Most importantly, it means that we currently have no SBL listings for our IP space! We were recognized by the Spamhaus Team as a proactive no-spam-tolerance network.

This is quite rare as Spamhaus listing process is very strict and thorough. That is something we are very proud of.

Although spam is something that happens on a regular basis, our abuse and support teams work hard at keeping spammers off of our network (good job guys!).

You too can help. If your receive spam originating from our network, simply report it to abuse@iweb.com by sending a copy of the mail headers (make sure to include rogue server’s ip address in the subject line).

You might not receive an instant confirmation and spam might not stop right away (wouldn’t it be great if it was that simple?) but you can be sure that we will do all necessary verifications on the suspected server.

iWeb currently only offers Debian lenny as an install option on Smart Servers. Many of you requested that we supported the latest Debian distro named squeeze.

We are working on implementing this distribution (as well as updating the other available OSes) to be available out of the box with Smart Servers. Luckily Debian can be upgraded successfully manually from lenny to squeeze by installing grub-legacy after the upgrade and before rebooting your Smart Server.

Here’s the step-by-step procedure:

1. First of all upgrade your system to last lenny

 apt-get update
 apt-get upgrade

2. Record a transcript of the upgrade session

 script -t 2>~/upgrade-squeeze.time -a ~/upgrade-squeeze.script

3. Edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file to replace lenny to squeeze.

 sed -i -e 's#lenny#squeeze#g' /etc/apt/sources.list

4. Upgrade the package index.

 apt-get update

5. Install new apt and dpkg

 apt-get install apt
 apt-get install dpkg

6. Minimal system upgrade

 apt-get upgrade

7. Install new kernel

 apt-get install linux-image-2.6-flavor

(to retrieve correct flavor type:

 uname -r

)

8. Install new udev

 apt-get install udev

9. Once you have upgraded both the kernel and udev, the system should be rebooted.

10. When system go up, fully upgrade the system

 apt-get dist-upgrade

11. Install grub-legacy

 apt-get install grub-legacy

12. Remove obsolete packages

 apt-get autoremove

13. Read Debian release note (4.9) to check the list of obsolete packages.

14. Now reboot and enjoy your new squeeze system.

Caveat emptor: As blogger Jeremy Cole mentioned in a recent post « if your system is not a “stock” lenny install, i.e. with 3rd party deb sources and a bunch of custom stuff, your mileage may vary.  I did this to a fresh, new server before anything else. Basically, the standard instructions break grub-pc (GRUB2) on this Xen-based system.  Follow along until the end, then remove grub-pc and re-install grub-legacy. Your system will then be ready to go!».

SOPA is the acronym of “Stop Online Piracy Act” and PIPA stands for “Protect Intellectual Property Act”.

The goals of these two bills are to stop copyright infringement on the Web in the United States, originating especially from foreign countries, according to American legislators.

However, according to its opponnents, the bills will violate freedom of expression while damaging the Internet as we know it.

Despite the fact iWeb did not engage in a specific activity today, we do follow the case closely. We suggest you to gather information about SOPA and PIPA in order to understand how Internet users are involved in the United States as well as in other countries, especially in Canada.

More detailed information is available on the GovTrack.us website, which follows the American Congress activities:

SOPA: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3261
PIPA: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s112-968

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to defend Internet users, summarizes why these bills are unacceptable in an open, free and safe Internet world:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech.

Here is a video produced by Fight for the Future that describes how we are involved in these bills:

Many renowned Websites joined this fight by warning their users about the situation:

Wikipedia
Google
Wired
The Oatmeal
Reddit

In Canada:

Identica
Tucows
Michael Geist (Copyright specialist and law professor at University of Ottawa)

In the Media:

http://www.branchez-vous.com/techno/actualite/2012/01/sopa_une_journee_de_greve_inte.html
http://blogues.radio-canada.ca/surleweb/2012/01/17/protestations-anti-sopapipa-le-canada-participera-t-il/
http://www.radio-canada.ca/emissions/la_sphere/2011-2012/chronique.asp?idChronique=195737
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/01/17/f-sopa-canada.html

(Sources: Wikipedia, GovTrack.us, Electronic Frontier Foundation, CBC)

We would be glad to know what your questions or concerns are on the subject. Feel free to comment:

But there is Zero Tolerance when it comes to illegal activities and especially anything related to children exploitation. Spread the word!

A few months ago, the Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, an organization associated with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), presented iWeb with a certificate of appreciation for our continued support and our assistance in order to reduce child exploitation on the Internet.

We humbly accepted this certificate and we will tirelessly continue contributing to eradicate this plague, even if the task seems endless, unfortunately.

iWeb is vigilant in all matters relating to Internet security, fraud attempts, spam and all overall illegal activities such as distribution of child pornography. Our abuse team is on the alert, but if you notice anything unusual that passes on our network, please let us know by email at abuse@iweb.com (for reference please read iWeb’s Acceptable Use Policy).

Here are some sites you can visit if you want to know more about the policies in place in Canada and the resources that are available:

Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cpcmec-ccpede/index-eng.htm

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection
http://www.protegeonsnosenfants.ca/app/en/home

CyberTip.ca – Report Form
https://www.cyberaide.ca/app/en/report

Now that 2011 is down the drain and a full 30 years have passed since the IBM VM Machine, we thought you’d appreciate us to update and republish it.

Check out the updated ending, enjoy and comment!

1981 – The IBM VM Machine, first list server

The first LISTSERV was hosted on an IBM Virtual Machine mainframe over BITNET. LISTSERV enabled group email collaboration, and spurred the first list spams, flame wars and online trolling

Netcraft’s measurements will allow you to evaluate reliability of data transfer. The reliability performance is monitored every 15 minutes, from several reference points.

