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As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.

So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.

Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.

And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.

We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm​. You made it all happen.

There are other changes as well.

Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:

We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.

It's time to move on and move forward.

PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.

But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.

So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.

And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.

That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!

If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.

So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!

Best wishes for a wonderful and magical new year!

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Old 12-12-2009, 04:58 PM   #1
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ATTENTION: Message Board Security Issues

Hi Folks,

On Friday December 11 and Saturday December 12 this message board had a number of security problems. You may have encountered warnings from your anti-virus/anti-malware software, from Google, and/or from your browser. We have been very busy addressing these problems and seem to have successfully isolated and fixed most or all of the problems. We're very sorry that these problems occurred, and thank you for your continuing support and the help you have provided in helping us track down all the issues.
  • Despite the efforts on our end, your computer may have been affected and may still be affected. We urge you to run a full security scan of your computer, using a reputable, up-to-date anti-virus/anti-malware/internet security program.
  • If you have such a program(s), be sure to download updates to the program before you run that scan.
  • If you do not have anti-virus/anti-malware/internet security software, we encourage you to obtain such software and install it immediately. We refer you to CNET.com, which does a great job of evaluating these programs. Further, they offer free downloads of highly-rated programs, both for Windows and for Mac. (Now, the companies that supply those free programs offer "deluxe" versions that do cost money, but even the free versions are highly effective).
  • Your web browser software also includes security features, some of which address some of the problems we've encountered. We encourage you to obtain the latest, free updates available for your browser, asap.
  • Some members of the community seem to have encountered a password-phishing program. We can't be sure whether that's due to the problems we've had here, but regardless, as always, you need to take care. If you have been unexpectedly asked to provide your login/password at a site (this one, or another, such as a bank site) especially via a pop-up window, and you supplied your login/password, we encourage you to change your password(s) as soon as possible, using that site's regular procedure, usually in a "My Account" or similar page (again, if a window pops up to ask you to change your password, ignore it).
  • If you continue to encounter warnings and/or problems, please let us know. The information folks have provided to us so far has been an invaluable help. The full text of your warning is most helpful to us, so please make a copy or screenshot (if you know how) to pass that info along to us. Please visit http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...gs-errors.html to make your report.

Thanks so much for your help and support, and please, be careful out there!
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Old 12-13-2009, 07:41 AM   #2
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Originally Posted by Dave Marx View Post
  • If you do not have anti-virus/anti-malware/internet security software, we encourage you to obtain such software and install it immediately. We refer you to CNET.com, which does a great job of evaluating these programs. Further, they offer free downloads of highly-rated programs, both for Windows and for Mac. (Now, the companies that supply those free programs offer "deluxe" versions that do cost money, but even the free versions are highly effective).
I highly recommend AVG's "Free Edition", which I used for many years - and which had regular updates to it's virus definition files, despite being "free" (it uses the same definitions as their paid-for "Internet Security Suite", conveniently for them). I have been so pleased with it's performance that when I bought my current, brand-new computer ... I went with their most-expensive product, the Internet Security Suite.

To make finding the most current Free version easier, this is a direct link to the information-and-download page right at AVG's own website.

No computer should ever be without an antivirus program, at the very absolute least. Speaking of which ... time to go run that very thorough scan you mentioned, Dave. I think this time I'll add a Rootkit scan, too.
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Old 12-13-2009, 08:45 AM   #3
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I highly recommend AVG's "Free Edition", which I used for many years - and which had regular updates to it's virus definition files, despite being "free" (it uses the same definitions as their paid-for "Internet Security Suite", conveniently for them). I have been so pleased with it's performance that when I bought my current, brand-new computer ... I went with their most-expensive product, the Internet Security Suite.

To make finding the most current Free version easier, this is a direct link to the information-and-download page right at AVG's own website.

No computer should ever be without an antivirus program, at the very absolute least. Speaking of which ... time to go run that very thorough scan you mentioned, Dave. I think this time I'll add a Rootkit scan, too.
I have an older eMac (OS X 10.4.11) and was unable to download from CNET.com for my Mac. I did find a program at Apple
Apple - Downloads - Networking & Security - ProtectMac AntiVirus
I wondered if any other mac users have tried it before I install it.
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Old 12-13-2009, 09:21 AM   #4
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Have any Macs been affected?
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Old 12-13-2009, 10:41 AM   #5
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None of my photos in my albums show up now - just the red X in the box. Anyone have any ideas why? Thanks!
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Old 12-13-2009, 12:54 PM   #6
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Macs have been affected to the extent that they received warnings about accessing the site. A Mac that also has Windows would be as vulnerable to malware as any PC (on the Windows side of the computer), even if you were using Mac OS while browsing.
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Old 12-13-2009, 12:56 PM   #7
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Judi, which albums? What program, what kind of computer?
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Old 12-13-2009, 02:34 PM   #8
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Now you tell me -- just finished reformatting my computer since I couldn't get rid of the viruses!

(It need it anyway -- it's been four months.) This is the first site I recovered after the reformat....
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Old 12-13-2009, 03:38 PM   #9
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None of my photos in my albums show up now - just the red X in the box. Anyone have any ideas why? Thanks!
I too just noticed that my photos in all of my uploaded albums are not showing up either. I have a Gateway computer with Windows XP and I use Internet Explorer, I think v7.

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Old 12-13-2009, 05:00 PM   #10
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Judi, which albums? What program, what kind of computer?

Dave - the albums on my profile page. I'm on a PC (Vista) and around the time of the virus I noticed all the photos are now only showing as the red X. All the photos were originally from my PC or Photobucket. I've tried logging out of PPer and back in and that didn't help. Thanks!
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Old 12-13-2009, 05:18 PM   #11
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Ruh roh. My profile albums are gone too. There's no red x, just the name of the photo, which is clickable but still shows up as nothing.
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Old 12-13-2009, 05:24 PM   #12
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Ruh roh. My profile albums are gone too. There's no red x, just the name of the photo, which is clickable but still shows up as nothing.
Yes I noticed this as well. I have checked others albums and it seems to be common. Good luck Dave figuring this all out and Thank you for addressing this so quickly!
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Old 12-13-2009, 05:43 PM   #13
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Same issue here, I am still getting the warnings also.
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Old 12-13-2009, 06:18 PM   #14
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Alas, I suspect this is due to one of the security updates we installed. Jennifer will know better than I. Just hang in there until she has a chance to look into it.
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My PassPorter Bookshelf <table width=100% height=75 border=0><tr><td style='background-image: url(http://www.passporter.com/forums/club/images/bookshelf/shelf8.png); background-repeat: no-repeat;'><a href='http://www.passporterboards.com/forums/club/bookshelf.php?member=8&name=Dave Marx' border=0><img src='http://www.passporter.com/forums/club/images/bookshelf/transparent.png' height=75 width=100% border=0></a></td></tr></table>
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Old 12-13-2009, 06:55 PM   #15
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Thanks for looking into it all Dave!!
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