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... and there's drama about.

And to think that I missed it all! Steve and I basically took our Saturday (that's your Friday) off and had a great time doing pretty much nothing related to our business and it was wonderful. But we got back into the groove on Sunday (your Saturday) and discovered that one of the biggest billing programs - one used by many sponsors - has had a major security leak and members and affiliates information has been compromised.

Oh dear ... now what does the owner of said billing program do in such a dire situation? Why of course he does the obvious thing when the first couple of queries hit the boards and suggest that people lodge a trouble ticket because there doesn't seem to be a problem at his end.

Now that sounds like a reasonable response doesn't it ... maybe it did seem that way until someone reminded everybody that this problem was first aired back in October and the response then was to threaten law suits and shout down those who thought there was a problem.

Of course that wasn't going to work this time because the person making the complaints had done their homework and had a lot of server data to support their claim that somebody was getting into their server via the billing program.

Oops what do you do now if you're the billing program's owner? It's too late for law suits and the trouble ticket suggestion had sunk like a lead balloon with most people. Oh well we'll try plan B and claim that the problem must be with everyone's server but not his ... and anyhow it's just an isolated instance ... just one or two programs have been affected.

But it wasn't an isolated instance ... there were suggestions that around 30 programs had been affected and a lot more had the same problem but preferred to remain silent. Well that just scuttled the idea that it wasn't the billing program's server that was at fault ... especially when it was so obvious to everyone involved that the problem was coming from the billing company.

So it's time to move to Plan C and of course Plan C is where you shoot all the messengers, abuse everyone in sight, blame it all on everyone and everything other than yourself and storm off in a huff declaring that you will never return to the board where you were treated with such contempt ... except people weren't treating him with contempt ... they just wanted the problem fixed.

What a sad little hissy fit that was and what an even sadder example of how not to handle a problem. If this guy had wanted to turn a disaster into something even worse he couldn't have done the job better. Somehow with just a few posts he managed to turn a cluster fuck into something that people will remember for a very long time.

And just to make matters even worse ... if that was even faintly possible ... some of those who did lodge a trouble ticket didn't get them answered for around 20 hours. Now isn't that just the great service you want when there's someone with and open door to all your private data in what was supposed to be the very best billing program available?

Of course now the owner of that wonderful program has admitted that the problem was at his end. Access had been gained to everyone else's data through a hack at the billing program's server and they're going to fix it ... probably by Monday.

Now isn't it nice to know that this problem has been around since October but now it will be fixed but not before the email addresses and usernames and passwords of every member signed up to every paysite that uses the program has been compromised. At the same time as those details have been compromised so have every affiliate's details and that possibly extends right down to their ePassporte usernames.

How much better would it have been if this blustering buffoon who owns the billing program had listened to concerns back in October instead of threatening legal action? How much more confidence would we have had in him if he had been pro-active back then instead of carrying on like a pastor's virgin daughter who's just been caught with a cock in her pussy?

It all makes me rather glad that it's Christmas and we can get together with family and friends and have a great time ... and forget for a little while that we put our future in the hands of people who run billing programs.

Merry Christmas everyone ... Steve and I will be thinking of you as we enjoy a real Aussie Christmas.