[tor-relays] 7 relays gone because of spammers

[Speak Freely]

Hello fellow relay runners,

This morning OVH decided to kill 7 of my relays due to spamming, and
block all access to all services. I ran the Reduced Exit policy for all
of my relays.

Due to heightened concerns about this affecting other unrelated services
I have with OVH, I had to shut down the other 3 relays. They may
eventually re-appear as middle-relays.

This has cost me hundreds of dollars, as I foolishly decided to prepay
on an annual basis. None of the servers were older than 2 months. Some
were only a few weeks old.

The Abuse department's rationale is as follows:
"Your account was suspended because 100% of your IPs are blacklisted on
multiples lists for Spam and other malicious activities.
This case is closed and this decision is final."

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When I first contacted OVH regarding running Tor relays, this was the
response that I received from them, which does not mesh with what just
happened.

"Good morning Matt,

I'm very glad to here from you. It is very flattering to hear that you
are very satisfied by our service at OVH!

We do take our network speed and hardware performance very seriously
here. We are proud of our infrastructure that we have built over the years.

I do understand your concerns about setting up a Tor relay on one of our
VPS. In a simple form, yes you can.

We do let our customers use our VPS as Tor relays. We have no problem in
letting you this.

However, your are allowed to use Tor but it will be at your own risk.

Rest assure that, in case of an abuse, we will not terminate your
account without notice. In fact we may not even terminate your VPS. You
will receive a warning from our Abuse department giving you a choice to
resolve the abuse case.

Like you said, we are in a world where free speech is constantly under
attack and we are committed to help as much as possible to protect this
fundamental right that we all have. We will absolutely not in any case
share our customers information or data to authorities without a warrant.

For any other questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at any
time. We are available 24/7.

Good luck with that privacy project of yours and keep on supporting the
cause of free speech!

Thank you for contacting OVH and have a wonderful day!

Colin K.
Customer Advocate"

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Not that it matters anymore, but each relay was dedicated to one of the
victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack.
https://atlas.torproject.org/#search/4charlie

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Eventually I will get back at this... But for now, my money is gone, and
all my hard work is lost.

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So... I know I'm new. And it's possible this has happened (many times)
before, but... You've been warned.


Speak Freely