Wonderful post H2pots, sums up my feelings exactly, never met Malcolm either but feel like I've lost a close friend.

DomainCheap are the registrants and they have referred me to their risk management department, I am waiting to hear back.

We were lucky that Malcolm still lived at the address I found on an old Joey Dunlop registration from many years ago and that his next door neighbour but one has an on-line business. At least we have concrete info to work on.

Do not spend anything elsewhere as I can keep the site alive for now via NameCheap for less then £10 until start of 2023. When domains become available there are squatters who grab them and ransom them back, so better to prevent expiration.

Most important is access to remove the tracker link. It is 'mostly harmless' for now but the script it runs on the Nigerian website could be substituted for worse. Whatever, do not acknowledge ANY external messages generated on the forum, just close any external popup links. I recommend paying for Malwarebytes for security on PC's. Others may know better out there now but is has saved me a few times.

I have asked when Malcolm passed but have yet to find out, i think there may have been a logon after his passing so maybe the family have the credentials.

I have a long professional programming background but have been retired for twenty years so have no knowledge of the MyBB language (or much else now!!), but should be able to remove the tracker if I can get access. The version of MyBB almost certainly needs updating as the loophole has been closed.

It may be best to let me run with this for now and then find a new owner. I have owned a tightly run Proboards forum elsewhere for nearly twenty years and would be happy to assist in the initial running of the forum, but it cannot be left with me at my age as you could be in the same boat all too soon.

If there is anyone  with more knowledge I will be happy to hand over all the info I have found and take a step back as I will be fumbling in the dark with some of this.

From BD's info I can see that there are about twenty provisional members awaiting authorisation, .

I have registered with 'Between The Hedges' to see what is going on there but they have only ten members and no recent new ones. Amongst the ten is at least one banned member form this forum.

Chris