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

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.

Folks,

Just another simple reminder that the British server transitions start this Friday and Saturday. Do not forget! Once the transition period is over, you will have to contact us to obtain the new ip addresses for each server in the United Kingdom that you are assigned to. As always, you will need to send in the first 4 lines of your original account opening email that we sent you at the time you opened your account. If you are unable to locate that email, we will present you with security questions that only you will know. This procedure is put in place to protect the integrity and safety of our networks as well as to only allow authorized individuals on our networks. Once your account has been verified, we will then issue the new ip address for your assigned server to the email address we have on file. We will not release any account information to an alternative email address at any time. Your personal safety, as well as our networks are always a security concern and we will not jeopardize either at any time. Its very important you know what your account information is as it will be requested and verified before we release any new information to you. Your account must still be in good standing and valid as well.

To reiterate, when the British networks come back online we will have come off of a 3-4 gigabit network and are being hooked up to a 16 gigabit network. This improves network connectivity, available bandwidth, and bandwidth delivery speed more than 3 times over. Whereas there may have been problem areas before, we believe these issue should be resolved after the transition period is complete. I will verify connectivity with all you folks and all of my remote support technicians will be on duty throughout the weekend to ensure that we get all of you folks back online in the shortest time possible.

For those of you that purchased dedicated ip addresses to go along with your accounts, these ip addresses will be changed over to the new network ranges. As always, there will be a primary and a secondary range available. I will personally get together with those of you that have personal ip addresses added on to your accounts and will privately issue your new ranges.

Hello All,

I hope this email finds you well and in good spirits. The holiday seasons are fast approaching and safety is always a concern. Remember to keep those you love as well as those around you safe during the upcoming holidays.

I have some major announcements in this email that may become quite lengthy, but please bare with me as its needed information that you all need to know and how it will benefit you as clients of the IAPS family of services.

First and foremost: British based clients.

An opportunity was brought to my attention some time ago by the president of our current United Kingdom data center, in which I have a personal business relationship with him. Our current line speeds coming directly from the data center is on a 5 Gigabit line. Now this does not mean that we get all of that line. It simply means that is the full capacity of their primary network. Another limitation from the data center was how many ip addresses per server I could buy and obtain. IAPS has a primary and a secondary backup ip address allocation per server so we would never max out our available ip addresses. If we ever ran out of our primary range, we could always fall back on our secondary range. To date, we have only had to rely on our secondary range one time for one British server. So all in all, thats good.

Why does any of this affect you?

Some time ago our primary data center in the United Kingdom began a new partnership with another data center that was 5 times more powerful and could push 3 times the load of bandwidth and server power. This partnership will be signed, sealed, and ready for production within the next 2 weeks. Now, for how this will effect you:

A.) Once we migrate to the new data center which will be done server by server, most likely in a one server a day fashion, we will be guaranteed a new line speed from 5 gigabits to 15 gigabits. This means a higher bandwidth output to the entire world. Where we were having issues in China, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and parts of Australia, this issue should well be taken care of.

B.) IAPS has been offered an unlimited supply of primary and secondary ip ranges that will come with no pre-set limits. As this is the case, I will be lowering our prices for personal ip addresses from the standard rate of $49 USD per account life span to $20 USD. I do my best to cut you guys price breaks where I can, but networking, server management, and security is not a cheap business to run at all.

C.) I am nearing completion of our 64-bit custom built (by me) streaming platform that will deliver a better streaming environment for all of you. This has been in development for many months and I’m always striving for new ways to get data and streaming materials to you folks at the fastest possible rate. You folks continue to renew with IAPS every year and we want you to know that we are always listening and developing new ways to get the job done better. (We are listening, even for those of you that think we don’t.) The 64-bit streaming platform will be implemented on all servers that cross over into the new data center and will be provided at the server level for all accounts without any need for you folks to change anything at your local computer level.

D.) We are currently allocated 2.5 Terabytes of monthly bandwidth per server. Of that, we currently use around 2 TB per server per month. The new data center change will come with an automatic minimum of 4 Terabytes to ensure that we continue to operate within full capacity and have a small reserve available. Additional bandwidth will be provided automatically should we reach and exceed this limit.

E.) Server migrations will be in the following order: 1st: Secure9. 2nd: Firehawk. 3rd: Silverhawk. 4th: Skyhawk. The Seahawk server will not be moved at this time. If you are a client on that server your service will not be interrupted at this time. The data center change only affects our British based services. It does not affect our other service areas: United States, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Malaysia, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Spain, or Italy.

