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Friday, June 30, 2000 - MailStart.com Outage
On Friday, June 30, 2000, MailStart.com experienced a partial outage due to a DOS (Denial of Service) attack based from a school that will not be named at this time. The attack halted important MailStart.com services at approximately 12:45 pm for about 4 hours.
We are incredibly sorry to those of you that encountered problems while trying to access the service. We have taken precautions to prevent this from happening in the future, and are investigating the source of the attack.
Tuesday, May 16, 2000
We're proud to announce that MailStart.com was recommended by the LA Times on May 15. Read the Full Article
"My favorite solution is MailStart.com because it doesn't require any planning and you don't have to worry about your mailbox being full. Unlike the other Web-based services, you don't need to set up an account to use MailStart. To use this service, you simply go to the site and enter your e-mail address and password. MailStart then contacts your ISP and downloads all your mail.
"I recently tried it and within about a minute it downloaded all 1,444 pieces of mail in my in box, sorted by date--the most recent first. It's not only easy but very fast, and it can be used from any Web-enabled device anywhere in the world."
- Lawrence J. Magid
Monday, August 30, 1999
We have received the final drives necessary for our storage increase. Because of the immediate need for this additional storage the service will be taken down at aprox 2:00pm. We expect the outage to last no longer than 10-15 minutes. We applogize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thursday, August 19, 1999
Today marks the official launch of the new MailStart Template Program. Would you like to include a branded version of the MailStart service on your web site? In as little as 15 minutes you can create your own custom, branded version of MailStart. Simply point your browser to http://template.mailstart.com to sign up and start offering branded email services on your web site today!
Before signing up, you may want to read the documentation to get an idea of the features, benefits, deployment methods, and ease of use. Send any questions to the Template Administrator using our Contact Form
Wednesday, August 4, 1999
We have completed the set up of the image farm. All images should now load faster and overall page render times should be down. Please report any broken images to comments/sugestions using the form found on http://home.mailstart.com/contact.asp.
Saturday, July 31, 1999
Today we will be creating a new image farm for serving images. This should speed up page render and download times for everyone. We do not expect any network outage problems other than the occasional broken image.
Friday, July 30, 1999
It was brought to our attention late yesterday that another hole existed in some of the servers we had deployed. By 10:30pm 7/29/99, the hole was closed. It again does not appear that any systems were penetrated. This hole comes in the wake of last months security issues. Since last month we have been reorganizing our personel and revising and updating our security practices. We expect to have all our new security measures in place in the next 60 days, this will include new personel and a security audit from a recognized 3rd party. If you have any questions please use the form at http://home.mailstart.com/contact.asp to send us feedback.
Sincerely,
The MailStart Staff
Thursday, July 29, 1999
The new MailStart privacy policy for the upcoming year has been approved by TRUSTe and is now in effect. There has been a lot of changes on MailStart, and many to come. The new privacy statement includes disclosure of information for programs that are not yet complete. If you have concerns about any issues in our privacy policy please use our contact form on our corporate page or send mail directly to privacy@mailstart.com with your questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
MailStart Staff
Monday, July 26, 1999
New features and enhancement to the software are underway at this time. We expect to roll out some new programs in the next 3-4 weeks. The MailStart Template Program is being redesigned from the ground up and MailStart Plus is getting many new and needed features finished up. If anyone has any comments or suggestions please use the form at http://home.mailstart.com/contact.asp and send us your comments.
Friday, July 23, 1999
Since about 8:00 this morning network traffic has been moving at a crawl. We contacted our ISP, Quiknet and they informed us that a construction crew in Downtown Sacramento cut a fiber optic line. We have been assured that the problem is under repairs and connectivity issues should be resolved by late this afternoon. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Friday, July 16, 1999
Upgrades are complete for now. We have completly finished upgrading the MailStart backend database system. The new system will allow us to provide you a better, faster service.
In the upcoming weeks we will be creating a new Template Program for MailStart that provide the ability for you to deploy a branded version of the service on your site! We expect development on this new program to be complete in the next 3-4 weeks. In the meantime we have revised our Form Control Program (http://mailstart.com/form). There is no longer any sign up necessary, just visit the link above and you can deploy email services on your web site TODAY!
