Tweet

By: James Koole on January 28th, 2009
Posted in: Reseller Resources
Tags:
Comments: 0

Phishing attacks are often associated with banking websites, but domain owners and Resellers need to be aware as well – hackers are actively targeting domain registration and management systems in an attempt to acquire user credentials. We’ve put together some information that will assist you both in protecting yourself from phishing attacks, and also to assist you in educating your customers so they can avoid falling victim to these hackers.

I’ve split the information into two groups; there’s some tips and info about what OpenSRS is specifically doing to protect against phishing, and also some general advice that applies to any and all online accounts.

OpenSRS Specific information:

• OpenSRS will never ask you for your username or password via email. We never ask for detailed personal information via email either (many phishing attacks use a form to be filled out that requests all of your personal info).
• All OpenSRS service administration systems including the Reseller Web Interface (RWI), the Manage Web Interface (MWI), and the Mail Administration Center (MAC), are protected by SSL Digital Certificates.
• When notified of an issue related to possible phishing directed at OpenSRS Resellers, domain registrants or competing domain Registrars and service providers, our abuse and compliance teams immediately work with their colleagues around the world to identify and disable the offending domain(s).
• OpenSRS abuse and compliance teams are well connected with various agencies and institutions in the global effort to identify and eliminate phishing websites no matter the target.

General tips:

• Be suspicious of any and all emails purporting to be from banks, financial institutions, or other online services that require you to log on via a link. Use your browser bookmark instead of clicking links in email.
• Check the SSL digital certificate of the site you are logging into if you have any concerns. This is as easy as clicking on the favicon in the address bar of Firefox or the lock icon on Internet Explorer. Ensure the information in the digital certificate matches the site you think you are logging into.
• Newer browsers, like Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7 and Safari 3.1 offer protection against some phishing attacks by alerting you to known phishing sites when you attempt to surf to them. This doesn’t provide complete protection, however, as new phishing sites are created all the time.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) has created an educational page for consumers with excellent information that will assist them in protecting themselves from being phished. Feel free to educate yourself and also to share this resource with your customers.

Tweet

By: OpenSRS Team on January 27th, 2009
Posted in: Partners and Resellers
Tags: Meet the Resellers
Comments: 0

This latest installment in the “Meet the Resellers” series features Alex Bulan from Toronto hosting stalwart Korax.

James McNally (JM): How long has Korax been doing business and what are all the services you offer to your customers? Any interesting stories from your company’s history?

Alex Bulan (AB): Korax provides web hosting, dedicated servers, and domain registration services to a wide array of customers.  Today, our clients range from small to mid-sized businesses to multinational enterprises, government, police services, and non-profits. However, we originally started in 1997 as a dialup Internet access provider catering to Unix shell users. There were many ISPs offering SLIP and PPP access in Toronto at the time, but very few of them offered a Unix shell environment, let alone a decent one. After the purchase and subsequent shutdown of one of Toronto’s oldest commercial ISPs, which had a strong community of Unix users, we decided to try to fill that void. Many of those users came over to us, and some of them are still with us now, 12 years later.

JM: How did you personally get into the Internet business?

AB: It all began in 1988 with a 1200 baud modem…which got me into the world of BBSes, which led to running my own BBS for a number of years. As I began learning about the Internet in the early 1990s, I became passionately interested in the technology that made it work. Later, during the mid-90s, I worked for a few ISPs alongside Louis Steiner, now my business partner. It was then that both Louis and I realized our respective skills complemented each other perfectly, and we decided to quit our jobs and start Korax.

JM: I noticed some of the green initiatives mentioned on your site. Feel free to tell me more about why and how you’re greening your business.

AB: From our earliest beginnings, our efforts have always been focused not only on providing reliable, quality service, but also on running a highly efficient operation. To that end, we have made every effort to minimize waste, both in our internal operations and in our dealings with our clients and vendors. On the technological front, we run cool, energy-efficient hardware, and consolidate server roles whenever it makes sense to do so. Thanks to ever-increasing hardware and software capabilities, we can reduce our environmental footprint without compromising on reliability. And perhaps most significantly, through the use of VoIP, our staff are now able to work wherever they happen to be located, and avoid the daily commute — saving time, money, the environment, and their sanity.

