2003 Announcements @config.com - Internet Services Provision (ISP) Dial Up High Speed, Wireless Broadband, Satellite Telephones and Long Distance Telephone Services

Internet Services Provision (ISP)

Home of the 1st URL advertised
in a computer magazine!

NOW SERVING: 99% of the American footprint!

Sign up NOW for INTERNET ACCESS

Config.Com, Inc.
228 South Sycamore Street
Ravenna, Ohio 44266-2924
Portage County

Garrettsville/Ravenna/Windham: 330.297.9595
Aurora/Hiram/Mantua: 330.274.3812
Akron/Kent: 330.676.9977
FAX: 330.296.4005

Hours: 9am to 7pm Monday through Friday
9am-Noon on Saturday

Toll-Free National Support Line
1.877.OhioWeb (6446.932)

Last modified: Tuesday, 06-Jan-2004 13:20:53 EST
Today is: Mon Mar 15 21:32:51 EDT 2010

Network Announcements	Account Management	Download our Software	User/Community Directories
Internet Services	Dial-Up Services	High Speed Services	Long Distance Services
Satellite Services	Wireless Services	Web Design Services	Home

2003-2004 Network Announcements

Last Updated on: Tuesday, 06-Jan-2004 13:20:53 EST

Your log-in quote:

New systems generate new problems.

Important dates in history:

For more historical dates in history visit: http://home.config.com/todayinhistory/index.shtml

Current Net News Flash

(www.netnewsflash.com) dial-in subscriber announcements:

Fri Dec 19 10:39:49 EST 2003
config.com network upgrade progress report

Happy Holidays! We thank those who have sent cards and baskets to our support department for the holidays! We know that our efforts really have made a difference during this time of year and can't help but wonder how much kindness is being sent to the big National ISP overseas contracted support departments;^)

The new ns1.config.com is almost ready to be replaced. It will likely be performed on the first Saturday of the year for the least interruption at 4am'ish.

Several other server upgrades are also coming along well including: a new powerful smtp server, and a new radius server. These will be replaced after consultants have had their time preparing and all testing necessary has been performed.

other important news includes:

config.com has added an accellator service which speeds up dial-in access up to 5 times faster at http://www.confighighspeed.com and has also added telephone long distance service for 3.9 cents per minute which is now available at http://www.configld.com.

config.com Internet services is ending the year having acheived more points of presence (POPS/modem dial-in numbers) than AOL, MSN, and Earthlink combined! 22,703 modem telephone numbers is now available using Qwest, AASPMN, GlobalPops, ICG leased ports, in addition to our own config.com network. At this writing, config.com has developed the largest geographic footprint in America and is positioned for growth in 2004.

Thu Nov 6 05:49:12 EST 2003
ns1.config.com memory upgrade

I just completed a memory upgrade in the first step to resolve a DNS lockup issue resulting from email and virus overload. Although there has already been enough DNS interruption to justify the immediate memory upgrade, I've been watching it very closely and waited to wee hours of this morning so it wouldn't effect as many people. It went smoothly and downtime was limited to about 5 minutes.

The process of building new servers for each protocol has begun. The new network design will offer a dedicated server for each protocol so the failure of any one protocol, will have little or less impact on another.

Wed Nov 5 12:59:31 EST 2003
log-in password errors

We have been receiving a growing number of reports regarding password errors, email, and or getting on-line, but not being able to go anywhere.

A couple of months ago we started getting reports of failed log-ins due to password errors. At first we thought this was isolated to the Hiram-Mantua calling area, but as time passed, the problem has spread throughout our entire managed network. It is hard to resolve an issue, if the source can't be discovered due to being intermittent. In the process of heavy research, we have determined the causes.

In recent months there have been a growing number of new strains of viruses which several have their own smtp email servers! The problem with this lies in the growing amount of smtp traffic that is passing through the Internet still must be answered by the legitimate servers for the user receiving the email, legitimate or otherwise, the mail server must still answer the request to either allow or deny the email in question. Every email received by the mail server must also make a DNS lookup to resolve the name of the server it is coming from and this adds to the burden of DNS workload.

