A Little Help From My Internet Friends

[pops-shop]

I appologize in advance for this "non-woodworking" post. If the moderator chooses to delete it I will fully understand.

As many of you know, I have my own web site where I run my ecommerce business and a couple of forums. I have been hacked several times this spring with phishers to PayPal. If any of you have been affected, I am truely sorry. It seems that my web hosting company (PowWeb) can't seem to help me stop it nor will they respond to my inquiries. The only thing they do is shut me down for 48-72 hour. I have had it with them.

I am actively looking for a new hosting company that:
1. Has better security
2. Has a decent customer service
3. Has inteligent techs
4. Doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

If any of you know of such a hosting company I would like to check them out.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

fred

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Fred

There is no problem with the posting of this inquery here that I see. It is ashame what some individuals will do for a prank. I am a member of your site and I always find it refreshing to go there and meet and chat with different people. It has a different feel to the site than this but there again it is the great people that make it so. It is a well run site and why people would want to ruin things for others just is mind boggling. I hope someone can help ( I am sorry I am of no help here ). Maybe the Administartor of this site can help in some way. He can PM you if he wants. I know GreyBeard Phil is our computer guru and maybe he has a few suggestions. He is always checking in. So hang in there Fred.

PS: Hope your vacation goes well and you have alot of stories to tell us when you get back. :) :cool:

[GrayBeard Phil]

Fred:

I don't have much hope for you. I would recommend just what you don't want; pay for the higher service level. The more services you request, the higher the cost of providing the entire service package.

I agree your old hosting company didn't sound like a good place. That 48 to 72 hours sounds to me like they were giving you a new IP address. That time frame is what it takes to take down your old web site, re-build it, but your new web site being given a new IP address. IIRC, called Domain Name Service (DNS) propagation, the new link between your Web site and IP address gets updated throughout the world.

If you had a better web host, your site would have a fixed IP address on their server. Re-building your web site is just re-loading from a secure backup / master version. Should take no more than 1-2 hours. But you must have been assigned a static IP address(es) for your site. (Warning: there could always be some version of 'Bad Stuff', that makes the above statement nonsense and a new IP address is required.)

BTW: be aware I have read rumors that more and more, the large ISP's like AOL, AT&T (merged), Sprint, etc, are engaged in IP blocking. Under the cover of SPAM and Virus protection, Anti-Prono, and Anti-Spyware problems these big companies are blocking not only Email, but DNS address resolution linking to whole blocks of IP address. Small Mom & Pop ISPs and web hosting companies are being blocked so legitimate web sites cannot be found by subscribers of the big corporations. (There is no NS routing to these blocked IP address thru their routing.) If your web hosting company is small and living on the edge of profit, then there might be a problem of people finding your web site, along with all the other sites hosted by that company.

Just my paranoia jumping up and down begging for attention: the BIG internet corporations just happen to also block the very competition that is keeping the prices on the internet low.

All that aside. Is your entire web site hosted by your hosting company? Way too much problems can occur if part of your site is under your control. Your web hosting company is caught between a rock and a hard place. Think of this way: Taxi cabs cost a lot of money, but you don't repair or maintain the Taxi. Lease a car, but you still have to maintain the car. Buy a car with a loan and maintenance & repair are all your problem.

This is not the information you were looking for, but the best I can do for now. You need a 'firewall', and web site protection software. Such services cost money, and to buy outright is expensive.

Phil

[pops-shop]

A hosting company is hosting the entire site.

As a follow up:

I asked and received a migration to their "upgraded" servers. Migration went fine. What they didn't tell me was that when they copied my files to the new server, they also changed my ftp address. Oops. the day after migration I went through my entire site and deleted a whole bunch of directories - brought it down to bare bones (I thought). Two days later is when the BIG trouble occurred. It seems that they even copied some deleted directories and the cleanup I did was on the wrong server. Didn't find that out until yesterday. Needless to say, I have spent a good amount of time deleting stuff on the proper server. Should be "good to go" now.

Hopefully I will not have any problems while I am on vacation.

Wish us luck.

Will be checking in from time to time. I will keep the blog up to date as much as I can.

"And away we go................."

fred