Iowatelecom.net

NO COMPANY SHOULD EVER ASK FOR YOUR PASSWORD VIA EMAIL.

These types of emails are known as "Phishing Scams", and are designed to get you to give up your password so that the scammer can use your account.

PLEASE NEVER PROVIDE YOUR PASSWORD VIA EMAIL!!!!!

Iowa Telecom will never ask you for your password via e-mail. If you receive an e-mail asking you for this information, please forward it to abuse@iowatelecom.net for investigation.

All e-mail not filtered as spam by Iowa Telecom's Premium SPAM Control that you wish to report as spam should be sent to spamtrap@iowatelecom.net

Do not reply or bounce back the spam to the sending e-mail address. More than likely it is a fake address and you will just be adding to the already high volume of junk mail.

Do not forward the e-mail to technical support.

Also, using the so called "opt-out" or "remove me" from most junk e-mail is really just a way for the spammer to know that yours is a valid e-mail address. This will most often cause your e-mail address to be harvested and sold to other spammers.

The best thing to do is to forward the junk e-mail to spamtrap@iowatelecom.net. so that our spam filters can learn about it, then you should just delete it.

Spammers harvest e-mail addresses in many ways. For example:

• By searching. They use specialized search engines (Spambots) to collect e-mail addresses from web pages, newsgroups, bulletin boards, discussion forums, white & yellow pages, mailing lists, ... etc. automatically.
• By guessing. They can generate a random sequence of characters, hoping to match a few valid addresses.
• By purchasing. They can buy or exchange e-mail addresses from other spammers.
• By having access to some persons' computers through Trojan viruses.
• By social engineering. Spammers use a hoax to convince people into giving their e-mail addresses.
• People may be required to submit their e-mail addresses on the Internet (e.g. before downloading some software), and these e-mail addresses may be released to unknown persons.
• People may leave their e-mail addresses in some dubious questionnaire that are found on the Internet, on the street or on telephone.

Try searching for your e-mail address in a search engine, such as Yahoo.com or Google.com. If you get some results, then there is a good chance that spammers can get your e-mail address the same way.

Premium SPAM Control can be accessed two ways. 1) By clicking the link sent to you in the quarantine reminders sent daily via e-mail, or 2) By logging into webmail (webmail.iowatelecom.net) and clicking on the Spam Control button.

If you are having trouble logging into Premium SPAM Control, please make sure that your e-mail address and password are correct. Premium SPAM Control uses the same e-mail address and password as all other Iowa Telecom services.

Outlook error 0x800CCC0F

Outlook and Outlook Express sometimes present the error 0x800CCC0F.

Anti-virus and firewall software

Anti-virus and firewall software is a common cause of this problem. Follow your anti-virus/firewall provider's instructions to allow internet access, including email.

Warning: We do not recommend that you disable virus and firewall software.

his error means that the connection between your computer and the server has been interrupted. It is usually caused by a faulty network connection or an overly protective firewall.

Check your internet connection. You may be able to resolve the problem by checking your:

1. LAN connection (if applicable) - ensure your router/switch is correctly sending traffic to your PC.

2. Hardware firewall - ensure your firewall is configured to allow traffic through ports 110, 25 and any other ports your email software uses.

3. Wireless connection (if applicable).

4. Internet connection - check your ISP's status page.

5. Modem/router - rebooting or reconnecting may solve the problem.

Other possible solutions

1. Remove your email account from your software, then set it up again. Remember: back up your email and contacts first.

2. Reduce the frequency that your email software checks your mailbox.

3. Check that your MTU size is correct.

4. Reboot your machine.

Help from MicrosoftMicrosoft's knowledge base has further information on Outlook (Express) errors and possible solutions:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=813514

Occasionally, you'll get a piece of e-mail, generally spam, not addressed to you. You are not accidentally receiving someone else's e-mail. What you're seeing is known as BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) spam. What this means is that someone will send spam to an e-mail address similar to yours (ie, if your address is abc@iowatelecom.net, you may see spam sent to abb@iowatelecom.net), and BCC your address on it, so you won't see that it was also sent to you.

This can happen quite often, and unfortunately cannot be stopped on its own. Your best bet is subscribe to Premium SPAM Control from Iowa Telecom, or use a third party software package that allows you to set your own security filters based on you levels of comfort.

