Has anyone else had issues with Linode before? While this specific situation sucks, I feel like I’ve seen much more headache with AWS/GCP/Azure regarding people getting completely locked out of stuff.
I had a Garry's Mod server on Linode for a while. A player was upset they were banned and reported my instance for DDoSing them. Linode rate limited my node.
I replied to the ticket saying, "How am I DDoSing someone when the bandwidth/packet-rate graphs you host show I am not?" to which they acknowledged it was a false report, unrestricted my node and closed the ticket. Not a big deal but still odd that they did not first check their own bandwidth graphs. That to me appeared to be a front-line customer support training issue.
I should add that the player was really upset that their exploit code could not crash my server. It happened a couple times so I found the packet that took it down and used a simple iptables string filter to drop it. That is when they went with the false reporting tactic.
I received a third-party malware report from Linode once[0]. It’s possible that something has changed in the meantime since this was probably 4–5 years ago, but my own experience in a similar scenario was that Linode acted reasonably and in good faith. This tweet makes it sound like their policy and procedure hasn’t changed.
In my case, Linode opened an “AUP violation” ticket with a copy of the report, the steps they required to close the ticket (essentially: fix it and explain corrective measures), and a time when they would disable the server otherwise (which was something like 24 hours). It sounds like itch.io decided to ignore the AUP violation ticket and their server was disabled after 24 hours, just like the ticket said it would. (Waiting on a support ticket instead of calling also seems like a weird bad choice when your whole site is offline.)
I guess, having some first-hand experience with Linode’s malware handling process, that itch.io were at fault here, but I guess there may be more to the story they haven’t shared or weren’t clear on.
[0] Actually twice; some internet vigilante hooked up a virus scanner to a web crawler and was sending false positive reports directly to the abuse address for the netblock. After the second one I kindly suggested Linode stop accepting these reports, and never heard anything again.
It's always a risk when you're leasing computer resources from a 3rd party.
At least if you own the hardware, you won't lose your data (except in extreme cases where the government takes it, but if this is the case you're screwed and data / service loss is the least of your worries).
> At least if you own the hardware, you won't lose your data (except in extreme cases where the government takes it
For colocation you probably won't loose the data but the company you chose can still disconnect you. And it's not uncommon in certain countries that police will take the whole rack belonging to different customers when they do police raids against pirating, mainly because they're incompetent but also trying to find other violators.
I have had two reports from/via Netcraft(for the exact same file) that resulted in Linode threatening to take down my small VPS within 24 hours. But while I don't think such a short time for response is reasonable without any actual non-bs evidence in both times they backed down after I explained to them that there was nothing wrong. Was long before the Akamai acquisition though so who knows if their procedure changed.
LinuxBender|3 years ago
I replied to the ticket saying, "How am I DDoSing someone when the bandwidth/packet-rate graphs you host show I am not?" to which they acknowledged it was a false report, unrestricted my node and closed the ticket. Not a big deal but still odd that they did not first check their own bandwidth graphs. That to me appeared to be a front-line customer support training issue.
I should add that the player was really upset that their exploit code could not crash my server. It happened a couple times so I found the packet that took it down and used a simple iptables string filter to drop it. That is when they went with the false reporting tactic.
csnover|3 years ago
In my case, Linode opened an “AUP violation” ticket with a copy of the report, the steps they required to close the ticket (essentially: fix it and explain corrective measures), and a time when they would disable the server otherwise (which was something like 24 hours). It sounds like itch.io decided to ignore the AUP violation ticket and their server was disabled after 24 hours, just like the ticket said it would. (Waiting on a support ticket instead of calling also seems like a weird bad choice when your whole site is offline.)
I guess, having some first-hand experience with Linode’s malware handling process, that itch.io were at fault here, but I guess there may be more to the story they haven’t shared or weren’t clear on.
[0] Actually twice; some internet vigilante hooked up a virus scanner to a web crawler and was sending false positive reports directly to the abuse address for the netblock. After the second one I kindly suggested Linode stop accepting these reports, and never heard anything again.
phendrenad2|3 years ago
Did you see the part where they removed the content within 24 hours?
metadat|3 years ago
At least if you own the hardware, you won't lose your data (except in extreme cases where the government takes it, but if this is the case you're screwed and data / service loss is the least of your worries).
type0|3 years ago
For colocation you probably won't loose the data but the company you chose can still disconnect you. And it's not uncommon in certain countries that police will take the whole rack belonging to different customers when they do police raids against pirating, mainly because they're incompetent but also trying to find other violators.
quickthrower2|3 years ago
account42|3 years ago