It appears as though the problem Midcontinent Cable customers were having with their email to gondtc.com being blocked has been resolved. Please call if you notice any additional problems concerning this issue and we will do our best to help you.

We have received reports that email from gondtc.com to Midcontinent Cable customers is being blocked. We are working to resolve this problem.

NDTC has noticed an increase in e-mail bounces this week. This increase was caused by a practice that other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are using to attempt to avoid spam. These ISPs are voluntarily using publicly available blacklists to determine whether the sending server is a known spamming server, regardless of the content of the actual e-mail. Unfortunately, in most cases, this is the only investment into anti-spam and anti-virus that these ISPs are using.

Some of these blacklists are accurate and work well.

Others, like the one that NDTC's anti-spam and anti-virus server was added to, called uceprotect.net, are radical and unethical in nature. Not only do they list servers that are actually attempting to defeat spam and viruses at the source, but they also require a 50 euro (approximately $100) fee to remove the offending server in a timely fashion, with absolutely no guarantee that it will not be listed again. This service is based in Germany, and therefore is almost immune to any kind of legal action. Also, they freely state on their website: "Introducing legal steps or similar action against us will result in that we leave your IP address and/or your network range listed in our database". This company is using these threats and tactics to sell their "anti-spam" software or hardware for thousands of dollars, rather than using legitimate and accepted marketing and sales techniques. We also suspect they are targeting their competition's equipment. It is impossible to contact them in an attempt to determine the problem and find a solution. Phone calls to their listed numbers were not answered and were dropped with no voice mail available.

We are working to try to keep this from happening again. After all, this is the reason we invested in an anti-spam/anti-virus server. Hopefully, we will not experience another blacklisting. Please know that this is unavoidable, as we do not and can not control how other ISPs handle spam on their network, and that NDTC is trying to deal with the spam problem in a professional and responsible way within the boundaries of accepted and approved standards.

We will be doing maintenance on equipment that will affect DSL in the Tolna, Pekin, McVille, Warwick, and Sheyenne exchanges. The maintenance should be completed by 7:00 AM on Thursday.

We have been experiencing email server problems the past few days. We are working to resolve the problem and will have a new server up within the new few days. Thank you for your patience in this matter.

There is a problem with email today. We are working to resolve the problem ASAP.

There was a problem with dialup modems early this morning. The problem has been resolved.

NDTC experienced a short Internet outage from approximately 1:45 PM until 2:10 PM this afternoon. The problem has been resolved.

NDTC experienced an Internet outage from 9:45 PM until 11:45 PM last night. The problem has been resolved.

As of today, the DDOS attack seems to have settled down. We still see some activity, but it is no longer interrupting service to the degree it was earlier in the week. We are no longer blocking the ports we were forced to block when the attack was at its worst. Thank you again for your patience.

On Friday, November 4, NDTC Internet ip addresses were affected by a DDOS attack. NDTC responded by implementing ip address blocking on the ports affected by the DDOS attack. The ports that were targeted affect messenger services, some mail services, and some websites. Also, some troubleshooting tools may be affected.

What is a DDOS attack?

Here is the definition from www.webopedia.com: "Short for Distributed Denial of Service, it is an attack where multiple compromised systems (which are usually infected with a Trojan) are used to target a single system causing a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Victims of a DDoS attack consist of both the end targeted system and all systems maliciously used and controlled by the hacker in the distributed attack."

And another definition from TechWeb: "An assault on a network that floods it with so many additional requests that regular traffic is either slowed or completely interrupted. Unlike a virus or worm, which can cause severe damage to databases, a denial of service attack interrupts network service for some period. A distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack uses multiple computers throughout the network that it has previously infected. The computers act as "zombies" and work together to send out bogus messages, thereby increasing the amount of phony traffic."

The problem actually affected customers with lower speeds (i.e.. dial-up) first, as those customers didn't have as much bandwidth to deal with the flood of requests. Those on the higher speed packages had some bandwidth "to spare", so that the attack did not affect them as quickly. Unfortunately, blocking the ports to save the network also affects the ability to use those Internet services.

Until the attack is complete, we will continue blocking the ports and blocking any new attacks.

