[PLUG] Pacifier was: security?

[Kyle Accardi]

Something for the future ISP evaluation page...

I was lamenting Pcifier's clueless use of plaintext passwords for checking 
one's mail over the web but commended them on their support of ssh/sftp and

Bruce Kingsland wrote:

> SSH works, as I have been using it for about 2 years; but I haven't
> gotten sftp to work. I think that may be because they aren't using
> linux. Last I checked, it was FreeBSD. I don't think they're using
> OpenSSH.


Looks like I jumped the gun re: sftp.  I maintain my website using scp. 
Their shell server is currently OpenBSD 2.6.  The man page for ssh 
indicates openssh.  There is no sftp binary in my search path.


> And now that they're owned by US.NET, they are a windows/mac shop. My
> ability to get support from them on linux is *zero*. Any support
> question is answered with "What OS are you running?". When you reply
> with "Linux", they say "Sorry, that's an unsupported OS; we can't
> assist you with _any_ issues - even if it might be _our_ problem!".
> So, by this time next year, they won't be my ISP.


My experience with tech support is generally very good.  I usually need 
them after midnight on Sunday's (strange that).  Many of the techs are 
versed in Linux and have been as helpful as they can.  When I do get the 
occasional by-the-book tech who is fearful of Linux, I speak in soothing 
tones and tell them that I can give them any information they need and it 
usually works out.

However, since they were picked up by us.net, things have gone downhill. 
My main beef is notification.  Servers go down sometimes, fine.  A month 
ago or so, my webpage dissappered and I couldn't log in--presumably two 
dirrerent servers.  Okay, maybe someone nuked /etc/passwd.  But during the 
latest outage, the recorded message explained that this was due to 
scheduled maintence with *no* ETA.  How's that?  Anyway, once I was able to 
flame them, I explained the politeness of letting the customer know when 
service was going to be interrupted.

During its darkest days, even Teleport send out mail.  So I'm shopping for 
a new ISP myself.  Where's that list...

Cheers,
Kyle Accardi