The solution to the added burden of email traffic is to dedicate a server for each protocol! We are presently in the process of redesigning and rebuilding the network to meet this new requirement.

We apologize for the inconveniences of the failed login problem. It is intermittent and only occurs during spike periods of traffic. We suggest to check the list of potential causes below to be sure it's not your system, and keep trying until you get through. I'll be watching it closely until a server can be dedicated and I also have several users that contact me in the event of a potential problem, and of course, I've always published my personal contact information on-line at http://www.joerinehart.com/ if you need to contact me too in the event of an network emergency!

A few other common failed login reasons include:

Not logging in using your full email address on our leased networks ie: username@config.com instead of only the username. Email still requires only the username!
On the Qwest network, each user must request addition to the user.CHAP authentication RADIUS file.
Modem drivers - Conexant or Agere-Lucent modem drivers may have become outdated (see below).
Missing passwords (we've been getting more and more reports of passwords disappearing!)
Spyware - Go to http://www.lavasoft.de get and install ad-adware! You be surprised as to who is transferring information from your system to theirs! This will even slow down a broadband connection...
Viruses - keep your Anti-virus definitions current and run it!
Multiple log-ins. Guard your password and don't share dial-in accounts. Most networks that allowed it are already out of business.
Is your CAPS LOCK KEY ON? Our UNIX systems are case sensitive and usernames must be in lowercase.
If the dial-up networking (DUN) connection was setup manually for our local config.com network, check for DNS spelling errors ie: ns1.config.com (NOT nf1.config.com) and also make sure the gateway (216.28.158.1) and the subnet (255.255.255.0) exist. All leased network settings are automatically assigned.
Line noise, reverse polarity, digital to analog multiple hop central office routing, and other telephone circuit quality issues.
A suspended account will cause failures.

A couple of modem performance tips include:

1. Conexant modem default drivers are the biggest cause of disconnects and drop carriers! To fix this problem go to your Control Panel, then modems, and remove the modem. When you reboot your system it will automatically detect your Conexant modem and reinstall the Microsoft drivers for it. This ONLY WORKS for Conexant modems!
2. Agere Lucent LT Win modems outdated drivers are the second major cause of poor performance, you should upgrade your Lucent Win modem drivers. Agere has made it painless to update their drivers and it's really amazing how many problems this action can resolve!
To improve your modem performance as much as 500% you should check out the software and tools available at: http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php and adjust your TCP settings to reflect:
Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU): 1500 (Microsoft defaults to 576 which is what AOL uses, but the rest of the Internet is set at 1500)
Receive Window (RWIN): 4096 or 8192 (for most modems speeds and even higher for broadband connections)
Max Dup ACK's set to 3
Time to Live (TTL): 128
All other settings should be set at default

Adjusting these settings is likely to resolve not only speed issues, but disconnections, dropped carriers, timeouts, and other communication issues that we see more often in rural America!

To improve and update your Microsoft Windows operating system you should visit http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and update all of your critical updates and anything that refers to the Internet or Dial-Up Networtking (DUN)! It's FREE and often solves very important security and performance problems.

Best 'net regards,
Joe Rinehart, Network Administrator

Wed Nov 5 12:00:00 EST 2003
Cogent maintenance schedule

Dear Cogent Customer,

As a valued customer, Cogent is committed to keeping you informed about any
changes in network status.  This email is to alert you about some
maintenance we will be performing on our network, which could affect your
Cogent connection for a short period of time.

The maintenance will be taking place on November 11 from 3am to 7am.  The
affected area for this maintenance includes Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit,
Toledo, and Dayton, Ohio; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This outage will likely affect your connection during this time, but should
be completed by 7am.

While it is important for Cogent to perform maintenance such as this to
ensure the quality of our network, we try to do everything possible to
minimize any inconvenience to our customers.  We appreciate your patience
and welcome any feedback.

We look forward to continuing to bring you excellent service.  Thank you for
being a Cogent Customer.