JM: I understand you’ve been with OpenSRS since 2000. Can you describe what the hosting business was like way back then?

AB: I might be in the minority of people who think so, but the hosting business hasn’t changed much since then. Prices have come down and numbers (e.g. storage, bandwidth) have gone up, but the product is essentially unchanged. There are good providers, and there are also lots of providers at the other end of the scale, just as there were back then, and “you get what you pay for” still applies.

Unlike the hosting business, the domain name registration system has changed significantly. Fifteen years ago, before ICANN, before there was a domain name industry, and before domain names cost anything to register, it all worked very differently. Organizations with a legitimate need for a domain name were expected to limit themselves to one domain name. There was no cyber-squatting. And who could forget waiting days or weeks for those InterNIC registration templates to be processed? Those templates, by the way, could be submitted via e-mail, postal mail, or fax. Sure can’t do that today!

JM: How has your partnership with OpenSRS helped your company succeed?

AB: OpenSRS allowed us to seamlessly integrate domain registration and SSL certificates into our services, simplifying the purchase process for our customers and giving them only one vendor to deal with, instead of two or three. We also appreciate OpenSRS’s active involvement at the regulatory level when there are important matters at stake affecting the integrity of the domain name industry.

JM: Any other suggestions or feedback for us?

AB: We feel that Tucows/OpenSRS has spread itself too thin in recent years, and lost its focus trying to launch and promote numerous other services. We want OpenSRS to refocus back on its core service of domain registration and management, and bring some much-needed and long overdue redevelopment of the tools, interfaces and features it provides to resellers. (Editor’s note: As mentioned in an earlier post, redesigning our RWI interface is a top priority for us in 2009.)

If you’re a reseller interested in sharing your story with our readers, get in touch with me (jamesmATopensrsDOTcom). We’d love to hear from you!

Tweet

By: James Koole on January 27th, 2009
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: .TEL, Domains Service
Comments: 0

.TEL Landrush is now just around the corner – beginning on February 3, 2009. As mentioned previously, OpenSRS is full participant in the launch of .TEL. You’ll be able to start pre-ordering for starting at 0500 GMT on Friday, January 30th, 2009. At the same time we turn on Landrush pre-orders, we’re turning off Sunrise Orders.

.TEL Landrush is structured fairly simply. Telnic, the .TEL registry, isn’t holding auctions for high value or premium domain names nor is it withholding any names from the Landrush (except for a few names on a “reserved list” as required by ICANN and as needed for registry operations).

There are going to be a ton of great .TEL domain names available in many different languages. Some examples include geographic names like newyork.tel or generic names like pizza.tel. During Landrush, everyone has a shot at grabbing one of these potentially valuable names. Each is offered at a fixed price ($329.60US including a three-year registration) on a first-come, first-served basis.

Landrush pre-orders are fairly simple, but there are a few things you should be aware of:

1. Pre-orders are not guaranteed. When the Registry opens, we’ll start submitting orders along with everyone else.
2. When a pre-order is submitted, we’ll put $275 on hold in your Reseller account. If that order is successful when Landrush officially opens, we’ll charge through the full $329.60. If the order is not successful, we’ll remove the hold and you’ll pay nothing. That’s a bit different from the Sunrise period during which the $275 fee was payable to the Registry regardless.
3. ALL Landrush pre-orders submitted to pending will be processed. If you don’t wish for a pending order to be processed, you must cancel it prior to the Registry opening.

Also of note is that ordering via the API will also go live at 0500 GMT on Friday, January 30th, 2009. The documentation has been updated to reflect the changes and additions.

Telnic noted that during the Sunrise period, many companies realized the value of .TEL and registered their ‘brand’.tel, including Starbucks, Microsoft, Google and CNN. It’s expected that Landrush will be busy as people try to grab some of the high-value .tel domains, and also jump in and ensure that they get the .tel for their company or organization.

For Resellers that submitted .TEL Sunrise Applications, Telnic has provided a lookup tool to determine the status of Sunrise applications.

We’ll have more about .TEL in the coming weeks and months as we get closer to the General Availability and the official, full launch of this innovative new domain extension on March 24th, 2009.

