E-mail outsourcer doesn't respond to e-mail

The Electric Mail Company (www.electricmail.com) recently sent out a press release about a new alliance they have with OfficeDomain (www.officedomain.com). Actually, it's not clear whether it's an alliance, a merger, or they're just buying products from each other. The note I got had lots of things in CAPITAL LETTERS, so I didn't read it too carefully.

Electric Mail is one of the e-mail outsourcers pushing their services to organizations; they have a strong presence in Canada, where they're headquartered. However, I did visit www.electricmail.com/ and read their e-mail library and can recommend that as a worthwhile visit. They offer some succinct articles on e-mail etiquette, along with the usual propaganda about how e-mail outsourcing is the wave of the future. Point to www.electricmail.com/emailuni/index.html to read their library.

I'm not sure I can recommend them as an outsourcer, though. I sent mail to their autoresponder requesting back issues of their newsletter and didn't get a timely answer. If they can't run their own outsourcer with acceptable response time, can they run your e-mail systems?

Along with this irony, I'd like to present a most excellent excerpt from the equally excellent SANS Security Digest:

July 15, 1999: Cow Cult Boo Boo. After days of denial, the Cult of the Dead Cow -- which released the attack tool BackOrifice 2000 -- admitted that the CDs it handed out at the hacker conference DefCon were infected with a computer virus called CIH, or Chernobyl. A cult member who calls himself Omega said, "It was not our plan to do this, and frankly, it makes us look like idiots."

www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,39272,00.html

If you're into security and don't get the SANS newsletter, I suggest you give it a try.

Email to autosans@sans.org with a subject line of "Subscribe NewsBites."

Joel Snyder is a senior partner with Opus One, a consulting firm in Tucson, Arizona. He spends most of his time on the road helping people build larger, faster, better, and more reliable networks. His professional travels have taken him from San Francisco to St. Petersburg, where he always carries his trusty Macintosh and modem, neither of which have cute names. He is also a member of the Network World Test Alliance and writes extensively on networking topics. Reach him at joel.snyder@opus1.com.

Beware the ASP's sting
Network World, 06/28/99

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