Hypthetically, I found a remote code execution vulnerability in that version of phpBB, read the configuration file to get the MySQL details, and then used mysqldump to download the database.
You can find exploits by just Googling or looking in Metasploit. They’re usually pretty simple query string things.
We set up a clone of the forum with a similar name just in time, then emailed the user database to tell them about the new site when the old one disappeared.
Sadly this caught the previous owner’s attention and he sent a cease and desist, despite his version of the site not existing any longer. So, we wiped the database, and then all the users just signed up again. It still lives on as https://www.basschat.co.uk/
Hypothetically.
>Sadly this caught the previous owner’s attention and he sent a cease and desist, despite his version of the site not existing any longer.
Wow, what an ass. I just can't understand the thought process of some people.
I would just scrape the site. I would even consider anonymizing names, as everyone should have the right to delete old content IMO.
After scraping, I would then watch the analytics. Anything which seems popular could then be given more attention. For example, I would probably create a design for the site itself, then create dedicated pages for anything popular. The pages could be curated "this is what you came for" and a link to the original pages.
Forums probably don't come back. You could start out with some minimal community features such as comments to see if anyone is willing to bite. A Discord server or similar could be another option. Kind of depends on the demographic I guess. Old people like forums. ;)
Assuming you're a member of the organization and therefore licensed to use the content (but merely unable to access it): Purely hypothetically speaking, if an admin is this mia and obviously not on top of the job, the odds are probably high that they've neglected maintenance. Old PHP server running out-of-date PHP applications... not the most secure combo in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some magic strings you could send to the server to get it to regurgitate the contents of the database in a more developer-friendly, strongly-typed fashion which you could import to myBB or XenForo and continue chugging along..