Sincerely,
Customer Support
Cogent Communications

Fri Oct 31 14:03:38 EST 2003
The email server is getting pounded!

We are looking into why the server is receiving an abnormally high amount of traffic! Until we can filter the culprit, or prove a new virus strain, we'll have no choice but to start and stop the server.

we will do out best to keep this interruption to a minimum!.

UPDATE: We discovered a spammer hitting our mail server to the tune of about 1,000 emails per minute and have blacklisted the IP it was coming from. Gotta love comcast;^)

Sat Aug 16 21:38:33 EDT 2003
Upgrade of DNS Bind on MX1 and MX2 in progress this weekend.

Due to a growing number of DNS related issues which have been verified, I am upgrading our DNS servers this weekend! This will resolve a few known exploits from being the issue causing the server to die, then restart. I've already removed my scripts to automatically restart, but it seems to be happening a few times daily 12-14 minutes after the hour.

There is no relationship between connecting to the Internet and DNS. However, without DNS you won't be able to go anywhere because DNS is what resolves names like home.config.com to numbers like 216.28.158.11.

We've also had a couple of users report slower connections in the Hiram-Mantua, Ohio calling area. We will be looking into this further after our DNS upgrade is completed, and we don't believe connection speeds are related to DNS.

A temporary solution to the DNS problem is to change the primary to ns1.fnsi.net which is IP 206.183.224.7 or rover.ascpl.lib.oh.us which is IP: 199.218.0.2

If your on-line for a while, then can't go anywhere, you may also wait it out as it has been restarting by the time anyone has telephone me to point it out. This had an impact on why it took me so long to confirm there was a problem.

Sat Aug 16 08:18:27 EDT 2003
NEW Microsoft virus effecting dial-in users

Dear Microsoft Customer,

On August 11, 2003, Microsoft began investigating a report of a worm, known as W32.Blaster.Worm, that exploits the vulnerability addressed by Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-026. Microsoft released this critical security bulletin and corresponding patch for Windows operating systems on July 16, 2003. While some customers may not notice the presence of the worm infection at all on their computer systems, typical symptoms may include Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems rebooting every few minutes without user input or Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 systems becoming unresponsive.

If you applied security patch MS03-026 prior to the discovery of the Blaster worm, your system is secure from the vulnerability that W32.Blaster is using. For the most current information on determining if your systems are infected and how to recover from the infection, please go to the following Web site and perform the prescribed steps: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=221450. This site will be updated as more information regarding the W32.blaster worm becomes available.

Our goal is to provide you with the information and tools you need to help run your company safely and reliably. When we become aware of these types of vulnerabilities, it is our goal to share protection and remediation information with you as quickly as is possible. In order to help protect your computing environment from security vulnerabilities, we encourage you to use the Windows Update service by going to http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=221451 and also subscribe to Microsoft's security notification service at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=221452. By using these two services you will automatically receive information on the latest software updates and the latest security notifications, thereby improving the likelihood that your computing environment will be safe from the worms and viruses that occur.

Thank you,

Microsoft Corporation

Thu Aug 14 19:33:47 EDT 2003
Our Cogent backbone connection was effected by the power outages.

Our Akron, Ohio Cogent backbone circuit was down for a while today and just came back up. Our Sprint backbone managed to stay up, but unfortunately, that only helped our broadband wireless subscribers and they couldn't get to any of the servers or protocols linked to the Cogent backbone during the outage.

In other news:
We have been getting reports of brief DNS outages and have verified a problem exists. We are presently looking for the cause...

The config.com Bulletin Board System (BBS)http://bbs.config.com and the user management and billing system https://secure.config.com/billmax/bmui.cgi are both upgraded and operational again.

Fri Jul 25 09:57:36 EDT 2003
home.config.com experienced an SMTP denial of service

Geez, just when I'm thinking the spam is under control a spammer bombs our primary mail server which also caused grief to radius. The issue has just been resolved and is being watched closely in the event another attack should occur.

