Network Support Blog

Sunday, Nov 25th, 2007

All's well in SpeediLand. New bandwidth is setup and network is running stable.

Saturday, Nov 24th, 2007

Our bandwidth is getting upgraded this morning to better serve the needs of everyone. We will be up and down for most of the day while we switch our equipment over to the new system. We should be fully operational on Sunday the 25th.

Monday, Sep 24th, 2007

8:30am - SBC/ATT internet services is currently having a problem in Reno/Sparks that has knocked out our internet service. We have an open ticket with them and we hope it's fixed within the hour.

Monday, Sep 3rd, 2007

Some Windows Vista users are having problems connecting to SpeediWiFi.com. This is due to a bug in Microsoft Vista. If you are having problems getting connected, try this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233.

Monday, Feb 26th, 2007

We changed the email server to not block anymore email. It will only filter mail. You can use the rules at the bottom of this page to setup your email client to auto-trash spam. We also added the Spam Stats graph to this page. Red is Spam, Blue is Clean mail.

Sunday, Feb 25, 2007

There has been questions about email blocking and SPAM lately, so I'll try and explain.
Spammers hire russian hackers to send their junk mail out. The hackers run viruses that take over control of Microsoft Windows computers. Because Windows computers have around 80% market share, that means there are billions of them. The hackers can have many thousands of computers under their control. They uses these Windows computers to send out junk email. When a computer sends out junk email, after a few days it will get put on the SPAM block lists. Once it gets on the block lists, our email server will be notified of the IP address and refuse to accept mail from that computer. Since there are 1000's of computers from 1000's of IP addresses it takes time to track them down and add them to the block lists. The hackers keep rotating the computers so that they can get their junk mail through the SPAM filters.
Our SPAM filters have a hard time detecting SPAM because the spammers use random sentences that look like legitimate email. They also use images of their SPAM so the SPAM filters can't read them.
There are many ISP networks that don't do anything about blocking junk email. They don't inform their customers that junk mail is coming from their computers. They don't fix the problems and get removed from SPAM block lists. This is why SPAM gets through and legitimate email sometimes does not.
If you have friends, family, or business contact trying to email you, and they get bounce messages reporting their email has been blocked then they need to report it to their ISP to get their email fixed. We can not fix it on our end because it's their ISP that's at fault.
If people would stop buying from spammers and stop falling for their scams, and if people would secure their computers (stop using MS Windows) then SPAM would stop. Those of you running Linux and Macs, good for you!
More Info About Spam.

Thursday, Feb 22, 2007

Some of you may have had problems receiving mail or even sending mail. Today I received a few calls about not being able to download any mail so I checked the mail server. There were about 200 junk emails clogging up the mail queue. So I purged them. Now it's working fine. I ran my stats program to check what the ratios are this week.

Stats Per Week
Email Delivered:	14,913
Email Blocked:	11,706
Email Marked as SPAM:	6,175

That's 202,700 emails processed per month for only 150 users. I would bet that 80% of all the email is junk mail. I say this because many junk emails make it past the filters.

Monday, Feb 8th, 2007

No news is good news.

Monday, Feb 5th, 2007

Maintenance Notice: New Mail and Web servers are now online. The new webmail is up and running. Please verify that all your settings, addresses, and email looks OK. Thanks. For any questions about the mail server, contact postmaster@bmg50.com.

Sunday, Feb 4th, 2007

Maintenance Notice: We have finished our scheduled maintenance, but we are still working on the new mail server. We have POP3/IMAP/SMTP up and running, but we are still working on the webmail servers. Webmail should be back up by noon today. For any questions about the mail server, contact postmaster@bmg50.com.

Tuesday, Jan. 16th, 2007

We have been working on getting the new T1 setup. It's been trying, and we still have a ways to go. Our first attempt to setup load balancing failed. FTP and Games don't like to be balanced across two T1 lines. So we are splitting them into two networks. One for Silver Springs, one for Stagecoach. We should be finished with the changes soon.

The Morning of Dec. 22nd

Our battery backup system blew a fuse and we didn't catch it in time before the batteries ran out of juice. All the servers lost power and was offline for about three hours while we re-routed power. The network will be offline tonight again for maintenance of the battery back up system.

Status Update - Sep 18th 2006

The network has been stable after fixing the few routers we had online that were not working correctly. Also the new internet gateway / captive portal is running very well. On top of fixing the random network issues, we also found the person trying to break into our systems. The new T1 (high speed internet line) for Stage Coach is on it's way. That should also improve network bandwidth and stability. So thanks to all of you that hung with us through the last few months of problems.

