Newsletters online only

Beginning this month our monthly newsletter, normally included with your invoice, will appear online only. This allows us to maintain the newsletters a little better (for example, by correcting bad URLs or other typographical errors), as well as allowing us to be a little freer with the content (not being as constrained by physical paper size or inability to link to other sources). We may also be able to amplify or provide more details on certain subject as time goes by, or include more material based on your feedback. This may mean that the online newsletter may change slightly or not-so-slightly after it's first been published here. For significant changes, we may, if we feel it is warranted, provide highlights or a link to the original text for comparison.

As a side benefit, putting the newsletters online-only will help reduce your email or postal mail, and use a little less paper along the way.

Verisign wildcard DNS issues with .COM and .NET

In mid-September Verisign, which operates the registry for the .COM and .NET top-level Internet domains, implemented a controversial new policy for those two domains. Briefly stated this policy (which had been discussed in various technical locations for a while) is:

Supply an IP address for all undelegated second-level domains;

Put a web server at that IP address with advertisements and search functions;
Put a fake mail server at that IP address rejecting all mail that comes its way.

Without getting too technical: this had some far-reaching effects on the .COM and .NET domains. Immediately, it became difficult to tell if a domain existed. One could not, for example, reject unwanted email that came from a nonexistent domain, since it now appears that all domains in .COM and .NET do exist. If you mistyped a domain name in your web browser, you were sent to Verisign's advertisement page. (This, by the way, was the reason behind the change: it is a way for Verisign to garner ad revenue as a result of typographical errors.) Some ISPs who had implemented their own systems to catch typos found that those systems no longer worked. The new wildcards also matched domain names with syntax errors and invalid characters.

Many people around the world were shocked (shocked, I tell you) that Verisign would do something that seemed this abusive merely to gain (according to one estimate) $100million in ad revenue. Various technical reactions were swift: some vendors of domain lookup software added code so that these new wildcard results could be detected and turned back into the old result (i.e., to return a "non-existent domain" error instead of a valid result to Verisign's page).

MV has chosen to apply this solution to our nameservers that answer on ns1.mv.net and ns2.mv.net . If you want your typographical errors to redirect you to Verisign's web page, you will need to run your own DNS server or access another non-MV server. If you just want to see Verisign's ad site, you can go to http://sitefinder.verisign.com/ . To see what would happen if you were directed there as a result of a wildcard match, let's say "www.example.com", enter a URL like: http://sitefinder.verisign.com/lpc?url=www.example.com . (Note that this specific format may change in the future.)

New virus: swen.a

Also in mid-September, a nasty new virus appeared. This virus, dubbed "swen.a" (along with some other nicknames), attacks a flaw in some Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is particularly nasty because:

It propagates via a number of means, including IRC, Kazaa, usenet news, local network connections, and e-mail;
It is somewhat difficult to recognize, as it creates semi-random messages and traffic by which to spread itself;
When spreading via email, it often sends a large email body, filling up recipient mailboxes very quickly and making downloading a chore.

As we did with the "sobig.f" virus, we have come up with an MFL (mvmf filter language) macro for our mvmf mail delivery agent for the "swen.a" virus. You can use our webmail.mv.net interface to apply this filter to your incoming mail. (Note that as with all predefined filters, there is no guarantee that this one will catch every instance of the virus mail, or that it won't catch some "false positives" particulary if there is email that is discussing the virus in detail. Whitelisting your mailing lists and your correspondents before applying general email filters helps this second case, and is always a good idea anyway!)

Some references to swen.a:

Note: We are coming up with some ways to allow you to automatically accept new filter macros that we define, so that you don't have to redefine your email filters every time a new virus comes out. More on this as we progress.

1-500 number status

In last month's newsletter we talked about the possibility of the 1-500-699-6387 NH access number going away. The issue, as you may recall, is that Verizon decided not to complete the tariff for this product. When we signed up for this facility several years ago, we got assurances that we could continue to use it even if it was not tariffed. Such things can not last forever, though, and we will see these numbers stop working in the fairly near future.

There are a couple of comments to make about this development:

As noted in last month's newsletter, Verizon provides a different, layered service that also uses the 1-500 number system. In this other service, called IPRS, Verizon provides management of modem and other hardware facilities, which is something that we prefer to do ourselves. We imagine that Verizon prefers to sell the layered service rather than the underlying access component that we used. Other NH ISPs may elect to use or migrate to the IPRS service, but we do not.
The 1-500 service is built on top of local numbers in three different areas in NH. Of significant interest are the underlying numbers in Nashua, which some of you dial directly for local calling reasons. We are working on porting these underlying numbers so that they will reach our primary modem banks. We expect this to be completed before the 1-500 service is terminated.
Even though the 1-500 service represented a significant increased cost to us, we maintained it in order to have an alternative carrier for you to use. For some locations, for reasons of call routing or other parameters, one carrier simply works better than another. With the 1-500 numbers going away, we will study this issue again to determine whether we need to arrange another alternative.

Concord, NH number status

We also maintain a local Verizon number in Concord, NH, primarily for the benefit of those who have telephone service provided by independent telephone companies in neighboring towns. Such callers may be able to call a Concord Verizon number without toll charges, but may be assessed those charges when calling a Concord number supplied by a CLEC (such as we use for our main access numbers). This Concord number is provided by a special digital trunk that terminates at our facilities in Manchester.

Since we found the solution for porting the Nashua numbers that underly our 1-500 NH number (see 1-500 number status, above), we will be applying the same solution to the Concord number. The number will not change, but when the number is ported, calls to it will reach us via a different carrier. This allows us to reduce the number of lightly-used special trunks that we have.

New DSL/V areas

We continue to receive updates about new DSL/V areas opening up in NH. These scheduled areas are listed on our DSL page (please go to our home page or to our customer support page and click on the appropriate DSL link).

(Note: for links such as these we ask that you go through one of the home page areas in case the more specific link changes in the future. Also, we think that you may want to see some of the other things that can be accessed via those main pages.)

Congressional ban on Internet service taxes

In previous newsletters (such as April) we've commented on whether NH will tax Internet services (or, in some cases, continue to do so). Just a brief note here to mention that this month the US House of Representatives passed a bill specifically prohibiting states from collecting taxes on Internet services. This bill still needs to go through the Senate and become law, and there are some reports that the Senate may act to water it down or insert provisions for phasing out existing taxes rather than eliminating the immediately. However it is a fairly good sign of the current mood towards Internet service taxes.

Note that we are already being charged federal and state taxes on DSL/V services by Verizon, who provides the DSL connection from MV to your site (MV provides the rest). This is already part of our charge: we do not, as some others do, add additional tax line items on top of our retail rate. The resolution of the Internet services tax will affect how we present these charges in the future (i.e., once it's resolved).

Your feedback?

Do you have feedback on this newsletter (or past or future newsletters)? If so, please either:

Go here to fill out our simple feedback form, or;
Send us email at mv-feedback (on our domain, mv.com).

Edit History

20030922: posted
20030924: minor typo in feedback address
20031021: add link to glossary