UPDATE:
In researching how to stop an smtp denial of service, I implemented the setting which controls the number of mail server processes that may be run at once. The setting was set to 3 processes about 11:00pm last night which effectively didn't allow much real email to get through. About 11am I changed this to allow 25 processes.

Another UPDATE:
All additional processes have been removed and the mail server is holding it's own. Spamassassin is now only available on request. We've also established 2 secondary email servers to help distribute the workload of the traffic we've been experiencing.

Mon Jul 14 09:32:16 EDT 2003
portage.config.com aka commerce.config.com is down:

Our commercial server is presently down and we are actively looking for what to cure. It is suspected either memory or the SCSI controller card may have gone out.

UPDATE: The portage server is back on-line! It appears that we lost two power supplies and a motherboard which was replaced using one of the development machines. We plan to upgrade to a newer motherboard now that we know what the problem was... and will schedule it when the least amount of interruption will occur.

Thu Jul 10 15:29:55 EDT 2003
config.com email server in the news:

Joe Rinehart, Network Administrator of config.com represents Ohio Internet Service Providers Association (OISPA) spam legislation committee in Plain Dealer news article.

Click the image for the 132K article.

Fri May 30 14:24:11 EDT 2003
Email server and fighting spam:

First I apologize to everyone that had problems with email in the past week! In my attempts to fight the rapidly growing amount of spam passing through the server, I added all the Realtime Blacklists (RBLs) that looked good. Ironically, that created a problem which caused the President of the Ohio ISP Association (OISPA) to get filtered trying to send me information about spam legislation. The email also started flowing from subscribers and people trying to email them about the problems they were having sending and receiving email.

Due to these problems with traditional filtering, I decided to change tack and try a new strategy toward combating spammers.

I've removed almost all existing filters and RBLs yesterday and implemented 2 new defenses which include:
1. Blackhole routing
2. The Spamassassin bayesian filtering system.

The blackhole routing method is designed to routing anyone sending 3 emails within a minute to an "Unknown user" to get automagically routed to 127.0.0.1 for 1 hour. An attempt to use our server to "relay" from the outside, using an authorized "proxy" server, or sending email to one of my "honey pot" addresses will get blocked for 12 hours. Our IP's or authorized commercial client proxy servers are whitelisted! This method has already demonstrated a dramatic drop from 45,000,000 blocked spam emails monthly to around 3,000,000 presently. Yes, these numbers are huge for a network that only has around 1,000 subscribers!

The spamassassin works on a point system, which upon reaching a predetermined level mark the questionable email as *****POTENTIAL SPAM*****. It also has a whitelist which we have config.com within. At present by default, all questionable email is still routed to the intended recipients. However, subscribers may elect to have their own custom spamassassin settings to determine how to route their potential spam. Your favorite Postmaster@config.com will help users set this up, upon request only, and the understanding that it may have the potential for a 1% false positive tagging!

For those interested, Spamassassin, the growing problem of spam, and current pending legislation was on CNN recently at URL: http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/05/24/spam.bill.reut/index.html

In other news, the primary name server (NS1) has been upgraded to a much more powerful machine. No other known network issues exist at this writing!

Best 'net regards,
Joe Rinehart, Network Administrator

Wednesday, 28-May-2003 13:43:18 EDT
Name service died today:

Around 10:30 AM our ns1.config.com died on us. We managed to get RADIUS, and Email flowing promptly and are presently still working on restoring files from the old drive!

You can change the TCP settings and make 206.183.224.7 (ns1.fnsi.net) 199.218.0.2 (rover.ascpl.lib.oh.us - The Akron Public Library) one of the name servers.

The primary name & www server has been upgraded to a much faster CPU and loads more memory! When the server died, unfortunately the ns2.config.com ended up with 0 byte files during it's last update which caused some added grief, but we got it fixed as quickly as possible.

