the sephone blog

If you have been watching my Facebook posts or tweets I have been in a technology nightmare for more than a week.  You never really know how much you depend on something until it doesn’t work now, do you? Just like everything else!

Some bad person or robot  decided to use my Twitter address to SPAM my followers by sending them a direct message about some quiz I wanted them to take.  My followers (I have only 800 or so) started sending me notes because they knew I don’t do that.  So I go in to my Twitter account and changed the password.  Then I believe that same robot kept trying to get into my account (using the old password) and I got locked out of Twitter when I tried to log in.  It also effected my Tweetdeck Account. Twitter is such a great tool for me, when I couldnt use it, it completely threw me off guard and my schedule just flew out the window. AND I had to wait for Twitter and Tweetdeck to unlock my access, which took a lot longer than I thought it would.  If you are looking for any help like this on Twitter, click here.

THEN, I tried to synchronize my Blackberry using Desktop Manager. Unfortunately, because I had tried a trial version of MissingSynch earlier this year and didnt like it, I decided to never used it again. Couldnt figure out how to uninstall it. When I tried to synch using Desktop Manager it kept bumping into MissingSynch which kept telling me to buy it for $39.95 and wouldn’t allow Desktop Manager to synchronize for me.  SOMEHOW, as I looked over at my Blackberry I noticed that I had this spinning hourglass on the screen that was all it did, spin and spin.  When I “Googled” the error code it was horrible news.  Google sent us to Crackberry.com. At first glance it looks like a store, it is more than that! There are helpful forums and here is a link to them. So I learned then my whole operating system was history.  I still don’t know exactly how it happened, but with the help of Central Maine Wireless and my business partner Scott, I was able to get a loaner Blackberry and uninstall MissingSynch (the uninstall file was missing, so we had to be cautiously creative to remove it!) I will never recommend this application to anyone, even though I am not sure what happened in my situation but I am very leary of it.

The good news is, I have a copy in a secure cloud of my stuff that didn’t get effected.  The bad news was, I didn’t dare synchronize it with my loaner because I didn’t want to risk anything else happening! So finding people’s phone numbers and other information that I had in my original phone has been problematic.

Maybe it has been the full moon or just technology gremlins, but when it happens to you, take a deep breath and know the world isnt over, it just has slowed down a bit!!

If you watch the Today Show, Glenn Beck, Anderson Cooper or other TV news shows, you may have heard about Twitter and Facebook going down last week.

And more recently, a Business Week Article of the same.

DDOS attacks have not been confined to just Twitter and Facebook but have been responsible for many very high profile sites falling victim to this type of activity. A Fact:  25% of all web servers online are currently vulnerable to these types of attacks and that number is growing every day.

How can that happen?
What happens is a “flurry” of messages that go to a web server that are irrelevant lines of code. This confuses the server. When we say “flurry” we mean, tens of thousands in a matter of seconds or minutes that continue until the web server raises a white flag and surrenders.

A “DDOS” can also be a result of a malicious attack on software or operating system vulnerability on a given server.   Kind of like leaving your back door open and someone you don’t know comes walking into your kitchen.

What does this mean to you?
If you are a website owner it means your site is very slow to serve or perhaps it doesnt serve at all. So online you are hanging out the CLOSED sign or in geek speak you get “404 page not found” message on your screen.

As a web application and service provider, we need to say we have been victims of these attacks ourselves and it is very challenging.  In fact,  we had one recently. During this attack, one of our servers fell prey to the maliciousness effects of the hacker.  This caused the server and all sites on it to stop operations. To fix it, Sephone technicians worked at all hours going to the backup and then rebuilt a new server so the sites could be re-hosted and work properly. But  every situation is different and the troubleshooting is vital to learn the root cause and fix the actual PROBLEMS and not just the symptoms of the problem.

Hackers are very busy writing scripts and setting them loose on the web-just for the fun of it. It doesn’t seem to cause any long term damage to the website or application, but it does create a huge short term inconvenience to your business and to ours.

In our goal is to be a consistent and conscientious web service company. We are always looking to see how to provide the best service, how to stay on top of things to combat the what seems to be countless people from IP addresses located in far off countries like Russia, Phillipines, China, etc. with little or no regulation or laws.

There also are many blogs and stories on line about this and other types of malicious hacking activities. Most all of them more technically written than this post. Here is an example. But it has always been Sephone’s policy to try and explain things in a meaningful way as opposed to using words that can be confusing or words only “geeks like us” understand, because we want YOU to understand.

We thank you for being our clients and trusting us with your online presence. When you thought the “WWW” meant “World Wide Web” it really can mean “Wild, Wild, West” at times and we will continue to fight our fight, providing you the best service at a fair price while remaining vigilant in the cause. We will recommend new technology – when it makes sense and always keep our eyes open for the best ways to do things within the always changing internet environment.

If you have any questions, remember we are right here on the other end of the phone!