0zezCV2n

1SSDNODES: Don't use with any important application or data
2This is my experience, others may disagree.
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17
18SSDNodes works well if you want a VPS to mess around with, but is not suitable for any workload that will impact your business if you lose access.
19
20SSDNodes lacks the business maturity to host at a level that provides a reliable and repeatable service. They have no separation of responsibilities - customer advocacy vs administration, clear escalation paths or really any well defined process other then a TOS that can be applied at the whim of the adminstration team. The TOS does not protect the customer in any meaningful way.
21
22My sin was to try and debate a suspension of my server for violotation of the TOS. As background, I work in the digital identity field, which is one of many IT areas that could potentially benefit from blockchain (DLT). As such, I spun up a demo docker image of Indy and a Jupyter notebook to play with. Indy is part of the open source hyperledger project which is focused on blockchain as a business tool - more details here: Google hyperledger as I can't post links. It has nothing to do with cyrptocurrency except that cryptocurrency brought this type of technology to the attention of the technology world. Hashing and the underlying design of blockchain have been around for a long time.
23
24I was surprised when I received an email a few days later that my server had been suspended for a TOS violation - running cryptocurrency. I thought perhaps the server had been hacked, having completely forgoton about the indy docker image I had spun up. I recieved no warning and had no chance to review or discuss the issue before the server was disabled. I use the server to demo various software applications to my clients and would have been in serious trouble if a demo had been scheduled that day.
25
26I had to log a support ticket to find out what was going on - first red flag: poor communication and no way to resolve issues over the phone. It took a number of tickets to actually get the full story. It appears that my server had a high CPU load and an admin logged onto the server and found that Indy was running and flagged it as a cyrptocurrency app. Second red flag: the admins were, possibly, directly accessing my server. I don't know how high the CPU was, as no information was provided to me and the dashboard was disabled with the server. Note, that the apps I was running should not have had high CPU utilization and were idle most of the time. I had no chance to investigate so can not comment further as to why the CPU load was high or even what is deemed a CPU load that is too high.
27
28In the initial support tickets, I was told that I had to acknowledge that I had violated the terms of service and immediately fix the issue to get access back to my server. It was all very heavy-handed and one-sided. I suppose I could have agreed, but the whole process got my back up. In my opionion it was not professional.
29
30In my last communication (ticket), I made one more push on the fact that blockchain is not cryptocurrency and asked the admins to do some research, but also agreed to remove the offending app as I could see I was getting nowhere and needed to get access to the server. I also emailed Matt twice, who I believe is the owner, as I thought he might play the customer advocate role, but no answer. In my first email I relayed my concern around the server being suspended without notice and in the second informed him that I would not renew the service (yearly subscription).
31
32SSDNodes response was to delete my account with no further communication or chance to back up my docker images. I was in compliance with the TOS as explained to me, as I had agreed to remove the offending app, but I guess I pissed them off. Not what I would call a professional response.
33
34Lesson learned on my part not to deal with Micky Mouse hosting providers even if they are cheap. It cost me a couple of hours of work. I leave this post as a warning to others.
35
36Please use the report, little triangle, button under your post and send the mods information to show you are indeed a customer of theirs -- per forum rules. Also, paging @Matt Connor .
37-Steven | u2-web@Cooini, LLC - Business Shared Hosting | Isolate sites with Webspaces | Site Builder | PHP-FPM | MariaDB
38WHMCS Modules: Staff Knowledgebase | Custom Modules and Hooks 
39"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" -Aristotle
40
41No sympathy from me. If you want to run trans-coding, cryptocurrency, AI, hash tables, SSL offloading, encoding, decoding, decryption, archiving operations, protein folding, UFO searching, render farming, data mining, distributed computing client, blockchain, ledgers, NPC bots etc you are knowingly using computing resources that are abuses to others and VERY noisy neighbors. Their policy is clear and many people just trying to skirt around it since their selected one isn't directly named even though excessive CPU usage is there. This is about the 5th such issue I've seen people come post here on WHT about being terminated for various distributed platforms. If you or others want to do this, BUY DEDICATED resources, stop stealing them from the others taking advantage of what you think is a loophole, it won't end well for you. I don't know anything about SSD Nodes, but I can clearly see the people trying to abuse many cloud resources thinking they belong to them only.
