The odd-musings of Jared, the Director of Network Security for IAPS Security Services.

Greetings All,

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I wanted to let all you Mac Snow Leopard users know that we have never forgotten about you and have been working to find a way to get the L2TP protocol to work on your Macs. During this past week, an IAPS client named Carl Langton (name used with express permission) sent me over instructions for what he believed would make L2TP work on the newer Macs. Since IAPS had no Mac computers here in the Control Center, I thought the best course of action would be to pass these instructions on another IAPS client that is a die-hard Mac user and desperately wants to have a solution for this particular problem. He performed the instructions that I sent him and ended up having a bit of difficulty with them. The next best course of action I chose was to obtain permission from both clients to get them working together directly with each other to see if their combined minds and love for the Mac operating system would produce the desired results. So thats where we’re at right now. I have received word via email that both are working together to come up with the best solution for this problem. As soon as I receive word that a possible work-around has been found that will work on all current Mac operating systems, I will make a further announcement regarding that. But credit goes to both IAPS clients for working together to find a cure for this issue.

As for the new IAPS VPN Dialer Programs, I believe this went off very well. It has thus far taken out many of the most common setup issues that many of you have had in the past. With its pre-set security configuration, we have seen dramatically better results, less latency, and very few firewall issues. Overall I am very happy with the results. Again, if you would like to get on the dialer program or just have the curiosity to see what its all about, then please request it.

Lastly, starting from right now and lasting until Monday night at midnight (January 30 – February 1, 2010) all VPN Accounts in our store area for the 3 month time durations are now marked down to $25.00 USD. Thats $25.00 USD for 90 days of service for the country of your choice. Country choices include the following: United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Czech Republic, France, Luxembourg, Ireland, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Portugal. If you have been curious or wanted to try a new country, now is the best time to do that. Combined with the new dialer program, setup can be completed in less than 30 seconds from start to finish! If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. Stay safe on the internet and good day.

Jared T.
IAPS Director of Network Security

https://www.intl-alliance.com/store

Hi Folks,

After long thought and a lot of work, I’m proud to finally offer the first ever IAPS branded VPN dialer programs. These programs can be tailor made to your operating system, whether you prefer 32 or 64 bit versions, or whether you’d like the PPTP or L2TP versions. It doesn’t matter whether you use Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or 7. Sorry Mac users, I could not accomodate you guys in this launch.

If you are a reseller, IAPS can brand our line of vpn dialers to your specifications and your companies name and/or logo.

These programs take 100% of the manual setup process and make it automatic! Never again will you have to perform a manual vpn setup. IAPS has taken all the guesswork out of the manual setup process and have applied all the correct security settings and maximum performance in our line of vpn dialers.

Once you have installed the IAPS VPN Dialer, all thats needed is your user name and password. That’s it! There’s nothing more to it! For those of you that have multiple accounts in different countries, IAPS can create a custom made dialer for you that includes all your accounts and all assigned servers in one single program. Its as easy as pie and requires literally nothing from you except your assigned username and password!

If you are a current IAPS client and have at least 1 active account on any of our servers, you can request via email a copy of the program. In your emailed request, you must include the following information:

1.) Your registered email account that IAPS has on file from your latest order.
2.) Your current server / username/ password (either its common name or its ip address)
3.) Your preferred connection type. Either PPTP or L2TP.
4.) What version of Windows operating system you have (so we know which version to send you)

It is my sincere hope that automated setups provide a much better and easier experience for all IAPS clients.

Greetings Every One,

I hope all of you have started the new year well and things are going as expected. Things on our side keep developing and our pursuit of better technology never rests. I made an announcement several weeks ago now that our Switzerland services would all be switching over to the L2TP system for performance and security needs. This service is now complete and fully operational. (For you Swiss Zattoo fans boy do we have a treat for you!)

Speaking of Zattoo, IAPS has acquired several French and Spanish Zattoo premium accounts and we can get more on an as-needed base. What does this mean? It means we will be able to properly open up the live streaming channels that the Zattoo High Definition package for France and Spain offers. Currently standard accounts (any one with a French or Spain ip address) that does not have a Zattoo premium account can’t watch anything because Zattoo for those countries went subscription only. So now we can properly offer accounts for these countries. Zattoo Switzerland, Germany, and United Kingdom are still free accounts for streaming with just a normal ip address from those countries. (Zattoo Switzerland offers all their countries combined into one for Swiss subscribers only and its free of charge. So Switzerland ip addresses are your best value any way you look at it.)

