I guess everyone was wondering what happened with HiveSQL and all of arcange's services and websites (except his Hive witness nodes). I am not in the hivesql discord server (wasn't aware there was one), but Rishi was kind enough to share on the Holozing discord what Arcange added there and I'll share the screenshot here for anyone who didn't have the chance to read:
As a side note, the missed delegation rewards on Holozing due to the hivesql issues are coming, they will be dropped all at once soon.
But let's return to hivesql and the other services and websites arcange provided. From his presentations on various occasions, we know he is quite security-focused. He wonders too in the message above how were the attackers able to access and encrypt his backup devices as well. Now that we've come to this point, I remember a recent post of @themarkymark exactly on this topic.
What I'd be curious further is what was the purpose of the attackers. Is this a classic ransomware attack that seems to spread like wildfire the more "money" and sensitive information we control from our devices, or is it a test for Hive, to see how dependent it is on one man's infrastructure? If it's the latter, we survived, with a few glitches here and there.
Either way, I don't want to be in Arcange's shoes right now. Stay strong!
Short Term Solutions
There are short-term solutions to replace a light dependency on hivesql. I wouldn't dare to give advice here, but Rishi found a way (I don't know the numbers after @ rishi in his username, but you can find him in the Holozing discord, for example, and I am sure in the HiveDevs discord as well).
Or you can ask in the HiveDevs discord directly, I suppose.
Long Term Solutions
Here, I would focus on solutions that are more... decentralized. Can someone do with HAF all that was possible with HiveSQL? HAF is obviously much more than HiveSQL, but not sure if it can do all that was possible via HiveSQL. Perhaps it depends on customization.
HiveSQL is a service (free while supported by the DAO), HAF is not. Someone would have to set up a HAF database and allow public access to make it a service. @mahdiyari does that, but with limitations that make it unusable in production. That means someone who wants to use HAF in production needs to set up a HAF database of their own. If there are multiple such HAF databases throughout the ecosystem that are not highly customized, at need, one can temporarily be allowed access to the database set up for a different purpose/dapp. At least, that's how I see things. I'm sure there will be some public HAF databases (or APIs for them), the Blocktrades team has worked tirelessly to create some HAF-based tools that will be launched soon.