Tweet

By: OpenSRS Team on January 21st, 2009
Posted in: Events
Tags: WHIR Networking Events
Comments: 0

Toronto-area resellers, join us on Thursday January 29 from 7:00pm until 10:00pm at Maro, located just steps from OpenSRS HQ in lovely Liberty Village. Web Host Industry Review (“the WHIR”) are hosting a networking event with free drinks and appetizers. There’s no cost to attend for those in the hosting industry, but you must RSVP. And hurry, because at this price, tickets won’t last long!

More information here

RSVP at this link

Tweet

By: OpenSRS Team on January 21st, 2009
Posted in: Partners and Resellers
Tags: Meet the Resellers
Comments: 0

This latest installment in the “Meet the Resellers” series features Tina Kesova, Marketing Specialist at SiteGround.

Tina Kesova, SiteGround

James McNally (JM): How long has SiteGround been doing business and what are all the services you offer to your customers?

Tina Kesova (TK): We have been in the web hosting business since August 2003. We offer shared and dedicated web hosting solutions. The people we target are mainly owners of personal and small business websites, non-profit organizations, etc. Our clients are price sensitive, but are not willing to compromise quality of service. For customers with growing needs we offer an easy way for upgrading to Virtual Private or Dedicated Servers. We also strive to provide our customers with many free resources to help them manage their online projects in the best possible way.

JM: Any interesting stories from your company’s history?

TK: There are so many interesting things around us every day, indeed. I could tell stories all day long but I certainly have a favorite one. One day a customer contacted us through the Helpdesk and needed to urgently renew his hosting account as he had missed the renewal date. This is how his ticket ended:

I really need my site up immediately! Please, help me with the renewal!

ASAP

Then a colleague of mine started his reply:

Dear Asap,

We truly understand the issue and will be glad to assist you with the resolution of this case.

The “Dear Asap” case is now a mandatory example in our customer service training.

JM: How did you personally get into the Internet business?

TK: All my internet business experience comes from SiteGround. When I started working here back in 2005 as a sales representative, I was truly illiterate when it came to web hosting, and have gained all of my knowledge and experience thanks to the constant training and immense help of my colleagues here. We really have a team of passionate and dedicated professionals ready to share their knowledge and experience at any time. I am really proud to know all these people for almost 4 years now.

JM: Where are you located and what makes it such a great place to do business? Are your customers mostly local?

TK: We have customers from all over the world, the majority of whom come from the USA. Due to this fact we have our data centers in Chicago and Houston. Our customer service teams are located in Sofia, Bulgaria, which is an ideal location since there are so many highly skilled and intelligent young people here. Working in a young and enthusiastic team is a strong motivator for all of us.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia, Bulgaria

JM: How long have you been an OpenSRS reseller?

TK: We have been working with OpenSRS since February 2007. Though our partnership is still young, I can definitely say that it has been mutually beneficial and we all believe that our partnership with OpenSRS is the greatest asset for SiteGround.

JM: How has your partnership with OpenSRS helped your company succeed?

TK: Most important of all is the quality of service we receive from you. The quality you deliver guarantees that SiteGround will provide excellent domain registration services. Your team is flexible, friendly, and always ready to provide assistance. Since we officially launched domain registrations through OpenSRS in February 2008, we have registered tens of thousands of domains. I call that success!

JM: What can we do to make the relationship stronger?

TK: The only recommendation I have at this stage is to work more on the OpenSRS reseller web interface (RWI). It is a wonderful management section with many, many useful tools, but is not user-friendly at all. So, a redesigned RWI for the new 2009 is my recommendation to you. (Editor’s Note: This is a top priority for us in 2009!)

JM: Any other suggestions or feedback for us?

TK: Lastly, I would like to say that the whole SiteGround team is really grateful to OpenSRS for the successful business relationship and we are looking forward to expanding it and making it even stronger. All the best for 2009 and for new challenges!

If you’re a reseller interested in sharing your story with our readers, get in touch with me (jamesmATopensrsDOTcom). We’d love to hear from you!

Special thanks to Flickr user Adam Sloan for making his photo available under a Creative Commons license