Monday, July 12, 1999
Thank you all for your continued support and patience during this nasty upgrade of the database server software. As of today we have isolated and repaired all incompatibilities and are now working on optimizing our software for the new database. Full optimization for both MailStart Classic and MailStart Plus should be complete Wednesday 7/14/99. During this time the service may run a bit slower, but it WILL NOT be taken down. Please report any errors using the feedback form found at http://home.mailstart.com/contact.asp.
Friday, July 9, 1999
On Thursday, July 8th we upgraded our database server from MS SQL Server 6.5 to SQL Server 7.0. At the completion of the upgrade (12:45 am 7/9/99) all system and diagnostic checks indicated a successful upgrade, and tests of the service revealed everything was working properly. At approximately 4:30am on 7/9/99, as traffic to the site began to increase, the upgraded server began to show problems handling our standard traffic load. By 5:00am the server was virtually saturated and service performance declined to unusable levels.
Today we have spent over 9 hours trouble shooting the problem in house, and are now working with Microsoft to solve this problem. We apologize for not posting any news, but with the database in the disarray it was, there was no opportunity to upgrade the news till site traffic decreased. We will be working all weekend to solve this performance issue and hope to have the service back up to full operational capacity by Monday, July 12.
Throughout this weekend the service will likely be intermittently available. Please bear with us as we complete these upgrades. Microsoft has made bold claims with this new database server, and if the software lives up to any of its claims, once these issues are resolved, the service should run smoother and better than ever.
Best Regards,
MailStart Staff
Tuesday, July 6, 1999
On Thursday 7/8/99 we will be upgrading our backend database server begining at 3:00pm PST. While we do not expect there to be any problems with MailStart, it is possible that intermitent service outages may occur. We will do our best to maintain an operational service during the upgrades, but with upgrades one can never tell, and there may be long periods where the service is not available. All upgrades should be complete by 11:00pm PST.
Tuesday, June 29, 1999
Today, it has been brought to our attention that one of our machines was vulnerable to an attack. The attack would enable a malicious user to have access to the source code for some of the auxiliary pages of MailStart and MailStart Plus. However, in review of our access logs, we find no evidence that this attack was exploited.
MailStart Classic Users were at no risk-
Due to the strict privacy policy we maintain on the MailStart service, there would be no reason to fear that anyone could have access to User Names or Passwords. Because no information is kept about MailStart Classic users, even if someone were to have access to our system, they would have no access to personal information.
Our service is run on a pool of computers working to fulfill requests. Approximately two weeks ago, one of the computers crashed. When the server was rebuilt, the computer did not have every patch in place to prevent the security flaw in Microsoft's software. We invite you to read up on the problem with Microsoft's software here.
MailStart Plus Users WERE at a minute risk-
Because information is stored about MailStart Plus users, there was a slight possibility that someone may have had access to our machines, and the information within them. Any risks that were present before have been minimized to the best of our capabilities.
Although this attack could have been utilized to gain access to user data, a review of our logs verifies that this did not happen. We have taken the necessary steps to patch this security hole in Microsoft's Internet Information Server.
Please keep in mind, that as a member of MailStart, your information was not accessed. For a brief period of time, we were vulnerable to an attack, which may have yielded unfortunate consequences. We're doing our best to make sure you get the same reliable service, while we double and triple check each security issue that can pose a problem.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our users, and regret that we may have caused discomfort among our users as well.
If you have any questions about this issue, please e-mail security@mailstart.com, and we will get back to you with an answer as soon as possible.
Thursday June 3, 1999
MailStart.Com has been awarded The StudyWeb (TM) Academic Excellence Award. StudyWeb is one of the Internet's premier sites for educational resources for students and teachers. We would like to extend our warm thanks for the people at StudyWeb for providing such a valuable service.
Monday, May 17, 1999
Beginning June 1st, 1999 all advertising space on MailStart will no longer be sold by 24/7 Media. We have had a wonderful time working with 24/7, but are now ready to move advertising sales in-house. A new advertising section has been added to the MailStart Corporate Site. If you are interested in advertising with MailStart our revised advertising information can be found at http://home.mailstart.com/ads.html.
Monday, April 19, 1999
Over the past couple of months traffic has been building up to a level we now deem inappropriate for our current resources. Beginning this week we will be upgrading our server pool and backend resources to accommodate the increased traffic to the service. As a result we will be doubling the size of our CGI server pool and improving some of the backend software to speed up requests. We expect this process to take no more than a week; however, it could roll into the upcoming weekend. During this time you may notice that the service is temporarily unavailable or running extremely slow as we shuffle machines around. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause, but ask you to be patient, for when these upgrades are complete the service will be faster than ever
Thursday, April 15, 1999
The MailStart POP3 servers database has exceeded 37,000 active servers in over 32,000 domains! Chances are if you have an email address, but dont know your POP3 server, MailStart will be able to find it and provide you access to your mail!
