1. What happened? TL;DR: We have legal problems, courtesy of one of the “copyright protection” groups. That’s what you get when you have organizations whose sole purpose is scoring points by taking down sites. They don’t care about what they take down. They just do what they are paid for.
2. Is this the same thing as with BG? BG’s shutdown was pre-emptive. Trust me if I say that this one wasn’t planned at all.
3. Does this mean UG is gone? No, we are not gone.
4. Is this related to you closing invites recently? This is what closing invites was supposed to prevent from happening.
5. How/when will we get to know more? irc://irc.esper.net/#UG , we will release new information as it becomes available.
6. Is the user data safe? We went scorched earth on the server – everything that COULD be wiped, was. Everything that could NOT be wiped was thoroughly encrypted.
7. Will UG be back? Possibly. We can rebuild it. We have the means. We have the technology.