What I know so far:

  • vlemmy is still “up” and intermittently accessible. It is running slow as hell, PLEASE DO NOT VISIT THE INSTANCE as it will likely only slow things down more and make it inaccessible again.

  • Stripe, Librepay, and Github accounts are all closed. Closure date unknown
  • Reddit account still exists and has been messaged
  • No mentions of the instance in Element.io chats but still searching
  • They have almost certainly NOT lost their domain. Who.is historical records show no ownership or nameserver changes.

I have some minor personal details I’ve found that I’ll be deep driving on later, but it’s 1AM EST. I’m heading to bed but will continue on the investigation around 9AM EST.

Update 1PM EST July 9th:

Hi all, I’m working through about 40 different potential leads right now.

Although I need some help! Specifically, I need people who have viewed !kerbalspaceprogram@vlemmy.net to check their browser cache for this image:

https://vlemmy.net/pictrs/image/928b2f95-a37c-4e94-bd70-bc014c8655d4.jpeg

You can do so using one of the following NIrsoft tools:

I’m hoping since it’s a historic image linked to their internet presence that it might generate specific leads.

I’ll update more as things progress.

  • Madbrad200@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    2 years ago

    Shame. Saw this instance get some decent support on Reddit, it was also one of the few prominent ones that wasn’t blocked by anyone nor blocked anyone.

    • RCMaehl [Any]@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      21·
      2 years ago

      They recently blocked a single instance due to the other instance breaking the law in the country vlemmy is hosted. I’m hoping all of this is just a database cleanup gone awry, I would have hoped @pyarra@vlemmy.net would have made a comment SOMEWHERE.

      • Encode1307@lemm.eeEnglish
        17·
        2 years ago

        His last post was about adding more admins to the instance. So it didn’t seem like he was going to abandon it.

        • jsveiga@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          9·
          2 years ago

          And it went down so catastrophically that it closed the admin donation accounts. That was a hell of a crash.

    • Raildrake@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      Yes, I really hope it comes back online, that’s where my main account is. I hope the lack of communication ends soon anyway.

  • carbotect@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    11·
    2 years ago

    I think the admin pyarra mentioned, that they had to restart the server at least once a day, otherwise the RAM would get too full. Maybe they had no time to do that?

    Maybe they have faced some kind of mental health crisis, that made them abandon everything? Maybe they faced huge financial problems or the Irish IRS flatlined all his bank accounts? They seemed fine yesterday, so who knows.

    It is weird tho, that the vlemmy site still kind of works, even if the connection is extremely slow and unstable.

  • cyd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    2 years ago

    My leading hypotheses:

    • Admin got a request from the police or lawyers, and freaked out
    • Admin had a mental breakdown
    • Admin’s parents found out about the server being run from their home’s internet, and told admin to stop it.
  • filthy_lint_ball@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    While I understand everyone’s belief that the admin, @pyarra@vlemmy.net, abandoned the instance, I do not believe so for a few key reasons:

    1. They asked for additional admins no less than 24h before the first connection issues. This indicates their willingness to put in work for the instance and expand.
    2. They raised a legal issue with having to defederate from an instance just a few hours prior to the connection issues. The instance in question was hosting content that can be seen as child pornography in Irish law - which is where vlemm.net is hosted. @pyarra@vlemmy.net was incredibly transparent with this issue. This level of transparency makes me doubt they would suddenly disappear purposefully. Speculatively I can guess that the legal issues may be connected to the going-dark.
    3. The site is still occasionally loading, but extremely slow and not correctly. In addition to this, it shows a logged in user (PrinceHabib72) - which is not me. There was a known security vulnerability in lemmy (see here ). The vulnerability includes cookie / token immitation and stealing. Having a logged in user (that is not me) when loading the site thus rings alarm bells to me. Apart from the logged in user, the inability to properly load the site most times but sometimes parts of it load (and the remaining requests time out, like getting icons and content etc.), screams denial-of-service to me.

    Just like the other people in this thread, these are speculations. However, I have a weird feeling in screaming ‘abandon’ here. Given everything observed, that does not feel right to me.

    • carbotect@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      Why would the admin close the donation platform accounts immediately after this supposed attack?

      Why did they not create a second account to clarify right here, what happened?

      I personally could (after many tries) load the site with my account logged in and saved my list of subscriptions.

      Can you replicate the PrinceHabib screenshot in incognito mode?

      Maybe this is some Lemmy glitch that randomly gives you access to other users’ accounts under very specific circumstances?

      I personally think that the admin got busted by the IRS or got involved with law enforcement for a reason unrelated to Lemmy, which is why their payment accounts got flatlined.

      Vlemmy maybe is just running on their homeserver, but the server has some issues, that the admin can not fix right because they are in prison/in a hospital/dead or something similar.

  • TheSaneWriter@lemm.eeEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    Hopefully, something will come up soon about what happened to it. It’s a definite shame that it dropped so quickly, it’s been a really good instance up to this point.