Friday, March 26, 1999
MailStart experienced a catastrophic database software failure yesterday (3/25/99) at 5:15pm. This problem persisted until 10:15pm (3/25/99). We applogize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have any questions please contact us at support@mailstart.com
Thursday, March 18, 1999
Today Wired Magazine published its March issue to the internet. In doing so they also published the article they wrote about MailStart on the web. If you have not picked up a copy of Wired for the month of March, then click here to read the article online.
Tuesday, March 16, 1999
Today marks the launching of our newest template partner, the United Nations SIDS network (http://www.sidsnet.org). This special version of MailStart was designed for the UN under the MailStart Template Program. If you would like to create a custom branded version of MailStart on your site, contact Debra Chanda (debra@mailstart.com)about the MailStart Template Program.
Monday, March 1, 1999
We are pleased to announce the offical launch of UGeek Web Mail, a service provided by MailStart Plus. UGeek is a popular place to
'Increase Your Techknowledgey!'. MailStart Plus provides email boxes at geek.com and gamegeek.com and web based
access for UGeek visitors.
Monday, February 1, 1999
Today marks a new era in web based email handling. MailStart Plus is here. The leaders
in web based email access bring you the first universal email client on the web. Allowing you to configure up to five
existing POP3 email boxes to retrieve, filter, store and organize. Offering all the Features
you would expect from a high quality email program, with the speed and accessability of MailStart, all with your CURRENT email boxes. MailStart Plus
turns any mailbox into an Organized, Anywhere, Anytime, Way Cool webbox!
What if you don't have a mailbox? Or need a more noticable, personal mailbox? In addition to providing the best email interface on the web, we will even give you a FREE POP3 compatible Mailbox. How about:
- yourname@mailstart.com
- yourname@mailstartplus.com
- yourname@geek.com
- yourname@gamegeek.com
Signup now, Great, Personal email boxes are
still available! To learn more please visit the MailStart Plus home page.
Tuesday, January 12, 1999
Last week we upgraded our mail server and completed 90% of the upgrades to our back end. You should see faster responses from MailStart (this will be masked if you have a slow mail server) as well as faster outgoing email responses now.
We have also completed the first wave of upgrades for MailStart in 1999. The speller is still being tweeked, but we should have it fully functional, with a better dictionary by next week. In addition we have added an Extended Headers option and Print Page option to the Read Mail Page.
The Extended Headers link will toggle between standard read display and extended read display. With this option you can view all the extended header information contained in your email as provided by your mail server. Some mail servers strip this information and you may not notice a change when you toggle this option on.
The Print Mail link will format the current email for printing. This should resolve the major printing problems, espcially with Netscape Navigator, encountered when trying to print the current message.
Finally on the MailStart Plus front, we expect to roll out a public beta next week. This beta will not go on as long as the last one, and we hope to delploy MailStart Plus as well as offer some premium email address domains by months end.
Keep watching the news for further devlopments
Tuesday, December 29, 1998
The MailStart Spell Checking system is complete. We feel it is a better and more intuitive than any other web based speller. What do you think? Email us at feedback@mailstart.com and let us know.
We have also completed most of our hardware upgrades, by the first week of 1999 we will have all of our new computers in place.
Wednesday, December 23, 1998
The multiple delete feature has been added to the Mailbox. You may now delete up to 10 messages at a time! Next up, spell checker.
We have also fixed the Error #0 message, we think! If anyone gets this annoying uninformative error message please continue to send us feedback at support@mailstart.com.
Thursday, December 17, 1998
We have completed the initial software upgrades on MailStart. The entire back end has been rebuilt and the service is faster and more robust. In the coming weeks we will be adding the following features:
1) Spell Checker
2) Attachment Handling (send/receive)
3) Multiple Email Delete (up to 10 messagesper page)
4) Interactive Help System
In additoin to the software upgrades scheduled for the next few weeks, we will also be upgrading our hardware. By Mid January all our upgrades should be complete and we will release MailStart Plus. MailStart Plus is an extension of MailStart for those of you who need a more complete web based email access solution
Tuesday, December 1, 1998
The MailStart Plus Beta Test is in full swing. We expect to be out of Beta and in full deployment of the new service by the end
of this month. In the mean time we have added a voluntary survey to MailStart. If you point your browser to
http://mailstart.com/ms_survey.asp you can answer our anonymous survey. This survey will allow us to
increase the quality of our advertising, thereby allowing us to reduce the total number of ads necessary to run MailStart.
