Greetings Tor Users,

I wanted to pass along the death of two of my relays, one was a fallback directory and one exit, both on VPS hardware operated by Albania Hosting sh. a.  I successfully operated the guard/middle node for three years without an abuse report. [0]  Based on that success, I asked and was granted permission to operate an exit relay.  [1]  That relay went six months before the first abuse report.  I responded to the first report promptly reviewing logs, checking for intrusion, etc.  The second abuse report got me suspended.  Both abuse reports were of the automated type.  I did not see the second report until after suspension and by requesting it be forwarded.  In the second instance there was reported one ftpd attack attempt over a period of 3600 seconds.  Apparently, no further attempts were made.

I was the first Tor relay in Albania and the first Tor exit relay as well so I'm very sad that this will end.  I think the issue with Albania Hosting was not so much the automated abuse reports but the inconvenience dealing with me.  To quote a recent Hosting email: "Actually we will not fight with such abuses, it is really not worth any penny."

So, RIP...

[0] TorNodeAlbania  D3E5EDDBE5159388704D6785BE51930AAFACEC6F

[1] TorExitAlbania  516D1B9E22484202322828D8CAC30325030017E2