[referee07]

I found the above, a248.e.akamai.net, in my Zone Alarm as a site that had gained access. What is it? It looks like some kind of snoopware to me. Thanks.

[kiwiguy]

Its a web server provider that many legit suppliers use (such as Antivirus updates from McAfee and others) use to host the updates on.

[crone63]

I was shopping at SMART BARGAINS>COM USING MY FIREFOX BROWSER> THE FIREFOX BROWSER WON"T OPEN THE SITE SO I HAVE TO SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM AND C LICK ON "CLICK ON THIS LINK" TO OPEN IT AFTER I MADE MY PURCHASE A BOX APPEARED WHICH SAID AND I QUOTE " YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO ESTABLISH A CONNECTION WITH "FC.TRK.SMARTBARGAINS.COM" HOWEVER THIS SECURITY CERTIFICATE PRESENTED BELONGS TO A248.E.AKAMAI.NET" (THIS SHOULD ALL BE IN LOWER CASE BUT MY CAP LOCK KEY IS STUCK DON"T ASK) IT IS POSSIBLE THOUGH UNLIKELY THAT SOMEONE MAY BE TRYING TO INTERCEPT YOUR COMMUNICATION WITH THIS WEB SITE> IF YOU SUSPECT HE CERTIFICATE SHOWN DOES NOT BELONG TO"FC.TRK.SMARTBARGAINS.COM" PLEASE CANCEL THE CONNECTION AND NOTIFY THE SITE ADMINISTRATOR> I DID RECEIVE MY ORDER BUT MY JUNK MAIL INCREASED AND SINCE I USE COMCAST AS MY MAIL ADDRESS IT ONLY TELLS ME IF IT THINKS SOETHING IS JUNK AND THEN I DELETE IT SO I HAVE GOTTEN MORE THAN USUAL> THE SAME THING HAPPENED TODAT WHEN I AGAIN TRIED TO BUY FROM THE SAME WEBSITE> YOU WOULD THINK I WOPULD LEARN> THIS TIME I LOOKED AT THE SECURITY CERTIFICATE AND IT IDENTIFIED THE ORGANIZATION AS AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES INC. AND SAID THE CERTIFICATE WAS ISSUED BY GTE CYBERTRUST ROOT OF GTE CORPORATION> YOUR EARLIER RESPONSE TO A QUESTION ABOUT THIS SITE IMPLIED THAT THESE WERE SOME KIND OF GOOD GUYS WHO WERE TERYING TO PROTECT ME BUT I"M NOT SO SURE WHO CAN HELP ME> INCIDENTLY< IM NOT SURE ANYONE CAN HELP ME BECAUSE THE REASON MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS STUK DOWN IS THAT TODAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS LETTER I FOR THE THIRD TIME SPILLED PEPSI INTO MU KEYBOARD> PRAY FOR ME AND MY SANITY>

[TOGG]

Akamai seems to be a legitimate business (some MS downloads are carried on their servers); http://www.akamai.com/index_flash.html I don't know about the security certificate, but you could Google them and see what comes up.

The increase in email may be the result of your dealings with the gift company (you did read all the small print in their privacy policy didn't you?).

As for the keyboard, you may need to get another one. I read once that somebody actually washed one, then used a hair dryer and waited for the cicuitry to dry out, but I wouldn't try it.

[sekirt]

Keyboards can be washed. Like dishes - immersed in sudsy water. Assuming the keyboard is not attached to a laptop. I knew a company that cared for office computers that cleaned them that way.

I don't know about drying with a hair dryer though. But they should be thoroughly dry before using again.

sekirt

[crone63]

THANKS FOR THE ANSWER, I can at least type in lower case now so that's a good thing, isn't it? I just used the shift key successfully and after the caps lock froze on and I restarted the computer and then the shift key didn't work. Now all seems to be working well. More about the akamai site I yahooed them which is how I found you guys. I also complained to the Smart Bargains folks over the phone and got nothing but wimpy answers. But I know, or rather found out that fireclick, which is the security certificate they(Smartbargains) use is one of those that does cause the spread of junk mail. This however, this akamai is not their agency, it is an intercept. I have cancelled all my e-mail with smartbargains and all my records with the group as well. The point is, I have shopped with them for quite some time using firefox and have never had any problem and not had an increase in junk mail before when ordering from them. Just these last two times when the intercepts were reported. All I know is that I am going to follow my browser's advice and if it refuses to open a site, I won't go there. Thanks for your help. I will google the akamai site and see what comes up. Incidently, the other responses that came up when I yahooed the address had site titles that looked like arabic. I'm going back and clicking on them before I quit my quest. Thanks a lot guys. I have a daughter who is a whiz on the Mac and who does all my trouble shooting but she is on vacation for a week and my son who is a tech person too and works on pc's couldn't help me at all. I'm running a mac 4 with OSX. Maybe I should change my mail address, too.

