Webtropia threatening with penalty of 5.100€
Hi, I am (or was) running a Tor Exit Node with about 200-250bmit/s on a VPS at Webtropia for several months with the common reduced exit policy (https://globe.torproject.org/#/relay/D218DF2C542CD1FB57FCF36DB6672A0DE6A8CBF...). They never had a problem with the fact of running an exit, from time to time I got an abuse mail to which I responded with the "usual thing" (that I'm running an exit and the connections are not initiated by me. If some party wishes not to be contacted I would restrict acces [exit policy]). On Monday morning my server got shut down. I contacted them by asking, why the server was shut down, they responded that some spam was sent (abuse mailing from courbis.fr, axmo12.de claimed a brute force on SSH and the usual stuff from Webiron) and thus my server was blocked by them. They now claim that they are entitled to contractual penalty of 5.100,- € to be charged because I violate their Terms of Use. Their Terms do not forbid Tor itself, but spamming and other illegal things such as port scanning and DoS-attacks (https://www.webtropia.com/de/unternehmen/agb.html). They also told me that they cannot monitor if the traffic is really Tor traffic and that I should configure my server to prevent such abuse. How should I proceed there? Cheers!
Hi, I got some more information from my provider: http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/62.141.45.246 The spam is indeed spamming with accounts in some message boards. (which is also forbidden in the ToU of my provider) spriver:
Hi,
I am (or was) running a Tor Exit Node with about 200-250bmit/s on a VPS at Webtropia for several months with the common reduced exit policy (https://globe.torproject.org/#/relay/D218DF2C542CD1FB57FCF36DB6672A0DE6A8CBF...). They never had a problem with the fact of running an exit, from time to time I got an abuse mail to which I responded with the "usual thing" (that I'm running an exit and the connections are not initiated by me. If some party wishes not to be contacted I would restrict acces [exit policy]). On Monday morning my server got shut down. I contacted them by asking, why the server was shut down, they responded that some spam was sent (abuse mailing from courbis.fr, axmo12.de claimed a brute force on SSH and the usual stuff from Webiron) and thus my server was blocked by them. They now claim that they are entitled to contractual penalty of 5.100,- € to be charged because I violate their Terms of Use. Their Terms do not forbid Tor itself, but spamming and other illegal things such as port scanning and DoS-attacks (https://www.webtropia.com/de/unternehmen/agb.html). They also told me that they cannot monitor if the traffic is really Tor traffic and that I should configure my server to prevent such abuse.
How should I proceed there?
Cheers!
Hi spriver, This happened before. Webtropia hates Tor. They even shut us down even though we only planned to host a non-exit relay there. Planned to. We paid the setup and the first month, but they just cancelled our contract. We tried explaining, then I think Juris even talked to the CEO, and finally we asked for our money back. Not happening. On 12/02/2015 03:40 PM, spriver wrote:
They never had a problem with the fact of running an exit, from time to time I got an abuse mail to which I responded with the "usual thing" (that I'm running an exit and the connections are not initiated by me.
Did you explicitly ask if they're willing to host an exit?
They also told me that they cannot monitor if the traffic is really Tor traffic and that I should configure my server to prevent such abuse.
How should I proceed there?
Find a proper hoster. And always ask _beforehand_ if they're willing to host an exit. Do not pay any penalty. Tell them they can check whether the IP in question was a Tor exit at http://exonerator.torproject.org/ , and that you're not liable and that the traffic did not originate from the server. Cancel the server ASAP. If they continue to threaten you over extra payment, contact me. -- Moritz Bartl https://www.torservers.net/
Hey spriver, isn't webtropia is a subcompany of myloc? at least their tos state something like that. While editing the good/bad isp wiki page I just saw that kafkane wrote the following about myloc: "all traffic that is "not contrary to applicable German law" is allowed. already hosts a few exits, lots of relays" (27/10/2015) and references a twitter comment (in german): https://twitter.com/myLocmanagedIT/status/658506641206210560 maybe this statement can be usefull... On 02.12.2015 16:52, Moritz Bartl wrote:
Hi spriver,
This happened before. Webtropia hates Tor. They even shut us down even though we only planned to host a non-exit relay there. Planned to. We paid the setup and the first month, but they just cancelled our contract. We tried explaining, then I think Juris even talked to the CEO, and finally we asked for our money back. Not happening.
On 12/02/2015 03:40 PM, spriver wrote:
They never had a problem with the fact of running an exit, from time to time I got an abuse mail to which I responded with the "usual thing" (that I'm running an exit and the connections are not initiated by me.
Did you explicitly ask if they're willing to host an exit?
They also told me that they cannot monitor if the traffic is really Tor traffic and that I should configure my server to prevent such abuse.
How should I proceed there?
Find a proper hoster. And always ask _beforehand_ if they're willing to host an exit.
Do not pay any penalty. Tell them they can check whether the IP in question was a Tor exit at http://exonerator.torproject.org/ , and that you're not liable and that the traffic did not originate from the server. Cancel the server ASAP. If they continue to threaten you over extra payment, contact me.
participants (3)
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fatal -
Moritz Bartl -
spriver