If you concerned with what we do with the answers please see our TRUSTe reviewed privacy policy at http://mailstart.com/privacy.asp.
Thursday, November 12, 1998
For the past 2 months the MailStart development team has been hard at work creating a new type of Email Client. This new email client, which goes by the
name MailStart Plus, is the webs first true web based universal email client. Although MailStart Plus is not yet ready for full public consumption we are
ready to start a limited Beta Test. Starting today we will allow up to 100 people to sign up as Beta Testers for MailStart Plus. You must be an avid
email user and already have existing active email accounts to join as a Beta Tester. To sign up for the beta test click here.
Thursday, October 15, 1998
Over the past few weeks MailStart has seen
some tremendous traffic growth. In en effort to handle all this new traffic and in
preparation for the release of MailStart Plus we will be upgrading our system again.
During the upgrade the MailStart service may be temporarily unavailable, this is an
unfortunate consequence of upgrading on the internet. Please be patient with us as
we will do everything we can to make this upgrade transition as pleasant as possible.
Tuesday, October 13, 1998
In an effort to help recipients reply to
emails sent from the MailStart network, we will begin including your IP address in
the headers of any email you send. Most email clients automatically stamp certain
header information to an email that a recipient can use to figure out who sent them an
email in case there is a problem in the FROM header. Unfortunatly, due to the nature
of SMTP, all email sent from our system has our header information stamped on it. This
results in recipients sometimes mistaking us as the sender and directing their replys to
us. By attaching your IP address to the header information recipients will be more
able to locate you on your home system and reply to your message if there is a problem in
the FROM header.
Wednesday, October 7, 1998
The TRUSTe Privacy Campaign has officially begun.
As a reviewed site by the TRUSTe organization, MailStart is committed to strict
privacy standards, not only for our web site, but for the entire internet community at
large. This campaign will last until the end of the month and we hope you will take
the time to get yourself better informed not only about the MailStart Privacy Policy, but about the entire online privacy issue at large.
Thursday, October 1, 1998
It appears that MailStart was sending out
Session Cookies due to our active server page use. This has been fully disabled and
you should no longer get any cookies from us. If you go to a page that attempts to
set a cookie on your browser please inform the Cookie Remover
with the page that tried to set the cookie.
Monday, September 21, 1998
Construction of MailStart Plus has begun.
By November a new MailStart, MailStart Plus, will be released. Check back for
further developments and a features list.
Monday, August 31, 1998
MailStart is now fully integrated into our
Database server. This has resulted in faster server responses and less broken links.
We are currently preparing a new version of MailStart which will debut sometime in
October. Please send any suggestions that you would like to see on MailStart to feedback@mailstart.com.
Monday, August 10, 1998
MailStart was featured in an
article by the St Petersburg Times for Monday, August 10.
Monday, July 27, 1998
MailStart has been reviewed and accepted
into the TRUSTe list of privacy audited sites.
Monday, July 20, 1998
MailStart has been voted as the LeMaze
resource site for the week of July 20th. Click on the graphic below to visit the
LeMaze site and read about MailStart.
Thursday, June 18, 1998
We have received our review pending
announcement from the TRUSTe Privacy Organization.
Tuesday, June 16, 1998
We have completely upgraded our back end
network by adding 4 new machines and a 10 port switch. We hope this is enough, but
want you to prove us wrong by getting everyone you know to use MailStart so much we need
to buy more computers! The obvious change of course is the face lift, any feedback about the changes would be appreciated.
Tuesday, June 9, 1998
Today marks the one year anniversary of
MailStart. It was exactly 1 year ago today that we registered our domain name.
Four weeks later the program was completed and MailStart was serving the internet
community its email. Since that time we have grown to need more than just the
computers we currently have. So to celebrate our 1 year anniversary on June 16 we
are going to be upgrading our back end network and giving the site a face lift.
Monday, June 1, 1998
MailStart became a subsidiary of BrandMakers, Inc.
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