Oh yes, my money is gone already. They have no interest in talking to me anymore, as the decision was final. The Abuse department won't talk to the Support department, and the abuse department won't talk to me.
I'd be more inclined to think these spam assassin fellas/"evil doer finders" just parsed the exit-node files and decide WHOOPIDY-DO I did my job! Over-zealous punks trying to get their lists larger than their competitor.
OVH appears to have based these accusations on what other websites have said about my IP addresses, and not a single actual complaint against the relays I run.
But I could be wrong.
Either way... It's unfortunate.
OVH has never contacted me for anything, except to notify me of connections to the manager.
For clarification from their email to me where they showed positive feelings toward Tor, here is my original email to them about me running those relays.
The first paragraph butters them up, and the second last paragraph attempts to show that I wanted to run clean, safe relays. ------------------------------------------------------------- "Greetings,
I'm a current customer with two VPS servers with you, so far you've been awesome! I've never met anyone who has heard of you, that that is beyond shocking. Your prices are better than almost everyone, your service is superior, and I'm pretty sure your claims regarding hardware performance are the closest I've ever experienced to truth.
Alright now to the fun stuff.
Section 1)
I have read online that you are accommodating to users setting up Tor *middle* relays on VPS accounts, and as such I recently set one up.
However, that wasn't necessarily the brightest decision on my part. Can you confirm that you let customers run Tor *middle* relays? These are the none-exiting relays.
Given the recent activities around the world, I'd like to set several more relays up. If you do let customers install Tor, can they be installed on VPS Classic accounts?
Here is a description of the Tor platform, (https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-dmca-response.html.en) ... Tor is network software that helps users to enhance their privacy, security, and safety online. It does not host any content. Rather, it is part of a network of nodes on the Internet that simply pass packets among themselves before sending them to their destinations, just as any Internet intermediary does. The difference is that Tor tunnels the connections such that no hop can learn both the source and destination of the packets, giving users protection from nefarious snooping on network traffic. The result is that, unlike most other Internet traffic, the final IP address that the recipient receives is not the IP address of the sender. Tor protects users against hazards such as harassment, spam, and identity theft. Initial development of Tor, including deployment of a public-use Tor network, was a project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, with funding from ONR and DARPA. (For more on Tor, see https://www.torproject.org/.) I hope, as an organization committed to protecting the privacy of its customers, you'll agree that this is a valuable technology. ...
Section 2)
I've read online nothing but ambiguity regarding exit relays. My current understanding is that if we run them, we risk the account being terminated. Would you terminate the single VPS server, or my entire account with all of my VPSs?
If this somewhat murky situation is the case, would you be willing to assist me with minor activities in locking down the server? If I run exit relays, I want to use rather extreme exit policies, locking out most ports, and only allowing certain traffic through. I don't want to create a conduit for illicit downloading of videos, software, games, etc. And child pornography. Surely there has to be something your SysAdmins can do to help stop that. Blacklists, I suspect. So locking out that type of traffic is important both for my sensibilities, your network, and our legal safety.
I'm more than willing, and interesting in discussing this further with you. In a world where free speech is under attack, we need to protect those that speak up.
Let me know.
Kind regards,
Matt" -------------------------------------------------------------
I tried... I tried to be as helpful as possible in explaining what Tor is and does, and I tried to start a positive dialog and relationship with them. The numerous telephone conversations I've had with them were always quite positive and friendly. I was always assured they would contact me first, let me deal with the complaint, etc...
But I've come to realize this wasn't because of any complaint. Some "john" at OVH saw my IP addresses on a set of lists, most likely siphoned from the publicly available exit-relay lists, and decided I must be doing something bad.
Because they're no longer talking, most of this is all a guessing game.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat? How can you get your t-shirt if you don't run your relay? Sorry, but that made me smile. :)
Speak Freely