Network is Finally Stable - Sep. 8th 2006

I would like to report to all that the network is now running stable. The new router/Captive Portal is working really well. We solved the problems with clients dropping off (it was due to customer supplied routers that needed upgrades to firmware). We still have a few people out there with their routers plugged in wrong and doing funny stuff. The Hacker has seemed to stop hacking our system for now. We are still searching for him/her. We will prosecute when we find out who it was. We don't mess around with this type of activity. It's illegal, disruptive, and cost us a lot of money to fix.

New Captive Portal Hardware Coming - Aug 31st 2006

We ordered a new captive portal server and it should be here by tuesday or so. This will greatly speed up the login and accounting process. It will be four times faster than what we have now.

Why Has The Network Been Bad Lately? - Aug. 25th 2006

Here's the scoop. We have been having trouble with our network for the past month or so. We have narrowed it down to one person. A hacker in Silver Springs using AP3 is trying to either break into our systems, get internet access, or just cause problems with the network for everyone else. Since they are connected via wireless it's very hard to find out who they are. But we are getting close. We just purchased a new Spectrum Analyzer that can detect wireless signals and whatnots. We have been driving around, house to house, looking for the signal that is causing the problems. We will soon find the person responsible and take action. By the way, it's a federal offense to hack into networks. It is part of the wire fraud laws. This means jail time.

New Login System Migration Finished - Aug. 11th 2006

We have finally finished our migration from Sputnik over to a custom solution. Things should start becoming more and more stable now. So far the only problems have been with customers using P2P software to crash our routers and use all our bandwidth.

New Captive Portal System Installed - Aug. 9th 2006

We just switched out captive portal system that controls user logins from Sputnik over to a new custom solution. We hope this will solve many of the login/availability problems we have faced in the past. The new system should be able to handle our increasing load without problems.

Please bear with us while we migrate all our users over to the new system. This should not take more than a week to complete.

Squirrel Mail Returns - May. 31st 2006

We changed our webmail program to Round Cube last month, but a lot of you really liked the old Squirrel mail program. So now we have both. Look at the top of the side bar for your choice in webmail programs.

Spamassassin Upgraded - Feb. 16th 2006

Spamassassin has been upgraded to version 3.1. This new version seems to catch more spam. To setup your mail client to use the spam tags, see below:

• Mac OS X - Mail.app
• Outlook Express 6
• Netscape 6/Mozilla
• Outlook 2002

Mac OS X Mail.app

1. Go to Mail → Preferences → Rules and choose Add Rule.
2. Type in a description (e.g., "Spam handler")
3. Under "If any of the following...":
   1. In the first pop-up menu (the one that displays From initially), choose Edit Header List...
   2. In the Panel dialog box that appears:
      1. Type X-Spam-Flag in the text box.
      2. Click Add Header.
      3. Click OK.
   3. Choose X-Spam-Flag, which is now available in that first pop-up menu.
   4. Choose is equal to from the next pop-up menu.
   5. Enter YES in the text box.
4. Under Perform the following action, choose the folder to which you want to move undesired messages.
5. Click OK.

Outlook Express

1. Go to Tools → Message Rules → Mail...
2. Choose Where the Subject line contains specific words.
3. Choose Move to Specified folder.
4. In the Rule Description box, click Contains specific words.
5. Type into the text box "SPAM:".
6. Click Add, then OK.
7. In the Rule Description box, click Specified.
8. Choose the folder in which you want to store spam.
9. Click OK.
10. Finally, click OK once more to save the new rule.

Netscape 6/Mozilla

1. In the Mail window, select: Tools → Message Filters → New
2. In the new filter pane, name the filter.
3. Under the menu Filter Criteria → Customize → New Message Header enter X-Spam-Flag click Add, then Ok.
4. Select as the Filter Criteria: X-Spam-Flag contains YES
5. Under Perform this action, select a destination folder where you would like move the likely spam.

Outlook 2002

1. Go to Tools → Rules Wizard.
2. Select your Inbox folder for the "Apply changes to this folder" field.
3. Click the New button.
4. Select "Start from a blank rule".
5. Select "Check messages when they arrive".
6. Click "Next."
7. Checkmark the Condition "with specific words in the subject".
8. Click "specific words" in the Rule description field to edit it. Type SPAM: in the "Specify words or phrases..." field.
9. Click "Add" and then click "OK".
10. Click "Next."
11. Checkmark "move it to the specified folder" from the "What do you want to do..." list.
12. Click "Specified" in the Rule description field to edit it.
13. Click "New" to create a new folder.
14. Type 'Spam' in the Name field
15. Click in the "Select where to place the folder" field and click INBOX then "OK."
16. Click "Finish" to create the rule.
17. Click "OK" to exit.