As I mention the more secure and data speed friendly L2TP protocol, please be advised that the L2TP system is currently offered for the following countries: United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Czech Republic, France, and Finland.

I will be formally opening Finland and Lithuania hopefully by the 1st February 2010. IAPS is currently awaiting proper licensing from RIPE, which is the issuing authority for all of Europe.

As a simple matter of pure organization, last month IAPS re-categorized our VPN Services Category and also added a brand new VPN Combo Accounts category. We did this in an effort to offer a better and easier to use category layout for our store area. We hope this has fulfilled the requests we received for that.

For those of you not aware yet, during this past week we have also added Italian TV and Spanish TV to our store area.

IAPS is in beta testing phases for a new auto-dialer system that will take the manual work out of setting up a vpn connection on your local computer. Once beta testing has been completed, we will offer this system publicly. Public beta testing is not yet available but when it is, we will ask for volunteers.

As a parting note, please be advised that our 6 Month VPN Sales in our Store Area will come to an end on January 18, 2010.

Have a great rest of month folks and let us know if you need anything. Many Thanks.

IAPS is pleased to announce the addition of Finland and Lithuanian VPN service which will be available starting January 3, 2010. As we continue to build our services, we have come to offer the largest selection of countries of any vpn provider currently on the internet. IAPS wishes to thank all of our clients and resellers as its you that keep us building and expanding and to have the ability to offer the widest selection world-wide. We hope you all enjoy these new countries. Thank you.

Let me first say Happy Holidays to all of you. I know I’m in the festive spirit and you’ll never believe it, but just today I finally got a chance to put up our holiday lights outside. I simply could not believe how long it took me to find the time to finally get out there and get them up. Hopefully you guys as well have had a chance to get your lights and decorations up and going.

Ok, pursuant to last weekends sale, I started a thread in our forum area describing the sale that was upcoming this Friday, Saturday, & Sunday. Well folks, the time has finally come. I’ve taken inventory of all our networks and where we have available space, ip addresses, and more than enough bandwidth. I’ve tested our reserve networks as well as our production level networks to ensure that everything was up to par. Later today I will be introducing the new Moon Light British based server. This is a brand new server that sits in the United Kingdom on the IAPS 1-Gigabit Network. Please click the link above so you can read about what has inspired me to create this sale. The forum thread literally tells all. Please don’t mind my last post in that thread as sometimes I go into rants about the injustices of the world. But for those of you that know me, know that I occasionally do this and it wouldn’t be me or the core philosophy of IAPS if I didn’t. We’re all very passionate about the services we provide and we do our absolute best to get the job done better than anyone else. We’re not perfect, but we do everything possible.

One of the things I forgot to mention in the last 2 emails to you folks is the Mac problem. We had planned on integrating Mac users to the newer and safer L2TP protocol. But we experienced severe issues with Mac 10.5 and 10.6 editions. Upon further research, we have seen that the newer technology put into those systems by Cisco, its virtually impossible to get L2TP working correctly on these systems. We have seen that there are no issues with version 10.4 and lower. But whatever Cisco put in the newer versions, it seems a bit buggy at this point and something many people are addressing in the Mac forums. As soon as they have a fix, we will let all you Mac users know. Our aim is to fix this issue but we have to await to hear from Cisco before we can do anything.

Now, as to this mega sale: Pursuant to the above forum link, hopefully you’ve all read it at this point, here are the goodies to point out:

1.) VPN Combo Accounts / Yearly Rates have been reduced by more than 65%.
2.) A 2-Country VPN Combo Account (Annually) is normally $159.95 USD. Now its priced at $54.95 USD for 3 days only!
3.) A 3-Country VPN Combo Account (Annually) is normally $169.95 USD. Now its priced at $59.95 USD for 3 days only!
4.) The VPN Combo accounts go all the way up to 10 countries. You can mix and match countries to your choosing.
5.) When ordering, please use the comments box to specify your countries of choice.

Available countries to choose from: United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Poland, Ireland, Spain, France, & Czech Republic. (If your worried about being able to view TV / Media on these accounts, yes you will be able to. We are in the hopes that none of you will have to miss any of the holiday specials on television which is why we are pricing our services to the lowest possible mark we can go. Some of you may wish to give the gift of online tv to a relative or friend. Now is your chance to at the lowest price ever.)

Folks,

This coming Friday, Saturday, & Sunday (December 11-13 2009) all VPN Combo Accounts will be massively marked down. This will be our end-of-year celebration for another successful year of operation and infrastructure improvement.