We are still finding some issues with DNS mostly with recent domain clients and are working on resolving these as fast as possible. You may feel free to contact me, if you are effected, to expedite resolution (excuse the pun).

email server news update:

We have installed Spam Assassin to better identify spammers and their spam! Our present settings doesn't remove the spam, but labels it as *****POTENTIAL SPAM***** for each user to filter it yourself, or if you prefer, you may also have a custom file in your home root direcory on our server to automatically delete in so you don't have to transmit it. I'll be posting more about this new service ASAP and adding it to the information already available about our email server's software at http://support.config.com/internet/email/

There are no other known network issues as of Wed May 28 23:32:40 EDT 2003 ! However, I'll be camped out at the office, listening to my favorite Reggae music (to lift my spirits), until the upgrades are completed should anyone need assistance or have any late night issues.

Your late night Network Administrator;^)
Joe Rinehart

Tue May 6 15:23:04 EDT 2003 UPDATE:
Aol.Com email server has config.com blacklisted presently update:

First, I apologize for not posting this news as soon as it was discovered! Usually, I realize this kind of error when a user suggests that I should update home.config.com in the midst of my trying to independently answer emails from a growing number of people having the same problem. Thank you Mr. Crowder, in this case! I try hard, and guess at times my brain seems to flow out the pores where my hair once was attached;^)

We do have a problem with email to aol.com presently! I managed to get through to the AOL postmaster to explain that a Florida user on another network that we leased modems used an IP that had authorized access to our email server to send SPAM, and what we did to fix it!

We passed the testing and was told they are fixed in the order received. A status report may be requested after 72 hours, by the network admins only.

POP3 before SMTP E-Mail server update:

Last Friday, I removed the wholesale IP's due to abuse experienced from a Florida person who found our server with access to the same IP he got from Level3 in Miami, FL. and attacked AOL.com. It occurred to me that the whole reason for having pop3 before smtp is to have IP's added upon a user accessing the email server.

The down side to pop3 before smtp is that the first attempt to send email WILL FAIL on our leased networks ie: ICG, Qwest, AASPM! Once the Ip is added to our access file it becomes valid for only 30 minutes thereafter.

New SPAM filters are being used update:

I recently decided to remove all previous filters from my access file which were collected over a several years period. Upon doing that the SPAM went back up to 99.9%, so back to the access list research.

This past weekend, I found a beautiful site using Postfix filters in such a manner that when I monitor activity or a subscriber should telephone about an error code, it specifically directs me to the exact cause!

I've placed the existing body, header, access filters, and Postfix configuration on-line for public review in our Internet Email support directory at URL: http://support.config.com/internet/email/

Sun Mar 23 11:11:43 EST 2003 UPDATE:
Config.Com National Network Dial-up Expansion:

We are pleased to announce that config.com has passed the Qwest Dial-up testing and have added another 3,000 modem numbers to our network! Config.com is now available from more than 10,000 modem numbers serving more than 99% of the American footprint. Oh yea, have I mentioned that AOL only has 4035 numbers?

The URL of all the modem numbers available are located at: http://www.whypaymoreforless.com/networkslist.html (HUGE file) and are already searchable on-line at www.findanisp.com and will also be updated in our CD-ROM software (9MB) ASAP.

We are very proud to have protected our subscribers Nationally as we did Locally! If one of our circuits should fail, you have a choice! To log-in our National circuits while traveling, you'll have to use your full email address instead of just your username. Any Qwest user will have to be in a special manual authorization file since the authentication process is based on a Microsoft protocol instead of a UNIX one.

We are not charging anything extra for our users to be able to dial one of the National networks, although we pay an hourly fee for the Qwest network, we'll monitor for abusive dedicated connections that only pay for "unlimited on-demand" access. In the worst case, we'll offer a limit of 150 hours on the Qwest net, and charge .50 cents per hour thereafter.

On other topics: Did you know that shortly after we restored HTML email Microsoft released a critical update regarding the ability to run a java script in HTML email that gives someone else the ability to control your computer? Do yourself a favor and update your Microsoft Operating System at URL: windowsupdate.microsoft.com

POP3 before SMTP is expected to be installed by Monday. More about this topic is discussed in an earlier announcement below.

I'm also pleased to announce, this past Thursday, your favorite network administrator was elected and voted to the board of the Ohio Internet Service Providers Association (OISPA.ORG).

