Mail services, both incoming mail and POP3/IMAP, were down intermittently this morning. POP3 and IMAP services were restored earlier, however incoming mail was spooled and mail flow was reduced while issues with the backend mail server were being resolved.
Mail services were restored later this morning and remain stable, and spooled mail is delivered. We will continue to monitor services and do not anticipate any more issues.
Thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve these issues, don't hesitate to contact us if you are still having trouble.
Some Verizon Online customers in Western Massachusetts are noticing issues accessing the internet today, including problems accessing some of our services. This appears to be due to a widespread issue with Verizon's services. We do not have any news of any outages yet, however have heard reports from many Verizon customers of many sites and services not working or functioning slowly.
Some users are reporting troubles logging in to the eclecTechs spam filter. The filter was migrated yesterday afternoon, and due to the move, links embedded in yesterday's quarantine notification emails are not working, as the session credentials are invalid.
If you are having issues logging into the spam filter, follow the directions on the front page login to the spam filter (https://antispam.eclectechs.com) for creating a new password. This will notify you with your current password, which you can use to log in to the spam filter.
Alternatively, you can click the link at the bottom of the password change notification to automatically login to your spam quarantine.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us at support@eclectechs.com.
In This Issue:
- Greetings from Dave
- Upgrade to DSL
- Important Privacy Law News
- SPAM & Phishers
- The Indian Chief and the Weather Forecaster
Greetings from Dave
I was driving into work this morning and heard this joke on the radio. It was a
bit funny, but it also made me think about how much supposed "experts" influence
our lives and behavior.
We are being pounded by constant negative information about our economy all day
long. This has made lots of people nervous, and has made lots of people change their
behavior, which has caused lots of businesses to suffer, which further feeds the
statistics that justify the negative information. Perception drives reality.
The world is not ending. Be happy, be healthy, and be optimistic.
Regards,
Dave Flaherty
President
For the joke, read "The Indian Chief and the Weather Forecaster" below.
Important Privacy Law Changes
Massachusetts has a new privacy law that will require changes in the way businesses
in Massachusetts handle your confidential data.
If you have a website that does not encrypt or protect Personal Information, you
could be subject to fines of up to $5000 per violation effective May 1, 2009. Please
call us at (413) 584-8600 x301 and we will help you upgrade your website and secure
your data. Costs vary, but typically a small to medium sized business with "web
mail" type forms should expect to invest about $400-$600 to secure the data and
install PGP Encryption software on your computer.
Spam & Phishing Alert
Recently several customers have contacted us regarding emails that they have received
asking for their usernames and passwords. These email looked like they might have
been sent by eclecTechs, but after a brief review, they were clearly send by phishers.
The goal of the phishers in this case was to gain access to email accounts that
they could use to send SPAM.
Be aware! This type of thing is happening all over the internet to internet service
providers, banks, credit companies, phone companies, utilities, finance companies,
and benefits companies. It it very easy to create fake emails or websites that collect
private information. Please be very conscientious and never give your login name,
passwords, or other personal information to internet solicitors.
eclecTechs will never need to ask for your password, and we'd certainly never ask
for it via email.
The Indian Chief and the Weather Forecaster
It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if
the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a new Indian Chief in a modern
society, he had never been taught the old secrets, and when he looked at the sky,
he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe
side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that
the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared. But also being a
practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth,
called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be
cold?"
"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed," the meteorologist
at the weather service responded.
So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in
order to be prepared.
A week later he called the National Weather Service again.
"Is it going to be a very cold winter?"
"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very
cold winter."
The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap
of wood they could find.
Two weeks later he called the National Weather Service again.
"Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"
"Absolutely," the man replied. "It's going to be one of the coldest winters ever."
"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.
The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting wood like crazy!"
One Month Free
If you change your billing cycle from monthly to annually, we'll give you 12 months
of service for the price of 11. This helps us reduce the overhead associated with
billing small amounts, reduces your monthly paperwork, reduces your total costs,
saves on postage, and reduces the amount of paper we consume. Feel free to switch
plans at anytime - just send a quick email to billing@eclecTechs.com.
Massachusetts has a new privacy law that will require changes in the way we, and every other business in Massachusetts, handle your confidential data.
To further ensure your privacy, we will be purging or encrypting all confidential account data before the May 1st deadline. This means we will no longer have your passwords or credit card account information available in "free text" form. If you forget your password, we won't have a record of your old one, so will have to create a new one for you. If you need to make a credit card payment*, we will have to get it from you verbally or through our secure website.
This new law may require you to make changes to your websites, computer systems, computer applications, databases, or internal policies and procedures. Please contact sales@eclecTechs.com if you'd like to discuss these potential changes with one of our experts.
Note: if you are using our automated credit card billing system, your information is already encrypted and this new law will not affect our ability to process your periodic payments.
The eclecTechs office will be closing for Christmas at 12PM on December 24th and
reopening on December 29th at 9AM.
We will be closing for New Year's on December 31st at 12PM and reopening on January
2nd at 9AM.
If you have an emergency when the office is closed, please leave a voice mail message
on the tech support extension (413-584-8600 x1) and we will return your call as
soon as possible.
We noticed the following forged email this morning.
If you received this message, or if you responded, please let us know so we can update your account information.
As always, we will never solicite you for that information.
Dear Valinet.com User,
This mail is to inform you of the current maintenance in our Email
Database System. We are running a new standard mail account for all
users of webmail.valinet.com.
You are hereby advice to re-activate your account immediately with the
technical support or you may lose all your information including your
account with eclecTechs.
You are recieving this mail because you are using the webmail.valinet.com
Beta.
To reactivate, provide the Technical Team with the following details
of your account:
Email Username :
Email Password :
Date Of Birth :
For Help and Support, contact our Technical Support help desk at:
techn.support@live.com
Thanks for using eclecTechs.
IP: 118.093.011
Technical Team,
Email Account,
Valinet.com
eclecTechs
We received the following, forged, email in one of our accounts earlier in the week.
This attack should have been blocked by our spam filter, however we still would like to warn everyone, just in case.
If anyone did receive this message, or if you responded, please let us know so we can change your password.
As always, we will never solicite you for that information.
Subject: Dear Valinet.com Webmail User
From: "Valinet.com Webmail Service" <support@valinet.com>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Dear Valinet.com Webmail User,
This message is from eclecTechs Communications Webmail Service Messaging
Center to all valinet.com webmail users. We are currently upgrading our
data base and e-mail center. We are deleting all unused valinet.com WEBMAIL
ACCOUNT to create more space for new ones.
To prevent your account from being deleted, you will have to update it
below so that we will know that it's currently active.
CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL BELOW:
email Username: ............
email Password: ............
Date of Birth: .............
Country: ...................
Warning!!! valinet.com Webmail users that refuse to update his or her
webmail account within Seven days will have his/her webmail account being
deleted from our server.
Valinet.com Webmail Service.
