Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#21

Post by veemjeem » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:45 PM UTC

sdogruyol wrote: post #12

JeremyBanks wrote: post #10

OP, can you please confirm whether or not you made this post quoting a reply from Digital Ocean in the previous thread, as [1] claims you did? Now i've received an answer from DO. I seriously dont know how i did a DDos. Here it's. Greetings, Based upon the tcpdump results, I have again confirmed that your droplet was indeed performing a Denial of Service attack. With this information, we are unable to restore service…

The thing is that they wanted to stay private when i posted this so i immediately removed and now waiting for them. By the way i received that response after 2 hours of the topic opening. They weren't answering me at all before HN post

So did your server get owned? Or was the DDOS attack a result of a bug in your code?

Also, why do you delete your posts on HN? Do you only keep posts that make your viewpoint look favorable?

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#22

Post by jrochkind1 » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:46 PM UTC

> The things which i still don’t understand.... Is my privacy is more important than my user experience or happiness of the service ? Even if i want them to tell what really happened ?

Well, yes. It is completely appropriate that they aren't going to discuss your logs and other private details in public without your permission. You don't understand that, for real?

They have no obligation to discuss your case in public at all, although it might be wise for them to do so and explain themselves, if you are generating lots of bad feelings for them.

(They do, I'd agree, have an obligation to discuss your case with you and tell you why they closed your account. It's not really clear to me if they did so; it kind of seems like they did so, something to do with DDoS.)

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#23

Post by slig » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:46 PM UTC

On the other hand, here's my experience with Linode.

Another host company claimed that one of my machines was doing port scan on their network. Linode opened a ticket and preemptively blocked all outgoing connections to the SSH port from my machine.

I had enough time to see what's going on and chatted with a very responsive support. The aftermath is that I moved all my data to a new linode, waited to for the DNS propagation and killed the old linode. No service disruption and no all-nighters.

I seriously can't recommend they enough. And yes, I'm aware of the security problems they had months ago, but I bet that they don't want any more damage to their brand and they're working very hard to no let that happen again.

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#24

Post by arthulia » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:47 PM UTC

jd007 wrote: post #20

antr wrote: post #17

Some months ago a tried to open an account with DO, but my account was blocked by DO before creating a droplet because my dad, who has the same name as I do, had already used the service. DO wanted me to verify my identity, address, etc. I can't stand such friction, so I stayed with AWS, who have never had an issue with having a customer with very similar or equal name to another. Clearly, there is something wrong in…

I ran into the same problem just last week when I tried to make an account to try it out. I added a credit card to my account without a promotion code, but later on found out about the new promotion they are doing (free $10). I realized that you cannot enter a promo code if you didn't do it the first time you add payment to an account, even if the account is otherwise still new (I didn't do anything with it after add…

They have really quick customer service; they probably would have added the promotion to your account if you had contacted them.

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#25

Post by objclxt » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:47 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #8

robomartin wrote: post #3

> Is it fair to tyrannically close someone’s account up and accuse him or further treat him as a liar ? Isn't this what Google does on a daily basis to users of their various services? There seem to be no consequences for them and less than zero interest in improving any of it. There are companies that can cause your business untold financial damage through these kinds of actions. For some reason they continue to eva…

The difference is: you are the product for google and not the customer. Trust me, google doesn't treat advertisers the same way it treats free gmail users.

Google often shuts down advertiser accounts with little or no notice. You only have to search for "adsense" or "adwords" along with "banned". Some of those are with good reason - others are not.

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#26

Post by meritt » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

His server was probably broken into, someone used it for DDOS'ing, DO shut it down and customer has no clue what's going on.

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#27

Post by sp332 » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

mechinn wrote: post #14

Wait... did I miss something or did you send snailmail and expect a response within 10 hours? Also I am nowhere close to being a lawyer but I'm pretty sure if they disclosed your private information on here without your written permission you could sue them probably for more than either of these 2 posts are worth against them.

I think he scanned the letter and emailed it.

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#28

Post by jjoe » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:50 PM UTC

Sorry but I must be blunt... What do people expect for Something has to give. Yes we've all built and sold products and believe in providing an impeccable service worth far greater than the sum of its parts. Because we're in it to please everyone and build a reputation. But hosting is different. There are real costs for not taking action (upstream null routing, blacklisting, chargeback fees, fraud, abuse, etc).

I'm definitely playing devil's advocate and yes I go above and beyond for my clients. Never have I kicked a client to the curb for abuse they haven't originated. But DO is unmanaged and acquires clients by the shovel. Something has to give.

For the record, I did publicly state here in HN that DO's business plan doesn't add up and this is one of the side effects.

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#29

Post by veemjeem » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:50 PM UTC

jensenbox wrote: post #6

I left them long ago after super crap support. No thanks and good luck.

Most online services that are under $5 a month rarely come with support. I feel bad for startups that charge so little per month because usually the less you charge, the more demanding the customer is. Virtualized servers tend to require more support than say, online accounting or email products.

People who go to Digital Ocean are going for cheap VPS solutions. If they had money to blow, they'd probably be with amazon or rackspace.

Re: Stop Using Digital Ocean Now: The Aftermath

#30

Post by opendais » Wed, Sep 25, 2013, 9:52 PM UTC

jd007 wrote: post #20

antr wrote: post #17

Some months ago a tried to open an account with DO, but my account was blocked by DO before creating a droplet because my dad, who has the same name as I do, had already used the service. DO wanted me to verify my identity, address, etc. I can't stand such friction, so I stayed with AWS, who have never had an issue with having a customer with very similar or equal name to another. Clearly, there is something wrong in…

I ran into the same problem just last week when I tried to make an account to try it out. I added a credit card to my account without a promotion code, but later on found out about the new promotion they are doing (free $10). I realized that you cannot enter a promo code if you didn't do it the first time you add payment to an account, even if the account is otherwise still new (I didn't do anything with it after add…

Ya, I contacted them to get them to apply the promo since I didn't have alot of faith in their automation/tooling.

Honestly, for the price, some level of issue/limitation. If you are charging 50% [or more, depending on whom you compare to] of the price when compared to a major competitor, you have to cut somewhere. It seems DO has uneven support quality [like any low end provider] and smaller features set [combination of time and $$].

Then again, people think I'm too generous with Linode and the issues they've had [they cost twice as much for similar specs to DO] so maybe it isn't just the price point.