Best 'net regards,
Joe Rinehart, Network Administrator

Fri Mar 14 18:29:59 EST 2003 UPDATE:
HTML E-Mail is being restored:

Around Noon today, upon learning and confirming that the most recent versions of MS Outlook Express are defaulting to allow HTML email, we've had no choice but to allow HTML email.

One conclusion I've realized this week is: If there is such a thing as a real threat of "Internet Terrorism", it will prove itself in the form of HTML email! Although, HTML is again accepted by our servers, I feel compelled to suggest everyone read more on the issue starting at: http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml and the many other links found by searching google for "The Dangers of HTML email"

I'll continue to do the best possible job of SPAM filtering using the methods mentioned below earlier this week, and to filter executable Microsoft code ie: .com, exe, bat, etc..(again mentioned below) to best protect our network.

P.S. We did catch the guy in Dayton, Ohio that caused me to make this dramatic decision and have consulted legal council toward testing the New Nov. 2002 Ohio Anti-SPAM Law!

Your not so favorite Network Admin (This week),
Joe Rinehart

Tuesday, 11-Mar-2003 15:03:19 EST UPDATE:
E-mail server FAQ and information:

I've started a single resource for all the email server questions and answers at http://support.config.com/internet/email/serverinformation.html in an attempt to make every ones lives in cyberspace a little easier and better protected.

Sun Mar 9 18:23:45 EST 2003 UPDATE:
EMAIL ABUSE NOTICE resulting in text messages only!

During this past weekend, I've spent little time with my sick wife due to fighting some idiot who's decided to abuse our mail sever using the same ICG ports we lease in the Dayton, Ohio area, from another ISP.

Most of his SPAM was directed to yahoo.com which now means that our legitimate users presently can't send email to users@yahoo.com. We are working on resolving this! I've reported the problem to abuse@yahoo.com, abuse@rasserver.net and of course, of legal council since ANTI-SPAM legislation was recently passed into law allowing IPS's recourse.

Since, I've blocked about all our ICG (rasserver.net)IP's from the Dayton, Ohio area, this past weekend, legitimate users can't send email from Dayton. The fool continues to try over and over again, until he finds an IP block I didn't know about...

One of the things I can do to open up legitimate email from not only Dayton, Ohio but the entire network, and at the same time preventing non-filtered NEWLY BORN SPAMMERS is to block HTML email! I also believe that most of the SPAM in the World is sent in the form of HTML email. Certainly all the child porn and animal trash that we've reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been HTML!

I'll consider removing this HTML email restriction only after our POP3 before SMTP is implemented and should the logs demonstrate to me that a majority of users are using HTML rather than normal text messages.

Also, to better protect Microsoft users from being exploited by dangerous attachments, I'm dis-allowing attachments with the extension of: scr, pif, exe, com, bat, shs, shb, vxd, rm, chm, vbs, ini, cmd, do, hta, xl, reg, lnk, js, & jse. If someone should have a legitimate reason to transfer one of these files, they should know how to archive them in a .zip format using pkzip or winzip!

I feel badly that I'm forced to protect our network by blocking HTML due to the inconsiderate actions of a few SPAMMERS! This particular SPAMMER in question is foolish enough to continue even after I faxed him a copy of Ohio's new ANTI-SPAM Law located at: http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/BillText124/124_SB_8_PH_Y.pdf

Well, it appears that we perturbed at least one SPAMMIN' FOOL from stealing network resources enough to find a way to beat the filters we've already installed!

We trust our efforts to manage a SPAM-FREE network are appreciated for the better, than the inconvenience of reading plain text.