According to Netcraft, the percentage of failed requests is more pertinent from a customer’s point of view than outages on hosting companies’ own sites, as this gives a pointer to reliability of routing, and this is why they choose to rank their table by fewest failed requests, rather than shortest periods of outage.

Netcraft is a British Internet services company that provides internet security services and research data and analysis on many aspects of the Internet since 1995. It is a respected authority on the market share of web servers, operating systems, hosting providers, ISPs, encrypted transactions, electronic commerce, scripting languages and content technologies on the internet.

The complete analysis is available on Netcraft’s website. More details on Netcraft’s methodology can be found here: http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/Hosters and http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/FAQ.

At any time, whether at work or at home, whenever you use a password protected connection, you must be very cautious about protecting personal information.

This is especially important if you offer server management services to many clients.

You will be surprised to read the list of the 50 most encountered passwords in intrusion attempts. These passwords were collected by the kind people at Dragon Research Group, based on the analysis of logs gathered after successful “brute force” attacks (http://dragonresearchgroup.org/insight/sshpwauth-cloud.html).

If any of your passwords can be found in this list, you should know that you are at risk. A hacker could easily access your data in just a few seconds.

In fact, when you choose a password you should at least meet the following criteria:

1 – Long and strong passwords:
Combine uppercase and lowercase letters with numbers and symbols and choose at least 8 characters to create a more secure password. Several passwords generators, both software or online, can help you in this task.

2 – Unique account, unique password:
Use a different password for each and every account you manage, avoiding to re-use the same information from one to another. This is especially recommended if you set up systems for several clients.

3 – A shelter for your passwords:
Anyone can forget a password. If you do not trust your memory or if you really have too many passwords to remember, you can still write them down to a file. Remember to keep the list in a safe place and preferably away from your personal computer (and for pity’s sake, avoid Post-Its!). Ideally, use a software password manager that supports encryption like the open source utility KeePass.

These are just a few basic tips, but here are some additional resources that will help you protect your or your clients’ personal data:

Dragon Research Group
http://dragonresearchgroup.org/

Stop. Think. Connect.
http://www.stopthinkconnect.org/

Secure Password Generator
http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/

KeePass Password Safe
http://keepass.info/

Get Cyber Safe
http://www.getcybersafe.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx

Securing Wordpress against hackers
http://blog.iweb.com/en/2011/02/securing-wordpress-against-hackers/2954.html

Please share your own advice and resources in the comments section of this article.

The Prime Minister of Thailand recently announced that the large quantities of water that flooded the country could take up to six weeks before retiring.

Many companies have found their facilities largely damaged and several suppliers of electronic components are unable to produce the parts needed by major brands of computer systems.

Several analysts even predict shortages of some common parts, including hard drives. For instance, affected company Nidec, a manufacturer of hard drive motors, provides 70 to 80 percent of the parts available on the market. Nidec is a supplier to the main hard disk manufacturers, including Hitachi, Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital.

Western Digital, the largest manufacturer of hard disks in terms of volume, employs 37,000 workers in Thailand and about 60% of its production is done in this country.

The company has temporarily suspended its operations in Thailand but the other company facilities in Malaysia, Singapore and the United States are fully operational.

Distributor inventories of are not yet affected but if the situation extends beyond the forecast, a shortage could actually occur in the coming months.

As for iWeb, we fill up our inventory so that the situation does not impact our customers and we can continue to meet the demand. We are monitoring the situation closely.

(Source: storagenewsletter.com, C/Net, npr. Photos: NASA, Bangkok Post.)

This new tab summarizes the key information and simplifies the activation of the different services on your server Smart, such as SuperSmart, in addition to offering shortcuts to navigate in one click to other sections within the Control Center.

In the specifications summary of your server, you will find information about the IP address, network, CPU, RAM, hard drives, the backup service, the operating system and control panel.

You will also find the list of Smart Services and a short description of each of these services. Finally, shortcuts to get online help or technical support are available in the bottom section.

Here is a screen capture of the Smart Server’s Control Center new home page:

Feel free to comment on this new feature. You can also send us your suggestions. Who knows? They may find themselves in a future version of Control Center!

One year ago, iWeb introduced its biggest innovation to date. The launch of the Smart Server, the first product based on iWeb’s SmartLayer technology, marked the first step in transforming the company into an innovative provider of automated Web hosting services.

Since its release, the product has evolved and the iWeb team has delivered a multitude of features to its customers in order to give them more control over the management of their servers. The promise to deliver a product that eliminates many of the problems normally associated with the management and use of a dedicated server was successfully fulfilled.

“We stayed in touch with our customers and developped features that meet their expectations ,” said Martin Leclair, iWeb’s President of Products and Technology . “Customers who buy a Smart Server today will also benefit from any new feature that will be added in the future.” he adds.

Over the year, several features were added with both increased security and server management ease in mind, all available through the Control Center, the Smart Server’s user-friendly management interface. The SuperSmart option provides a software firewall to easily protect critical Smart Server ports and services. Automated Reinstall of the operating system is now available to the customer right from the Control Center. Customers are now able to easily save and restore their data and their Smart Server configurations (including MySQL database configurations) in a few clicks with the available R1Soft backup tools. Smart Groups brings together multiple Smart Servers in an environment completely isolated from other clients allowing each server in the group to communicate easily while remaining invisible to other servers connected to the same LAN, as if they were installed in a physical private rack. All these features are now available in the “Smart Services” tab, in the Control Center, for easy management of the Smart Server.

Many other features will be rolled out in 2012. Once again thanks to the teams that work hard on developping such a great product and making it evolve week after week.

Many thanks to all our clients who chose the Smart Server as the basis for their Web hosting infrastructure. To celebrate the Smart Server’s first anniversary a contest will soon be held. Full details will be announced in coming weeks on the iWeb.com site.