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MINNEAPOLIS, MN - December 18, 2002
Items of interest.....
I. CEO’s Corner: A Special Holiday Greeting
II. Digital North Technology Update
III. Microsoft: What do you need to update today?
IV. Spam Fight
V. Ralph Awad: New Hosting Engineer
VI. Broadcast Email: Understanding the New Minnesota E-mail Law
I. CEO’S CORNER
The holiday season is upon us. Over Thanksgiving, I conducted my annual experiment to see how much
food I can consume in one day. My family's standard Thanksgiving meal is my absolute favorite. My
wife makes an outstanding pumpkin ice cream dessert. Needless to say, once again I outdid myself --
nothing that loosening the belt could not handle though.
My waistline is not the only thing growing over the holidays. Digital North has added numerous
customers to our hosting services during the past quarter. Digital North is pleased to announce
that it has acquired Wizmo's shared web hosting business. We would like to extend a special
welcome to these new customers! You can find out more about Digital North and Wizmo at the
following website:
http://www.digitalnorth.net/news/news-12102002.htm
Not only has our number of customers grown, but so has our service infrastructure. The following
is a list of some of these additions.
- more firewall systems
- additional core Cisco routers
- numerous Compaq, IBM, and HP servers
- improved email services
- new Miva Merchant services
We are constantly striving to improve our overall service offering. Rest assured, we are not
stopping there. If you have any suggestions for us to improve our existing service or to add
additional services, please do not hesitate to contact me at msowada@digitalnorth.net.
Have a happy holiday season!!
-- Mike Sowada
II. Digital North Technology Update
We are pleased to announce a number of exciting technology accomplishments this past quarter at
Digital North. We recently doubled the capacity of our shared web hosting network at the Inflow
Minneapolis data center. The additional capability was an important step towards ensuring future
growth. We constantly monitor the health and performance of our networks because your customers
depend on it. We increased physical storage space to add new servers, a whole new ethernet network,
and more shared firewall systems.
We completely rebuilt our e-mail systems this past quarter. All of our e-mail systems now run on
the blazing fast FreeBSD 4 operating system. We recently added a new backup e-mail system based
on leading edge CommuniGate software. We also upgraded our mail systems to the newest version --
CommuniGate 4.0. Besides greater performance and reliability, the newest version of CommuniGate
will eventually support Outlook calendars. We will announce support and pricing for Outlook
calendars in the next quarter. Please let us know if you are interested in this service for your
company.
Digital North now supports the newest version of Miva Merchant -- version 4.16. Miva Merchant
is a leading e-commerce system which allows businesses to sell products, integrate with online
payment systems, and track inventory. The newest software is based on compiled code -- meaning
that your store will perform much faster. Our latest tests show a noticeable performance
improvement. The only downside to the new software is the time investment necessary to upgrade
existing stores. But the performance gains are worth it. Please contact your Digital North
representative if you are interested in upgrading to the latest version of Miva Merchant.
III. Microsoft: What do you need to secure today?
by Jason Baker
It’s 2 AM on a weekday morning and I’m staring at a Microsoft Windows login screen. As I fight
against sleep deprivation I follow the same process over-and-over again, like an assembly line
worker -- start menu, windows update, submit. Okay, I say to myself, one down and twenty-nine more
servers to go. Welcome to the world of Windows Updates.
Updating a Microsoft Windows server lately has felt like drinking from a fire hose. It seems like
Microsoft has been sending out security notices every other day for the past three months. Most of
the security notices have been fairly innocuous. But every once in a while they slip in a real
doozy. For example, a couple weeks ago Microsoft announced a security flaw in their
webserver software (IIS) that would allow a remote attacker to gain complete control of a webserver.
We installed the security patch within 24-hours of the announcement. The problem was that we did
not know how long the vulnerability existed in the webserver. A fire department doesn’t serve much
of a purpose if the firefighters only show up after your house burns down.
I’m not here to disparage Microsoft. We use Microsoft products on a daily basis. They are an
important part of our business. The fact is that many of Microsoft’s competitors experience the
same types of security problems. We just don’t encounter these other software vendors much because
Microsoft is such a dominant software company.
At least Microsoft makes the security patches easy to install. But that is little comfort for a
poor sysadmin that wants to get some sleep. Okay, twenty-eight more servers to go…
Note: Digital North provides monthly server management services to our dedicated hosting customers.
We can ensure that your servers have the most recent security updates installed in a timely manner.
Please contact your Digital North representative if you are interested in this service.
IV. Spam Fight
Did you ever wonder how companies sending spam e-mail messages find out about your e-mail address?
A brand new e-mail account will begin receiving spam e-mail messages after only a couple days.
Don’t blame the spammers -- blame your friends.
Most people have more than one e-mail account. Maybe it is a personal account that you use at home
or it is one of those free Hotmail accounts. Personal accounts are useful when you need to purchase
or register for stuff on the Internet. The thinking is that by using your personal account you are
minimizing the number of companies that know your “true” e-mail address. Any shop or service on the
Internet could potentially sell your e-mail address to spammers.
When you sign up for a free e-mail account you are told that your e-mail address and personal
information is private. But here is the dirty little secret. The e-mail company will not protect
the identity of people that send e-mail messages to you. If your brother sends an e-mail message
to your personal account his e-mail address will land on a spam marketing list. As if that were
not enough most free e-mail companies will sell the list of e-mail addresses you send messages to.
So if you use your free e-mail account to send a “test” message to your corporate account you have
just added your corporate e-mail address to a spammer’s mailing list.
What can you do to fight this problem? Unfortunately not much. Even if you do not use these free
e-mail services chances are your friends and co-workers are using them. The usefulness of these
“throw away” e-mail accounts is greater than their negative effects. New spam fighting technologies
in the future will hopefully reduce the amount of junk mail we receive.
V. Ralph Awad: New Hosting Engineer
We are pleased to announce that Ralph Awad has joined our staff as a Hosting Engineer. Ralph brings
over three years of technology experience to Digital North. He recently worked at a large Internet
datacenter company as a technician. Ralph will manage new service installations and provide
customer support. Ralph was born and raised beneath the Great Pyramids in Cairo, Egypt. He holds
three degrees from Missouri Baptist College in St. Louis. Ralph and his wife have recently
celebrated the birth of a baby girl, their first child.
VI. Broadcast E-mail: Understanding the New Minnesota E-mail Law
On March 2, 2003, new anti-spam legislation takes effect in Minnesota. The legislation was passed
by the most recent Minnesota State Legislature. The new Internet Privacy Act seeks to protect
personal confidential information on the Internet while stemming the flow of unsolicited email
messages. The new law includes stiff penalties for companies and service providers that violate
the broadcast email restrictions.
We are advising all of our customers to begin adopting the new legal requirements today. The new
law makes a distinction between “commercial electronic mail” and other types of email messages. A
commercial electronic mail message does not include email messages where: 1) the recipient has
consented to receive messages from the sender, 2) the messages are from an organization using email
to communicate with its members, 3) the messages are from an organization communicating with its
employees or contractors, or 4) if there is a business or personal relationship between the sender
and recipient.
An organization sending commercial electronic email messages must establish a toll-free telephone
number, a valid return email address, or another easy-to-use electronic means that the recipient
may use to notify the sender to stop sending email messages. The subject line of a commercial email
message must include the letters “ADV” as the first characters. The email recipient can use this
designation to filter out unwanted email messages.
The new law includes penalties up to $35,000 per day in some cases. You can find out more
information about this new law at http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/slaws/2002/c395.html.
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