Thu Mar 6 13:52:16 EST 2003 UPDATE:
Email server update

WE are pleased to announce that several additional SPAM filters have been installed!
Yesterday, our filters automatically blocked 1,328,000 (Yes, that's million) emails from known spammin' fools!
with only 8414 email being legitimate to actual accounts.
The current list of spam filters include:
relays.ordb.org,
relays.osirusoft.com,
dynablock.wirehub.net,
proxies.relays.monkeys.com,
opm.blitzed.org,
ipwhois.rfc-ignorant.org,
relays.visi.com,
sbl.spamhaus.org,
bl.spamcop.net,
korea.services.net,
in addition to sender filters which include;
reject_invalid_hostname,
reject_non_fqdn_hostname,
reject_non_fqdn_sender,
reject_non_fqdn_recipient,
reject_unknown_sender_domain,
reject_unknown_recipient_domain,
reject_unauth_pipelining,
reject_unauth_destination,
and lastly our own access (REJECT list) which were recently merged with a couple of well known ISP's. The only problem we've run into so far was that yahoo groups was among the filtered lists, which we corrected. Should you encounter a problem with our new and improved email server, please contact me via <postmaster@config.com>

On other email news:
A web based email program was set up at URL: https://home.config.com:20000/
and the secure certificate was self signed which may be approved during your first log-in. This software will allow the users to pull mail from another server, forward mail to another account, change user information (only on the server level), SSH, and more...

mail server improvements in progress:
I feel compelled to publicly thank Mr. Greg Dykes who recently has been hired as a consultant to assist with the management of the email server, and other network functions! What are the chances, that the very day after he completes the upgrade from Sendmail to Postfix, Sendmail made National news for a security bug that effects 60% of the Internet's email servers? His guidance and recommendations proved timely! Many thanks Greg!

POP3 before SMTP:This next improvement may cause some inconvenience to our subscribers, but will improve the network from potential abuse from other networks which lease some of the same modem ports that we might. POP3 before SMTP will often cause the first attempt to get mail to fail with an error, but the second will succeed. To explain what is actually happening is that if you are dialing into the config.com network from a leased network, the IP assigned to you is placed into our approved access list during the first attempt, for 30 minutes, so on the second attempt, your approved to transmit email to our servers. This process also protects the network in another regard as it becomes impossible to have missing IP's from wholesalers, for what ever reason to cause access errors.

The IMAP protocol: This protocol allows the transmission of the headers and subject before the whole body. Since the body may be a huge file, this will allow the users to choose which email they wish to read much faster than being forced to transfer all the mail first.

Virus Scanning: Due to the growth of the number of viruses that are being transmitted via email, and aimed at MS Windows users, we are integrating virus scanning with our email server. This action by no means should imply that our subscribers won't need to maintain their own virus scanning software, but it will limit those designed to be transmitted via email.

Best 'net regards,

Joe Rinehart, Your favorite network administrator

Sat Mar 1 12:55:40 EST 2003 UPDATE:
FNSI-Cogent backbone problems

On Friday Cogent aquired Fiber Network Solutions which is our primary backbone provider. On Sat. morning telephone calls started coming in regarding why everything was slow or timing out. After spending several hours trying to find a problem, I started setting up trouble tickets with both Sprint and FNSI (now Cogent). Upon contacting Cogent, I learned that there is indeed a problem with the backbone which I was told was related to an IP conflict between the new routers Cogent sent to rep lace FNSI's routers. I expect that since they have discovered the problem, it shouldn't be much longer before it's fixed.

Well, no sooner than I posted this noticed, it appears to be resolved. On the bright side of Cogent aquiring FNSI is that Cogent has a respectable backbone which should flow traffic faster across the County.

OK, there still seem to be some issues with Cogent! We know they are working on it and about all we can do is be patient...1:30pm

For those that are dialing into our Ameritech circuits, you may wish to try our ICG circuit loggin on with your full email address instead of just your username ie: joebob@config.com . You'd only have to change the telephone number from 330.298.3728 to 330.235.9601 and add @config.com to your login name. You should be able to surf, but will not be able to access email, or config.com pages until after the FNSI network is converted successfully to Cogent.