There are plans for 2010 to add Australia to our line up. For all those of you that have requested it, I have not forgotten. Budget constraints and available manpower have affected us all. New services that are planned for release in January 2010 will include the following:

A.) Managed Microsoft Exchange 2010 Server Mail Services.
B.) Sharepoint Portal Services.
C.) Microsoft Communications Server 2010 Services.
**More details about these services will follow in December 2009.**

New services to be released November 1, 2009:

A.) Microsoft Windows 2008 Enterprise Server web hosting.

Benefits of this hosting platform:

A.) 130+ web based applications that come with an auto installer. Categories for these website add-ons include: Analytics, Blogs, Content Management, E-Commerce, Forums, Picture Galleries, Guestbooks, Mailing Lists, Calendaring, Chat Programs (to host your own chat website), Web Portals, Project Management, Backup Infrastructure, Help Desk, Asset Management, Billing, and more.

B.) A built-in website builder that requires literally no technical knowledge. It features step by step instructions for each page of your website. You have total control over this and can add / remove content based on your personal choices.

C.) Email Service included: Web based or Pop3/SMTP. Anti-Virus and spam filtering will be performed at the server level before it ever reaches your account.

D.) Private & protected domain name registration through IAPS is always available.

Ok, as my final summary and to wrap up this email, please have a pleasant and safe holiday season and keep warm for those of you in the colder climates of the world. If any of you have any comments or questions regarding this email, please feel free to reply directly back to it. Thank you all for your time and your patience as we strive to give you the best possible service.

Warmest Regards,

Jared T.
IAPS Director of Network Security

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

http://www.jareds-blog.com

Hi Folks,

I don’t normally send messages out regarding surplus services that we have. However I thought I’d check with you folks first before I make a decision on returning the surplus French ip addresses we have available for our French VPN servers. We have such a large stock of French ip addresses that I’m willing to go out on a limb here and offer out yearly French VPN services at 50% off our normal rates. If you are interested in this service and have a use for a French ip address please let me know by using our secure contact page. Thank you.

P.S. For those of you interested, the yearly cost right now for dedicated French VPN access would be $67.50 USD and that covers 365 days of continuous service.

Hi Folks, hope all is well with you and yours. I just wanted to let you know we have replaced the network card on the IAPS Eagle U.S. server yesterday. The card that was in there finally gave out. It took a bit longer in replacing it than we originally thought it was going to be and once the new card was activated we had to complete some technical work and put all the ip addresses and network information in.

Once all this was done, we tested to make sure all services were once again operational. We are very pleased with the new network card and the server seems to be responding very well and network speeds are impressive at this point. If you are an IAPS client assigned to this server, you should notice the difference very quickly. Thank you for your time and have a pleasant day.

Folks, the preliminary news from our testing locations in remote countries have been impressive on our newest server code-named “Firehawk”. This new Supermicro Superserver has now been reported to have out classed the Silverhawk server. I was personally watching Zattoo in HiQ (HD) and I even impressed with the performance of HiQ and a large screen. “Firehawk” didn’t miss a beat.

Some of you have reported issues with Channel 4 so we specifically tested that site with its newest and greatest web-based player and it streamed perfectly without buffering one time. All the other “usual suspect” sites were tested and found to be very compatible with “Firehawk” and we are very pleased. The initial setup took less than 24 hours from start to finish and the preliminary tests are now over and “Firehawk” is now on the production line as a first rate server.

Personal ip addresses are immediately available for purchase on this server. A personal ip address for your account assures that only you have access to that ip address. Personal ip addresses are good for the life of your account and only incur a one-off fee of $49.95 USD + the normal cost of your account.

Keep in mind that the British TV Sale starts tomorrow at midnight (U.K. time) and lasts for 48 hours only.

Folks, over the last 2 years I’ve seen several debates about the RuneScape game. The current theory holds that if you have an ip address that ends in .1 you have a much better better chance of winning of the game. Now I am not a player of the game myself but I’ve met several of you who are. I personally don’t believe in the theory myself but have now made available several .1, .2, .3, and .4 ip addresses.

For those of you that are hardcore gamers that believe in this theory, this design was made just for you. For those of you that need this type of ip address, please use my contact form and refer to this blog post and I’ll respond with what you need to do to obtain this service from me.