Lost programs

I hope there is a way for programs to be restored. However the person did this, it must not be following the KA guidelines, and even if it did, doing this definitely shouldn't be allowed. This person should be banned. 

Wow. anonymous. I really hope we can find this scammer. Also, that's just really messed up. Who would do something like that?

How could they get a password?

yikes

i think quinn & leviathan and the other big brain coders can help use api to get their programs back.

Where's the link to the false program?

Wow, that's pretty crazy. How could that even be possible? The programs are so carefully sandboxed and shouldn't be able to do anything close to that...

I expect if KA is doing daily backups (pretty common practice) that the programs still exist, but that's still insane!

KA employees can probably get into the database and find the scam artist, and the programs.

look at my post: deleted projects – Khan Academy Help Center

Did it have a bookmarklet? @Quinn Hardbrook said that he found a bookmarklet that dad code to delete all projects. If you did, would you mind posting what code it contained?

it did have a bookmarklet, but the program was deleted and i cant get the code

The programs may or may not be findable, depending on KA’s backend. Even if they are, it’ll require KA’s dev team to go in manually and find the programs. Taking into account how many other people may have intentionally deleted their programs, it could take a long time, and the developers might decide it’s not worth it.

Since bookmarklet’s are run directly in the webpage, CORS won’t detect any security issues. You can see my recent post for more on what malicious bookmarklets can do.

But do any of you still have the bookmarklet bookmarked? That's what most likely contains the malicious code, the program was probably more of the method of delivery.

I was also just thinking, see if you can snag the program ID from your browsing history. Otherwise it might be impossible for the devs to find the program...

Yes, yes.

https://www.khanacademy.org/computer-programming/spin-off-of-new-webpage/5680493867515904

It's hidden, but the ID remains >:D

I think it might be wise to ban bookmarklets, if things like this can be done, some preventative methods should be used. I don't really know how any of this stuff works, so there might be a way to stop this without taking away bookmarklets, but this is a big problem.

@Magma, the program has been deleted. I checked with the API. It’s not just hidden.

Hi Magma,

Thanks for raising these concerns! We're investigating the issue and will take all appropriate actions on the users involved in creating these malicious programs.

If you (or anyone else) had their projects deleted, please submit a support ticket describing how this occurred and with any additional information that you have regarding the situation.

Thanks!

I've put this somewhere else, but I have a suggestion. If they can't get there projects back lets all band our subpages together and rally up people who want to help them with remaking old projects or coding a new project of their choosing to help them get back on there feet. Such as remaking their subpages and getting people to re-sub or re-making timothy's among us that he was making. If the whole community gets together to help them we could re - code a lot of there stuff really fast. With the help of both good game coders and good graphic coders we could code their most important projects back in less the a month. 

if you guys want, I can release a project on monday, when more people are on, that you can tell your subbers about, and we can get it on the hot list and tell people about what happened and ask if they want to chip in to help rebuild.

Then we can prove that our community is good one, not an evil one.

That's not a bad idea.

I have a small subbing community, but I'm in! This is like the end of Power Rangers, how everyone gets together to fight evil.

I only have a few subbers, but I'm also in! Although, I might not be too active.

Hi!

Evan Lewis

I think I figured out who the scammer is:

I think it is Omar5177 https://www.khanacademy.org/profile/Omar5117/projects

he seems really good with the same kind of stuff as the scammer, and he commented "wow actually works" on the fake webpage.

VEXCESS #BringBackBackgrounds

said:

"Hmmm in this program here of his is sus
https://www.khanacademy.org/computer-programming/stream-test/5200767349637120

window.top.postMessage(LIVE_KA_CANVAS.toDataURL(), "https://www.khanacademy.org")
looks like that program posts to Khan Academy somehow.

It appears that his live stream works which is pretty cool, but probably illegal."

I'm in, I'll post something on my subscription page

Should KA immediately ban him for what he's been doing? Even if we couldn't pin the scam on him, he's done other stuff.

That post message is just to trigger a editor save, it's how twitch.ka operates. Anything inside the program is incredibly safe, it's bookmarklets that have more permissions.

Evan Lewis is aware of it, so I think at this point we should leave it up to the moderators to take care of it :)

he should seriously be banned forever.

He already did bad stuff so he should be kicked out and no ban appeal allowed.

Stephen, yes, but that is accessing windows (an external) within the Processing environment. That by itself (especially as a first offense of its kind on an account) isn’t grounds for a ban, but minor moderation action may be taken on that program.

I seriously doubt Omar will be banned. Guardians have shown time and time again they only base moderation actions on what they see on KA, and, as far as I know, none of them were able to see the bookmarklet in question before it was deleted by the author.

This is very true. I just want to avoid accusing someone who may be completely unrelated.
Until we know for sure if he even is the perpetrator I think we should assume innocence :)

After all, it was posted by an anonymous person. There have been multiple people (me included) who would be capable of writing something like that bookmarklet, so there's no way for us to tell without KA's logging.