had many login attempts from all over the world. I would think a site focused on administering a forum would at the very least accept the responsibility for the lack of security and provide information to its members as it becomes available. Seems to have been swept under the rug. This is an area of major concern for everyone, as it is the 4th time is happened in less than a year. Information At one point, TAZ was the go to place for all forum info. Now (this ties into the activity listed above), is simply a gathering spot to chat. :) Synopsis I think TAZ could really make a run and turn around the withering forum market if done correctly. They have a very large and vocal following, and if able to use the clout they once had, can become a viable resource for forum administration again. Elect staff that care, not just any and everyone (back to security). Fix a few of these issues and TAZ could once again become the elite forum admin forum on the net again. Appreciate your time, and thank you for allowing me to critique yoursite.