the sephone blog

For those of us that are “40 something,”  you remember what life was like before email.  I remember the first email I ever sent was to my boss (back in the 90’s).  Once I sent it, I got up from my desk, walked across the building to his office and we sat and waited for it to arrive.  Both of us looked at one another and said…”You have got to be kidding me, this is supposed to be faster than a phone call or a fax?”  Well unlike him, I knew in my heart of hearts this email thing wasn’t going to go away. He kept saying to me, “Cotiaux, this internet thing is another marketing fad.”  Now we still giggle about it when we catch up with each other a few times a year – the old fashioned way.  By PHONE, and now that has changed to, it is by CELL phone!

So email consumes us and with good connectivity it arrives instantly at its intended destination.  And then there is SPAM! SPAM you may not have known you asked for by subscribing to a newsletter and SPAM that you never asked for in the first place!

But where is this all going?  Do you want all your emails going to your blackberry (or other smart phone?)  Our clients send me large files that can be completely unusable to see on my blackberry so why do it?  AND sometimes I need thinking time for when people ask me questions and I need to talk to others in order to answer it.  These people (our team at Sephone),  don’t work 24/7 they actually have a life!

Is it really that important to be THAT available to EVERYONE you know in all facets of your life ALL the time (weekends, holidays, etc.) ? AND how do the people you are WITH physically all the time feel when you are constantly looking down, checking that flashing red light?  It is only going to get worse.

Then when you reply to those emails from your phone, are you really saying it how you really want it to be received? Or  you may not have your glasses on, you feel rushed to respond with an incomplete answer and have to go back and redo it and in the meantime you have an email out there that is misspelled and maybe not really what you meant it to say.  All in the name of our 24 hour “news” cycle! “We’ve come a long way baby,”right?

The solution is different for everybody.  But managing IT without IT managing YOU is the biggest challenge.  I struggle with it all the time.  In fact I find if I lose my blackberry or have a poor signal (we are in Maine after all),  I feel pretty stressed AND I don’t have all my email going to it!  I am really trying hard not to be run by technology.

What are your thoughts and ideas?

Would love to hear (and share) them!

We’ve had a few of our clients send us a copy of a rather official-looking email they received over the last couple of days. We’ve even gotten a couple of copies of it at our own addresses. So far, we’ve seen subject lines starting with “A new settings file for the…” and “For the owner of the…”

In short, it’s a phishing scam and you shouldn’t click the link. Here’s one version of the email:

Dear user of the example.com mailing service!

We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox (someone@example.com) settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings click on the following link:

http://example.com/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=someone@example.com&from=example.com&fromname=someone

Best regards, example.com Technical Support.

Again, don’t click the link. Even though the link looks like it points to your company’s site, it will actually bring you to a site that tries to steal your personal information. A quick search brings up some results of similar emails over the last few days sent to people around the world, so don’t be surprised if you see a similar email sent your way.

As always, we’ll never ask for your personal information via email. If you ever have a question about the legitimacy of an email, give us a call or send us a note to check before you decide what to do with it!

You may have just seen an email that was from barracuda_notice@ sephone.com recently.  If so, you are probably wondering what it is.

If you are, well let me share.

Sephone knows that SPAM is the number #1 P.I.T.A.* of all e-mail users.  SPAM stinks.

As a means to fight SPAM, Sephone acquired SPAM Firewalls from Barracuda Networks-  Customers wishing to enhance their SPAM filters from the included services with all our hosting packages are able to subscribe.  There is a small monthly fee per account.
Call or email us support @ Sephone.com for more details.

The service was initiated in early 2008 for a small test group and over the last several months we have been adding new subscribers as they inquire on how they can improve their SPAM filters.  Until now, we have been providing the services to help train the filters- BUT NOW-  all subscribers to the barracuda can have access to their own quarantine lists.

Every day you will get an notice from barracuda_notice@ sephone.com IF you have anything in quarantine.  From the email you can go directly to the account and manage your queue.

• So if you dont get that important email you have been expecting-  login to your quarantine account and see if the message is in there.
• If it is, then mark it as “Not SPAM” and let it be delivered.
• If you see mail in there that is “unknown” , take a few minutes; look at it, if it is SPAM, mark it as such, if it is marked as SPAM and you want it delivered, mark it “WhiteList” Or NotSpam and now when ever email is received- from that sender-  the Barracuda will let it thru instead of quarantining it.  This is also “Training”.

Sephone is pleased to offer this service to help rid you of SPAM.

To learn more about fighting SPAM or to subscribe to this service contact us at support@sephone. com.
To learn more about Barracuda Networks, visit http://www.barracudanetworks.com

Fees are for each email account that you wish to be protected.  Aliases are included.  Additional Domains and associated email accounts are extra.  A small set up fee may apply depending on the number of domains and accounts to be included.

*P.I.T.A = Pain in the A$$   

“The Ghost is in the Machine!” The simple truth about those weird emails:

You don’t know anybody in Nigeria, you don’t want a rolex watch! It is easy to wonder why people continue to send out these emails, even though “nobody” responds to them.

First of all, some people do respond to these emails, but the term “respond” does not always mean hitting the REPLY button. Did you know that you can be responding to the email just by looking at it?

Imbedded Links and images are a SPAMMERS delight! If you click or display on either of these, it actually is almost as if you answered the email. The SPAMMER gets what it wants — CONFIRMATION that it went to your VALID email address, which is what they are looking for.

Here is how it works: They take your valid email address, sometimes even going through your address book and and use it for launching viruses, or other ploys. Like when you receive those messages from banks you have never heard of or that Pay Pal account you don’t have. These are sent all in the hope that you will click on the link, give them your personal information. And you never even see it happen, there is a script that is running inside your computer “The Ghost is in the Machine” while you are going about your business.

SPAM isn’t just annoying it is dangerous. There are server based solutions like “Postini” that Sephone is offering now and there are software products you can buy just for your own PC, like Norton and others that are encryption services that protect your every keystroke.

The Federal Trade Commission has a terrific and easy to use web site that is very helpful:

You can visit it here by clicking this link. This site covers all kinds of Identity Theft, it is a good thing to bookmark so you can keep up with the latest “tricks” that are happening!