When will the attack be over? Typically, DDOS attacks run a certain course. We are seeing all of the traffic, but the compromised machines on the Internet that are doing the attacking will eventually be shut down by their ISP, as they are causing lots of traffic on their home networks, so the local ISP should notice and take appropriate action. Unfortunately, the attack started on a Friday, typically the last day of the week. So the ISP may not know anything is wrong until today (Monday). We are watching the situation, and will remove the blocks when the attack is over.

We are experiencing some problems with DSL in Devils Lake and are working on it. Thank you for your patience.

We will be doing maintenance on the DSL equipment in Devils Lake at 4:00 AM. This may cause a service interruption for Devils Lake for approximately two hours.

We will be repairing the fiber in the McVille Central Office on Friday morning 09-02-2005 at 5:00AM. This will cause a service interruption for McVille, Tolna, and Pekin for approximately one hour.

We will be doing an upgrade to the Lakewood DSL at 6:00 AM on Friday, July 29th. We are anticipating only a very brief interruption of service.

We have been experiencing some issues with DSL in Devils Lake this week. We are working to resolve the problem, but if you have any concerns, please call us.

A central ethernet switch on the goNDTC backbone experienced a catastrophic failure on Friday. This caused the Internet to be unavailable to a portion of NDTC's customers on Friday afternoon and evening. We were able to reroute all affected links to a different switch and restore service.

Work being done today in Esmond, Balta, Minnewaukan and Maddock will cause customer's Internet service to go down at times. Thank you for your patience.

NDTC will be cutting over the Leeds CO from the Erickson to DMS100 on Wednesday Sept. 22nd in the early morning.  This may affect Internet customers briefly.

NDTC will be doing maintenance on DSL and Dial-Up equipment in Maddock on Wednesday morning. This will affect traffic for both Dial-Up and DSL customers.

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We will be doing maintenance on DSL equipment from 11:59 PM - 2:00 AM. This will affect traffic for some DSL customers.

We will be doing maintenance on the DSL equipment in Anamoose. This may cause a brief outage for DSL customers.

We will be doing maintenance between 5am and 6am on the DSL equipment in Esmond. This may cause a brief outage for DSL.

The junk e-mail and virus filter problem has been resolved.

During the last few days, Postini, the junk e-mail and virus filter used by NDTC, has been experiencing some server problems. This may have cause delays in sending and receiving messages and more junk mail being allowed through. We are working with Postini to resolve the problems and will keep you posted.

We will be upgrading multiple routers in the network that affect Internet traffic on Friday April 30th starting at 5:00AM and finishing by 6:00AM.  Internet traffic will be disrupted for some customers.

DSL maintenance was preformed this morning between 4:00 and 6:00 AM. It may require you to reboot your firewall.

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We will be doing maintenance on February 20 at 6:00 AM. This will affect all of NDTC's Internet service and email.

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We will be doing maintenance from 12:30 AM and 2:00 AM on February 11. Customers may notice a brief interruption in Internet service.

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AOL and Compuserve are again having problems receiving email from certain domains. Unfortunately, gondtc.com and stellarnet.com are again affected by this problem. We are currently working on resolving the problem with AOL and Compuserve.

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As of 8:10 this morning, AOL has fixed their e-mail problem. This problem also affected Compuserve customers, as AOL and Compuserve are the same company.

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AOL is currently having problems receiving email from certain domains. Unfortunately, gondtc.com and stellarnet.com are affected by this problem. We have contacted AOL to offer assistance in resolving this issue.

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There will be a brief interruption in internet service Friday (September 5th), at 7am. Rugby DSL and the customers with dial up service in the West area will be the only ones that will notice this brief outage.

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We will be doing maintenance on the server that our goNDTC (Stellarnet) email and web page resides on. This will be performed tomorrow morning between 5:30 and 7:30 am.

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We will be doing maintenance on the DSL equipment from 5 AM to 6 AM. This may cause a brief outage for some DSL customers.

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We will be doing maintenance on the main Internet router from 5 AM to 7 AM. The Internet will NOT be down for the entire 2 hours, but customers may notice brief interruptions in service.

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We will be doing maintenance on the DSL equipment on Friday morning at 6:30 am. This may cause a brief outage for some DSL customers.