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.

As I promised several weeks ago to a number of you, I have made our newest Swiss servers all L2TP compatible. This further increases security for every one as well as brings the Swiss servers over to a 1 gigabit network for the fastest speeds ever. Additionally, I have now discounted all Switzerland VPN Service 6 Month Contracts down to just $40.00 USD for a limited time to introduce the power of these networks. If you have ever wanted the Swiss version of Zattoo which includes not only English language channels, but channels from Spain, Germany, and Italy, now is the time to satisfy that desire.

All new ip ranges are now available for almost every single country we offer and 95% of all countries are now on the L2TP service. Also, there are a vast abundance of Italian VPN Services available also at the discounted price. For you gamers, IAPS can provide you with nearly any European country you need for things live Xbox Live. Don’t miss those game demos or downloads because your restricted by country. All it takes is a little IAPS magic to remove those restrictions placed upon you just because your located in a specific country.

You can check out all our latest offerings on the IAPS Monthly Specials Page or see our Complete VPN Countries List at your convenience.

Hi Folks,

I’ve finally gotten the time (barely) to implement L2TP vpn services on a select few servers. By this time tomorrow all servers will have this ability. This type of vpn is more secure than the normal PPTP vpn type and also will help those of you that for one reason or another were previously usable to connect to a PPTP vpn server. For those of you in Italy who were previously blocked by your isp (FastWebNet), this new type of vpn will enable you to finally connect. I’ve never forgotten about you folks in Italy and this solution was made just for you, but will benefit all IAPS clients regardless of geographical location.

If you are in immediate need of L2TP VPN services, please get a hold of me and I’ll get you taken care of. Thank you.

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.

Folks, I’ve tested the new Windows 7 Beta (version 7100) and can confirm full compatibility with all IAPS Security Store services. This includes full compatibility with SSH & VPN services. There’s not much of a real difference between Vista and the new Windows 7 except for graphical design and the placement of certain files. If you are a seasoned veteran of Windows Vista, you’ll notice these changes almost immediately.

For those of you that have decided to stick with Windows XP, you can decide for yourself if upgrading is the right thing for you. I have personally seen a stable operating system with Windows 7 on the computers we have here in the control center.

We performed a direct upgrade from existing installations of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition and the only draw backs we’ve seen are that several existing programs that were loaded on the Windows Vista boxes needed to be reinstalled once the upgrade was complete. With the reinstallations of those certain programs full functionality did return. Overall, a nice operating system but it still needs those finishing touches to make it a gold standard product.

Folks, I’m currently looking into other possible locations where vpn and ssh services might be used from. These are the following 5 locations I’m currently considering:

Iceland
Liechtenstein
Denmark
The Bahamas
Cayman Islands

These are just considerations at this point and no guarantee is implied. I’d appreciate any opinions you guys may have regarding the above locations or any other location that would be beneficial to you. Remember, we can’t offer what you need unless you speak up and be heard. So don’t hesitate.