danoestreich

I was mistakenly making my posts sticky. When I bulk edited, the problem went away.

Ulf

Thanks very much for the information. I may drop you a line. The WP admin page sounds like a great addition. Best to you.

Wow, thanks Ipstenu. I appreciate your credentials and the logic path you’ve expressed. Following the Google Reader Help Group Thread I checked out the wp_options file in the data-base and found exactly the same nonsense code mentioned by “Today I Read Something,” Chris Merlo, and Keith W. I did delete the nonsense code which Chris discovered contains backward php and I have changed out all my plugins, so I’m not experiencing the problem in Google Reader anymore, but I am concerned about the fact that no one has yet identified how the bad stuff got in. Could that be related to the r57shell script issue you mentioned? I’ll certainly take up the security issue with my host eventhough I do my very best to keep up on all new WP versions and also maintain recommended permissions. Thanks for your help and insight, and willingness to spend your time being of assistance!

Many best wishes…

Ipstenu, thanks for your comment, too. I do have a different perspective about customers, suppliers, and users. I do believe any company — whether it’s giving away a product/service or asking people to pay for it — has some obligation to the people who use it. We might disagree in this case where that line is to be drawn. WordPress is too big, I believe, to warrant the “use at your own risk, particularly if you get hacked,” philosophy you have identified, nor do I see any place where this philosophy is actually espoused by www.ads-software.com. I think if they did, they’d turn away many people.

There also seems to be an assumption in what you’ve written that what happened to me and others was purely because of a personal or site security issue. I have no way of knowing this. Do you? Do you know for sure this is not a WordPress issue or that there is something to be learned by WordPress folks by examining the hack? If so, how do you know this?

My perspective is not a critique of WordPress, per se; it’s a request, that’s all. I’m absolutely sure the folks at WordPress are doing their very best, and I have no criticism of them, no blame. I point to this request as a service to myself and others who are also in my situation. If that causes some questioning of assumptions — on either side — that’s a good thing, particularly if it leads to an exchange. As they say, “a market is a conversation.” Thanks again.

Best regards

Thanks for replying, Clayton. Your perspective is help to me. I’m a non-tech customer of WordPress, and what I do notice is that along with the A and B that you’ve listed, there’s a C, which is that everyone on this Google Reader Help Group thread seems to be dealing with a WordPress installation. Coincidental? I have no idea. It may indeed be that it’s a third party deal, or site security problem, or personal error, but it would be great to be able to get some help, or at least a response from someone at WordPress directly — that is my meaning in asking for collaboration, not collaboration with browser or aggregator developers. Because I cannot tell how/why I was hacked, I don’t know how to prevent it from happening, nor can I tell whether or not this is a specific WordPress vulnerability. But I am a WordPress customer. They are my supplier and I guess I would like them to consider how best to help their customers — or be in conversation with them when things like this happen, whether or not they caused the problem; and if there is a specific vulnerability, well, simply to fix it, so we can all move on.

Thanks again, for your help — it has helped me clarify my request.

Best regards

By the way, I have been able to update several different plugins using the built in updater in 2.7. Just haven’t been able to update from 2.7 to 2.7.1. Further advice?

Thanks so much for the help thus far.

So what would you suggest?

Otto, I’m already at 777 on the wp-content folder. Not sure what you mean by the wp-content/upgrade folder? Is there supposed to be an upgrade folder within wp-content?

Dan

Thanks, Otto. Progress! BUT Now here’s what I’m getting in both Safari and Firefox:

Downloading update from https://www.ads-software.com/wordpress-2.7.1.zip

Unpacking the core update

Could not copy files

Installation Failed

What shall I try next?

Thanks again!

John, I’m not using network solutions. Can you be more specific about how to do [reset file permissions]? Thanks

‘This‘ sounds like a related problem.

Thanks, Ryan

In the hostname box, if I enter https://ftp.unfoldingleadership.com, it automatically changes to https://ftp.unfoldingleadership.com://unfoldingleadership.com

The user@hostname format is what I’ve been using for the user name.