Throughout 2009 IAPS Security Services has seen its largest expansion ever and more client account renewals than ever before. 2007 and 2008 were great years as well, but 2009 took the cake by a long shot and we’ve built up one of the biggest global networks we’ve ever seen. To celebrate, we’re going to throw the biggest sales party we’ve ever thrown and we’re doing it from 2 country combos all the way up to 10 country combos. This will be the sale of the year and one you won’t soon forget.

On Tuesday December 8, 2009 we’re putting a brand new United Kingdom server online code named Moon Light. For all you British fans, this is another server we’re adding to the British fleet of servers on the IAPS Network. This server will be hooked up to our new British gigabit network so you can get your British business done in style!

Please keep in mind that your continued patronage of the IAPS line of services helps us invest and improve our networks. Our admins and technicians do not pocket your money. Its always used for network infrastructure improvements, new servers, and the research and development of new services. (All of our admins and technicians have a modest salary that keeps the lights burning and gas in the stove.) But we’re always working for you, folks. We’re one of the only, if not only, company that provides live remote support around the clock, 7 days a week, to ensure that your services are working the maximum amount of time. We’re committed to you as our clients.

I know a good majority of you on a first name basis and you guys are great to provide a quality service to. I enjoy the services we provide, although some technical issues do unnerve me at times and do cause frustration, I wouldn’t change the services that myself and IAPS provide, for anything. Its because of all of you that we are successful and all of us at IAPS send our gratitude to each and every one of you. We hope each and every one of you has a prosperous and happy 2010 and we’ll be here right along side many of you ensuring that you have the security and peace of mind that the IAPS Networks can give you. Thank you for your time.

-Jared

Hi Folks,

Just a quick notice that the Skyhawk server will be undergoing a few hours of re-provisioning maintenance today. Once the server comes back up, there will no longer be a need for dual ssh/vpn services to reach your British media sites. IAPS has listened to the many of you that found the ssh service difficult to use and could only service some of the British media sites. From today on, we will have permanently fixed this issue and only one account type will be needed for clients on this server. If you are currently assigned to the Skyhawk server and wish to retain an ssh account regardless, please get in touch with us and we’ll reassign you to another ssh server.

I expect around 3 hours turnaround time from the time we start working on the server until its ready to go back on the production line. If you have any question, please use the link above. Thank you for your time.

Hello Folks,

We are nearly done resolving the issue with the Silverhawk server. The server became unstable yesterday due to a corrupt driver in the servers primary network interface card (NIC). We originally thought that a card replacement would have sorted the issue but unfortunately it did not. So we had to make some other adjustments to the server to make it operational again. After a few more operational tests, we will be bringing the server back online for client usage.

Once the server comes back online, you will need to contact us with your current user name and the request must come from the email address we have on file for your account. Requests that come from email accounts not on file with us will not be honored. Account security is taken very seriously. When contacting us with the link above, please reference this blog posting and request a new account password. Your old password will no longer work. So you will need to send this request in. I expect the server to return to normal active status within 2 hours from now. Thank you.

Jared T.
IAPS Director of Network Security

_______________________________________________________

***UPDATE***
Silverhawk is now back online and fully operational.
***END UPDATE***

Hello Folks,

We’re making some changes around IAPS over the next few days. Here’s a quick run down of whats happening:

1.) The U.S. based Eagle server will be discontinued. It will be replaced by a server 10 times the power and its code name is NetNewz. The NetNewz server will offer website hosting services through the Plesk control panel and will also provide United States based VPN (Virtual Private Network) services. All current accounts that reside on the Eagle server will be transferred over to the new NetNewz server. SSH services will no longer be offered in this location.

2.) Our Canadian locations are being completely discontinued. Any remaining clients on these servers will be contacted privately and given a choice of a new location and/or service type. The demand for Canada simply isn’t there and we’d rather invest our resources in locations that our clients find useful.

3.) The Goldenhawk server that acts as the gateway server to numerous countries is being rebuilt. I expect this server back online by tomorrow at some point. All current accounts on that server will remain the same. I will input the same account information on that server for clients that are already assigned to it so no need for new account information.

Folks, I’ve created new VPN instructions for Mac’s newest creation: Snow Leopard. If you are an IAPS VPN client and you cannot make our system work on your Snow Leopard system, drop us a line and we’ll get right back to you with new and updated instructions.

Resellers – You should have received the new set of instructions by now. If not, get in touch and we’ll get them to you.