This is a spammer technique known as "spoofing the from address". They hide the name of the actual sender using someone elses address, and they have generally chosen to use the same address they are sending to.

Iowa Telecom blocks millions of unsolicited e-mails per day. We use a variety of techniques including:

Greylisting (http://www.greylisting.org/)
Real Time Black Lists (http://www.spamhaus.org)
E-mail spam filtering and virus scanning

Unfortunately, this type of e-mail is becoming increasingly hard to detect, and some amount may not be filtered via our automated processes.

Log into Iowa Telecom's webmail at http://webmail.iowatelecom.net

1. Click on the "Options" button.
2. Click on "Folder Preferences"
3. Change the "Trash Folder" menu to "[Do not use trash]"
4. Click on "Submit"
5. Click on "Inbox"

You will be able to delete messages at this point. However, please realize that when you click "Delete" those messages are gone and unrecoverable.

It is a common feature of the many e-mail viruses currently populating the Internet to forge their identities and send themselves out to every e-mail address (and everything that even looks like an e-mail address) that it can find -- in order to insure maximum infection. Viruses get these e-mail addresses from a variety of sources, including an infected person's address book and their e-mail/browser cache.

If an infected computer has any trace of your e-mail address on it, there is now a chance that the virus will mail itself to a third party using your address as the Sender. If that third-party e-mail address doesn't actually exist, or if there are virus protections in place, the message will be rejected and will bounce back -- to you -- even though you are not infected with a virus.

It's still a good idea to keep your virus software and definitions up to date, so that you don't get infected (Iowa Telecom automatically scans incoming messages for viruses, but it's a good idea to use your own protection as well); just because you are receiving bounces doesn't mean you actually sent the original message. In fact, it's almost a sure sign that you didn't.

Some junk e-mail/spam is also sent in this manner to avoid detection -- with randomized sender addresses. You might even get an angry reply from someone who thinks you sent them the junk e-mail, even though you didn't.

Problems sending and receiving e-mail are rarely related.

If the problem affects one particular service, then it's possible that there is a communications block between that service and Iowa Telecom. Try contacting that service's Postmaster to see if they are aware of problems both sending e-mail to and receiving e-mail from.

Iowa Telecom will make every effort to deliver a message to your recipient, but does not have any control over a message once it leaves the Iowa Telecom service. If your recipient is not with Iowa Telecom, have them check with their provider in an effort to figure out what happened to your message.

If you are receiving some type of error message in response to your e-mail, look at it carefully for an explanation for what happened. Your recipient might have changed their address or you might be spelling it wrong.

Iowa Telecom suggests that you set your email client to check email every 5 minutes.

The following is a list of settings for sending and receiving e-mail using Iowa Telecom Internet Services:

Incoming mail server (POP3): pop3.iowatelecom.net
Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.iowatelecom.net
Account: Your account name is your username (i.e. if your e-mail address is jim@iowatelecom.net then your account is jim)

There are three commmon reasons why you might not be getting an e-mail that someone is sending to you.

1. First, check your Premium SPAM Control to make sure you are not blocking the person (or blocking everyone). If you are, the person trying to send you e-mail should be receiving an error message saying that you are not accepting e-mail from them.
2. Second, check your Spam Folder to see if messages from your correspondent are being tagged by Iowa Telecom as being junk e-mail. If they are, try adding your correspondent to your whitelist so that future messages will be delivered straight to you.
3. Third, it's possible that Iowa Telecom is blocking your correspondent's provider from sending e-mail because there have been complaints of abuse. If this is the problem, they would be unable to get e-mail through to any Iowa Telecom members -- not just you.

Iowa Telecom <-> Internet

E-mail usually travels from one service to another in a matter of mere minutes over the Internet, but there are a number of reasons why it could take longer. Various servers along the path the e-mail takes could be overloaded or malfunctioning, which will slow things down.

There isn't much that can be done to prevent this, just as one cannot reduce the impact of harsh weather on traffic. If you have chronic problems with one particular Internet provider, you may want to contact them to see if there is a more efficient way e-mail could be routed between them and Iowa Telecom.

Iowa Telecom <-> Iowa Telecom

E-mail from one Iowa Telecom customer to another is generally instantaneous. If you experience delays, it could be caused by temporary problems with the Iowa Telecom e-mail system. Try again in a few hours.

Iowa Telecom's outbound SMTP servers are: