Anti-Social & Lurker - Hideout spot

Back in May, 2025 I was suffering from health problems and burnout, due to which my absence from ATF was long enough for the staff to get really worried. Contingency plans were made, @JohnMolotov (who had been removed from the staff earlier) was brought back due to his technical knowledge to make a backup of the forum's database, just in case. This was possible by gaining shell access by leveraging Xenforo's plugin system.

Not too long after I finally resurfaced. I questioned John about the backup and these still existing backdoors they built to run arbitary code on the site. I removed their bakcdoors and John said he had deleted the database when they saw I had returned.

I spend a lot of time explaining how dangerous the database is to countless people's lives if fallen to the wrong hands. The numerous ways this could happen. They assure me I had nothing to worry about, that it's already gone.

Problem arose when John's way of handling things was rubbing many of the older staff members the wrong way. They wanted John gone or they would quit themselves. I sided with the other staff and had John removed.

John understandably wasn't happy about this, felt they have have been wronged, that the protesting staff members where the problem. I tried to find a compromise where John could be brought back, but not as a leader so that the staff wouldn't have to answer to them. John hold their ground as taking this would be admitting they were wrong after all and it's the leadership position they really wanted anyways.

Then John decided to try to force my hand:




Basically I would have to hand the site over to them or else they would dox everyone. Thus I responded with my own ultimatum. The only exit to this, to protect the users, was to shut the site down.

This obviously wasn't what John had planned. They backed off from some of their demands and then the rest.

For me to consider continuing from here, was to really make John to understand what an existential threat the pandora's box they had just opened was to the site. They seemed to realise this and agreed to, for real now, get rid of it. Additionally, collateral, John's real identity, was put into the hands of a common associate, to give me some peace of mind that in case John tried something, they could be held accountable.

None of this was ever disclosed to users, only to some of our staff, and I apologize for this.

Fast forward to present, John and another former staff member who were dating, were at each other's throats. They shared screenshots and chat logs of one other, containing threats, doxing, etc. Among all of this was John talking how they still hold onto a copy of the database as an insurance if they were ever banned. And after seeing all this, bans for them should be in order.

Soon after came threads from "truthsayer", newly created account who put up threads telling about John, how he still hold the copy, and that users of the site do not know about this.

The thing with having to ban John as well as having to explain what happened back in May, is that this will destroy John, giving them ample reason to come after me and the site.

Thus I am once again placed in the position where the only exit I see is to close the site down. The backup dates back to around May 22nd, 2025, and information it holds (user accounts, logs, private messages, etc. basically everything but the media itself) is only amplified with data made since, easily accessible from this site. With ATF gone, there's less of a reason for John to care to retaliate against their banning or this exposure as the fight over this site is at center of it all.

Now, upon hearing of the news of me closing down the site John denied having any copy, but also said if they did have it, this would ensure it's release. So be aware that if ATF ever resurfaces from an old copy, then it's their doing and they are not to be trusted and everything will be done to stop them.

Let us all hope that they let the site sunset in peace.

"I'll splinter the ATF into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds".

This is not the first time I've thought about calling it quits.

Hosting a site of size and nature does take a toll on you, even if the challenge on itself has been a major motivator to keep going.

And it's only getting a steeper uphill still.

If the so-called "basics" are covered from technical / hosting side, you have to worry operating within bounds of the law, keeping the bad actors at bay as well as malicious attempts to bring the site down by DDoS, deplatforming, doxing and so on.

With laws and regulations tightening not only on pornography, but what can be done with AI, as well as in general what you can do or say online, and platforms are increasingly held as responsible what any given member does.

The operating costs are getting higher.

For optimal performance the site would need a full 10Gbit/s throughput and I'm falling short from paying for it, having to settle to something like 80% of that. There's fees for co-location, VPS, bandwidth, emails, backup systems, all adding up to easily over 20k/year. Not to mention how much has been spent on hardware.

The server responsible for the forum is running out of space in 6 months. All bays are taken. If the RAID level is dropped, then maybe additional year of time could be gained. Even without the price hikes of RAM and SSDs, I wouldn't be able to afford a new server with even more storage than what it has now (7.68TB x 6 on main array).

I am not looking for additional financial support. If you have an old crypto address from me, don't use that as there's a high chance it doesn't reach me. Those who are currently supporting me via subscription, I would ask if you can stick around for a bit as it really does help to keep the lights on. And sincere gratitude to past donators as well.

The users themself are getting more troublesome.

In the beginning of my reign I was all aboard on the idea of "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend". The problem is, as your numbers grows, there is less cohesion. There's a lot of people who will take advantage whatever platform you offer them and they will exploit it to their selfish needs without no concern to it or others.

Thankfully I've had a lot of help from our staff, past and present, without them the site would implode within a day. I just wish I could somehow reward you with more than words, or make the users truly appreciate what they are here for, even if they might disagree sometimes on how they govern.

I hope to keep the site operating long enough for people to backup what they deem valuable and migrate elsewhere. I cannot give any spefic date yet. Hopefully people can do organized effort on this, like a specific sub-section. There are other communities like this that can welcome you as long as you respect them in kind.

For the ambitious ones out there wanting to build their own community, I recommend focusing on your core offering, and doing that well. A niche site that is just a platform for stories or another for game creations / mods would do great. Gray topics should have their own community, focusing on help and support. Think carefully what kind of community you want to foster.

For the migration as well as for existing or future site operators, I might be able to offer help or consultation, technical or otherwise.

The site has grown too large for it's own good, I don't personally really care for the influx of some of the newcomers, there is too much relying on just me, I am not going to be around forever. It's better to call it quits when it could still be done gracefully.

Support the existing sites, be it financially or even just with your activity.

Finally, I think it's important to say that I am not doing this under sudden legal pressure or such duress, . The site has received maybe 5 subpoenas in total when I've been in charge. None of them were any blanket requests, but reasonable in their justification, focusing on individual users, all of which I have fulfilled. None came with a gag order other than not to disclose while an investigation is underway. If desired, I can make more verbose disclosure on these.