[TOGG]

The link I posted was from Google but perhaps it didn't work for you? Akamai appears to be a legit concern, based in Hawaii, so perhaps the problem is with the sellers or their certifiers.

May be a good reason not to do any more business with them.

[crone63]

What you guys seem to be missing is that akamai may not be the legitimate security guys for smartbargains. fireclick is the security group that should have received my posting on the site. akamai INTERCEPTED the legitimate security company when I posted my order. Where are all the good conspiracy theorists when you want them? Did I mention that some of the sites I called up when I yahooed a248.e.akamai.net were in arabic. Obviously, none of you guys are political science majors.

[TOGG]

I'm not sure how sinister it is that various arabic discussion forums appear to be hosted on akamai servers. If you Google the same entry, you will just find lots of entries relating to banks and other online businesses.

As for fireclick, it appears to be a business handling service, rather than anything to do with site certificates etc.;http://www.fireclick.com/about_firec...fireclick.html It is at least possible that they use akamai servers for some of their business.

However, you are right that conspiracy theories are more fun!

[skubby]

Akamia is a fast caching solution for websites whiuch have a great number of hits. These websites store there gifs and seldom changing popular apps at this cache hosting company. Numerous companies such as McAfee.com, Wells Fargo, B of A etc. post data and programs to Akamia. McAfee posts there DAT files at this location to support the user community in grabbing the latest DAT when a new virus threat hits. Several years ago McAfee ranked 23rd out of all websites in terms of activity. At present many companies would require 3 to 10 OC4 transmission lines. An OC4 is 28 T3's which is 784 T1's) to handle the volume of traffic. Many companies would not be able to stay in the .com world without Akamia.

[dayfydd]

About Akamai
Akamai is the leading global service for distributing online content and business processes. More than 1,900 organizations have formed trusted relationships
with Akamai, improving revenue and reducing costs by maximizing their online business performance. Leveraging the Akamai EdgePlatform, these organizations
gain business advantage today, while building a foundation for the emerging Web solutions of tomorrow. Akamai is “The Trusted Choice for Online Business.”
For more information, visit www.akamai.com.

[netiskiv]

I repeatedly encountered an invalid akamai certificate issue for SSL connections with the business banking application of the HSBC UK bank.

The flaw is constantly announced by various browsers on computers having already installed the akamai certificate. The errors reported by Netscape, Opera and IE go from "expired certificate" - today the expiration date was March 2007 - we are now May 21th 2007 - to unsigned certificate. On another hand Kaspersky security suite repeatedly reports a failure to establish an encrypted SSL connection on port 443.
Both Netscape and Opera special information sheet report that the page (loaded with an HSBC business banking url beginning with https) is not secure.
This is unacceptable for a banking application page that is supposed to carry confidential login information.

There is no way to report this precise error on the akamai web site.

The error has been reported for the first time to HSBC 5 weeks ago with no result.

It sometimes happens for other web sites (such as Yahoo) but usually it comes back to normal after a short while.

Forgot to mention that when I implement secure solutions for our own clients, I make sure that all object calls are secureand that any data posted through an html page will be encrypted.

[rahsisbumba]

I am in no way a computer guru, but thought I'd pass this on... I am currently scanning my computer because I suspect I may have a virus or spyware last night. I'm typically ultra paranoid that way. ANYWAY, at the same time, when I went to my verizon account, I got this message for the first time, ever: I got the similiar message about the security certificate being changed. I googled both names that it said it was and what it has been changed to. The first one is this akamai name and the second was this getitnow name. Well, Get it Now is most definitely associated with Verizon. So, if this akamai is ligit, then maybe the website being used was originally using them then changed over. I just chalked the strange domain name error message and my paranoia with the virus up to coincidence.

*cheers*

[firmanh]

I also noticed a248.e.akamai.net which causing me since then unable to log in to my yahoo and ebay as well. after fill in userID and password and then hit enter, sign up page reload. this happened repetitively. I can't open my account at yahoo and ebay.
fortunately, this problem does not happen at my office or elsewhere (mean only my local PC at home).
I have scanned with mcafee, spybot, adaware, superspyware, etc. but not solved.
registry cleaner etc by advanced windows care personal and auslogic bootspeed are also failed to locate this annoying (and probably harmful) virus.
please help !

[noahtourney]

I have a few email accounts with mail.com which I have had for several years. A few days ago, I received the same warning notice when I tried to go into one of these accounts. It did not appear on any other mail.com accounts. a248.e.akamai.net is not anywhere on my hard drive. I tried loggin onto the same email account with a different computer and got that same message once again but no other accounts. So it would appear this is triggered by the website itself.
Note - the email account in question has never been used to order anything and is solely for communicating with known individuals.
Akamai.net appears to be registered with Tucows.com according to http://www.drwhois.com/
Presuming that this was not a true threat, I went into my email account. I no longer get this warning. I'm not sure if that is good or bad news.