Sun Feb 23 14:34:55 EST 2003 UPDATE:
E-Mail server update

We are pleased to announce that our email server software has been upgraded successfully this morning. Our email server is now implementing several well known and respected SPAM Filters including
http://www.spews.org
http://www.spamhaus.org
http://www.ordb.org

Our new favorite consultant Greg Dykes is already going to work on the next email server improvement which we feel will help assist our subscribers that do not know to run a virus scanner. Having said that, we still recommend highly that our subscribers still maintain their own virus scanning software and that config.com, Inc. is only trying to improve email service to our subscribers by attempting to block as much proven garbage as possible, before it gets to you! New viruses and SPAMMERS are born daily and we can't possibly be expected to stop it all.

Should any email problems be discovered, please contact me <postmaster@config.com>

Wed Feb 19 11:05:07 EST 2003 UPDATE:
E-Mail server upgrade throughout this weekend

We are pleased to announce that we contracted with Greg Dykes, our local Kent State University E-Mail administrator, to supervise the upgrade and continued management of our email server software. Greg has been spending his off-duty evenings and weekends consulting with config.com toward testing and improving our email administration.

We expect the server software switch from Sendmail to IBM's PostFix to go smoothly, but thought we should let you know our plans, just in case. The switch will start Friday evening with SPAM filter tuning throughout the weekend!

Due to a change in our Virus Scanning software licensing agreement, we will be researching for another alternative and will include virus scanning as soon as that decision is made.

Best 'net regards,

Joe Rinehart, Your favorite Network Administrator (Most of the time;)

Mon Feb 10 19:06:15 EST 2003 UPDATE:
ICG circuit problems have been worked out!

This past Friday ICG added several new remote access servers in Northeast Ohio and had a configuration problem which put Microsoft's CHAP authentication before UNIX's PAP. This caused about 19 out of 20 attempts to authenticate ending in failure. Early monday morning, the problem has been resolved. ICG apologizes, we apologize, and are happy to have everything back to normal. Our Ameritech, and other circuits were up and running fine for those that had the numbers.

We now offer 9,156 modem telephone numbers across America. ICG accounts for 385 modem circuits. In the future, should you have a problem with a telephone number of the network that you are dialing, please try another number in the same city offered by a different network provider. All the available modem numbers have been updated in our Internet gearbox software and on-line at URL: http://whypaymoreforless.com . The well known National ISP's don't offer you redundant modems on multiple telecomm networks with a choice of either Cisco and 3COM servers!

Best 'net regards,

Joe Rinehart, Your favorite Network Administrator (Most of the time;)

Mon Jan 27 16:07:00 EST 2003 UPDATE:
config.com recently lost a source of inspiration, and encouragement:
William Sheridan Rinehart
aka Catman
passed away Friday Jan 24th 2003.

Billy, was the person who suggested the name GlobalPeace.Net as the potential greatest domain on Earth that people shouldn't ever forget! We never did much to the site, other than simply try to bring awareness to the issues of peace, and use it to promote worthy causes, but true to Billy's personality, wasn't that the purpose. Billy's web site is at URL: http://globalpeace.net/~catman/

The team @config.com will indeed miss you at the office, although, your presence and globalpeace.net project will always be with us!

Best 'net regards,

Joe Rinehart, Your favorite Network Administrator (& Billy's brother)

Sunday, 05-Jan-2003 13:53:29 EST: UPDATE:
RADIUS Authenication problems

On Friday evning through Saturday morning we experienced a RADIUS authenication problems with IP assignments. In our zeal to pass the Qwest testing to add another 3,000 modem numbers, I made a typo which effected all dynamically assigned IP subscribers. We apoligize and the further testing will occur more carefull in the future.

No current problems exist on our network today during the Cleveland Browns game!

Other news of interest: We've decided to offer extra POP3 secondary email addresses with our all dial-in subscription account plans. The metered accounts will enjoy 3 email address, residential subscribers will be offered up to 5, and the family plan subscribers will be offered up to 10, and 20 MB of personal web page storage. These extra accounts may not be used to log in to the network with dial-in access.

Best 'net regards,

Joe Rinehart, Your favorite Network Administrator (Most of the time)

config.com historical network news announcements:

1998-1999

2000-2001

2001-2002

2003-2004