Wed Aug 1 11:22:48 PDT 2001 — Our own web servers, which are not vulnerable to Code Red, are currently logging around 40 attempted Code Red attacks per minute. Our servers host about 2500 unique IP addresses, so we could guess that each IP address is being attacked about once per hour currently. The ramp-up has been slow, but it’s getting faster and faster.

We’ve searched for vulnerable systems connected to our networks, and have informed customers when we’ve found problems. We also currently have inbound port 80 blocking (web) in place for dynamic dialup pools. This will not affect normal use of your dialup connection, but protects you from inbound worm attacks in case you’ve got a vulnerable Windows NT or 2000 system. -Dane, Eli, Steve, Russ, Scott and Kelsey

Wed Aug 1 10:05:03 PDT 2001 — A Code Red firewall filter installed on pm3 caused some people who dialed into 707-522-1001 to lose connectivity this morning. We removed the filter and the connectivity came back. Sonic.net has invested in multiple dialup numbers in each area we cover, so that there is always a number that will work for you. It is always a good idea to keep a current print out of backup numbers for your area when problems may arise. You can get a current list of dialup numbers for your area by using our pop finder tool which is located at www.sonic.net/cgi-bin/pops.pl -Steve

Mon Jul 30 12:49:44 PDT 2001 — More Code Red work. We’ll be running more scans on our networks, and also implementing some firewalling on the dial-up equipment (Not DSL or Dedicated networks) on port 80. – Eli, Kelsey, Steve, ScottR

Sat Jul 28 15:29:21 PDT 2001 — The SMS crashed again at 12:27PM today. It reloaded properly on the older, more stable code. The code that it is currently running does have some known issues but they are far less significant than the issues that we are having with the latest GD release. We will continue to push RedBack to provide better code for us and to improve their software QA. RedBack should have new code some time next week. -Kelsey

Sat Jul 28 01:05:55 PDT 2001 — The SMS crashed again, twice, in rapid succession. It didn’t boot up on the old code as I had hoped, but I’ve confirmed that it will in the event that it reloads itself again. -Kelsey

Fri Jul 27 16:24:53 PDT 2001 — We had an unexpected crash on our RedBack router. This caused some connectivity problems for DSL and Broadlink WDSL customers. We are investigating into why this has happened. -Eli, Matt, Dave, Kelsey, Steve and Russ UPDATE: RedBack reports that this is a known issue and that it should be fixed in the next stable release due out next week. In the meantime we have reconfigured the RedBack SMS to use an older version of code that we’ve already demonstrated to be more stable than the current code running on it. In the event that it fails again it will boot the stable code. -Kelsey and Matt

Fri Jul 27 15:08:16 PDT 2001 — New SPAM Filter: We implemented a new SPAM countermeasure which may result in 30% reduction in inbound SPAM. For more information about this new filter and how to enable it for your email account, please see my post in news:sonic.general entitled ‘new spam filters’. -Kelsey, Russ, Matt and Scott.

Thu Jul 26 08:25:55 PDT 2001 — Happy birthday to Sonic.net! Domain Name: SONIC.NET Record created on 26-Jul-1994.

As we begin our eighth year, I’d like to thank our customers and our staff for their ongoing support and contributions. We’re now serving about 20,000 users, and have 45 employees. Sonic.net hosts 5000 websites, and over 2500 of our customers have PacBell DSL or BroadLink wireless broadband connections. Over a thousand customers are served by T1 or T3 dedicated circuits that Sonic.net provides to their employers. Sonic.net was listed this year in the Press Democrat’s “Sonoma County 200” business listing of top revenue producers in the county.

Over the years, our customers have always had very nice things to say about the care they receive from our staff here. For this, Scott and I would like to thank all of the people who work hard here to resolve problems, communicate with customers, build and maintain systems and software and manage and sell accounts.

As we continue to grow, we hear on an ongoing basis from our new members that they received numerous recommendations from existing customers for our services. We appreciate your support very much, and we will continue to strive to deliver a valuable and reliable service that you’ll be proud to recommend and to use.

Dane Jasper, Co-founder and CEO Scott Doty, Co-founder and CTO

Wed Jul 25 20:26:43 PDT 2001 — Another unexpected Redback Router crash, which affected PacBell ADSL and Broadlink WDSL customers between 8:09pm and 8:20pm. This appears to be the same ‘crash’ that affected us on Jul. 10th, that being a known bug in Redback’s current ‘General Deployment’ release of the router’s software. There are no known workarounds at this time, but the Sonic.net Operations team will be pressing Redback’s Support more vigorously in an effort to prevent downtime of this kind. – Eli, Kelsey

Wed Jul 25 16:04:30 PDT 2001 — Code Red audit – Yesterday afternoon, Sonic.net pro-actively audited our co-located customers’ networks, and our DSL-connected networks. The software connected to customer machines on port 80, and retrieved the Web Server software version they were running. We discovered 25 servers that were vulnerable to the Code Red worm, and notified the server administrators. – Eli, ScottR