Courtesy of another RO member, one of the Mods got another email addy for the owner. An email was sent to that address, and it was valid, the owner responded within a couple of hours.
The Readers Digest version of his response is that RO was attacked by a very sophisticated and methodical hacker, who was after members' registration info, including IPs. The owner had SW that monitored and reported hacking activities, and he "shut down" RO's server before - as best he knows - the hacker got what he wanted. Because he travels a lot as part of whatever his business is, he has not tried to restore RO, as he would not be available to defend against renewed attacks.
I know little of his situation or of what/how much he did in the background (i.e. without logging in to RO), but it looks to me (i.e. this is my guess and opinion) like he wasn't keeping RO's forum SW up to date, wasn't incorporating security patches as they were released, and being an absentee owner finally bit RO, hard.
Some GP take-aways:
* DU-folks' paranoia, conspiracy-mindedness, and excessive self-importance notwithstanding, the hack attacks during the run-up to the election were not partisan. And on my part, I could try to build a conspiracy theory out of the fact that RO was hacked several days before the election, while DU was brought down midway though Election Day. But I'm not conspiracy-minded, nor do I attach momentous significance to RO.
* Absentee ownership/administration doesn't work anymore. Some one with appropriate techno-chops needs to be available 24 x 7 x 52.
* Conservative Cave and Conservative Underground being of similar size to RO, CC and CU probably also came under hack attack - more sophisticated than the recent rudimentary DOS-attacking of CC - and between proper preventive maintenance and CC's and CU's technoid life-forms being vigilant, both are operational. Kudos to miskie, et al!
