It came to my attention today that the TI‑Basic Developer website was inadvertently taken hostage by Wikidot.com. I don't frequent this site so much any more, so I wasn't aware it had happened. It appears that the site may have become unavailable sometime between the 21^st of April 2023 through until today (8^th of May 2023).

What happened?

Years ago, one of the admins (it may have been me?) turned on SSL (Secure Socket Layer, basically "httpS://" for this site. This is the standard of the internet these days, after all. The host server, Wikidot.com, provides this https function for "Pro+" account admins, only. But for quite some time now, none of the admins have been Pro+ members, thereby TI‑Basic Developer hasn't technically been entitled to the httpS feature. This wasn't a problem, though, because the site still worked. Furthermore, it could fall-back to http mode if it failed.

However, within the past few weeks, it seems that any Wikidot.com sites with httpS enabled and without Pro+ accounts were simply "locked out" until the admin changed the site security settings to disable SSL. Here's the catch: Even if you go to the site's administrative controls and try to disable SSL, it has a message:

So, in order to rollback the TI‑Basic Developer site to the free http (without the S) configuration, we would have to pay an exorbitant price for the Pro+ account upgrade (not even the "Pro" accounts have SSL). This is what I mean, when I say that the TI‑Basic Developer website was inadvertently taken hostage by Wikidot.com. Although, perhaps this isn't inadvertent at all… I'm suspicious it was intentional design.

Anyway, with a bit of HTML code injection and a bit of luck, I was indeed able to rollback the site to the free, http configuration.

Unfortunately, this means your connections to the site aren't encrypted, and this is a privacy risk if your computer or device is compromised with some sort of man-in-the-middle spyware. As such, take appropriate cautions. But at least the site is back online, albeit compromised.

It is worth mentioning, though, that perhaps the TI‑Basic Developer site and community should be migrated to a more stable platform, since the host server Wikidot.com appears to be approaching its end-of-life.

Although I do not accept responsibility for the downtime, I hope the community will be understanding with this transparent explanation, and the measures taken to correct it.

Welcome back, and happy coding!