42
43No sympathy from me. If you want to run trans-coding, cryptocurrency, AI, hash tables, SSL offloading, encoding, decoding, decryption, archiving operations, protein folding, UFO searching, render farming, data mining, distributed computing client, blockchain, ledgers, NPC bots etc you are knowingly using computing resources that are abuses to others and VERY noisy neighbors. Their policy is clear and many people just trying to skirt around it since their selected one isn't directly named even though excessive CPU usage is there. This is about the 5th such issue I've seen people come post here on WHT about being terminated for various distributed platforms. If you or others want to do this, BUY DEDICATED resources, stop stealing them from the others taking advantage of what you think is a loophole, it won't end well for you. I don't know anything about SSD Nodes, but I can clearly see the people trying to abuse many cloud resources thinking they belong to them only.
44I was not flagged for high CPU and I was not trying to skirt anything. I was flagged and suspended for running cryptocurrency which I was not running. A couple of comments:
45
46The workload I was running was for demo only. It ran maybe a few minutes every couple of weeks. Nothing I was running should have been a "noisy neighbor" and there is nothing intrinsically high CPU about blockchain. High CPU is caused by high transactions rates (pretty much true for any app that is transaction based). My transactions were on the order of 1-10 per week. Something I left running may have blown up in some form, but I will never know as I was not able to log back into the server or see any server metrics.
47I can run the same workload on a laptop with no issue and have only ever seen negligable CPU use.
48Hash tables are used in practically every application on earth. They are one of the basic building blocks of computer science. Your list seems to mix compute intensive applications that are intrisically high CPU - i.e. protien folding, render farming - with those that would only be high CPU with high transactions rates - i.e. ledger, blockchain. That is not a fair list.
49
50Keeping Resource Hogs off our Platform
51Another one of our abusers complaining about being kicked off for breaking the rules. 
52
53Quote Originally Posted by timbl  View Post
54SSDNodes works well if you want a VPS to mess around with, but is not suitable for any workload that will impact your business if you lose access.
55I think what you mean to say is SSD Nodes is not suitable if you are an abuser and don't respond appropriately when your service is suspended for excessive resource usage and breach of TOS.
56
57People who are not abusers may have a different view - they might appreciate that resource hogs are dealt with so that they receive better service.
58
59The TOS does not protect the customer in any meaningful way.
60Our TOS gives us a range of options when a customer breaks the rules. The first step is a suspension of just the offending server, which is what happened to you. Suspensions for TOS violation are only done by Matt or myself manually. Your server came to our attention because it was a resource hog.
61
62Most customers respond well to a suspension - they want to understand what the problem is, fix it, and resume their service. We appreciate that, and those customers resume their service.
63
64Some customers never respond to the suspension because they know they have been caught. After a period of time their service is terminated.
65
66Other customers are argumentative and/or assume we are wrong and/or assume we don't know our own TOS. They argue, often endlessly. That was how you responded to your suspension.
67
68My sin was to try and debate a suspension of my server for violotation of the TOS.
69TOS breaches are handled by management, and because we are proactive in dealing with abusers that can use up a bit of time. But an argumentative customer, like you, will consume an endless amount of time if we allow that to happen. Experience tells us that those people are also likely to breach TOS again.
70
71Our process requires that before a server is unsuspended the customer confirms they will comply with TOS in the future. In your case, because of your argumentative approach, we could not get that comfort after several rounds of discussion - your approach was, and continues to be, that we are wrong. Therefore we resolved the abuse case by terminating your service, which is an option available to us under our TOS.
72
73If you had responded to the situation differently, it would not have been necessary to terminate your service.
74
75I was surprised when I received an email a few days later that my server had been suspended for a TOS violation - running cryptocurrency. I thought perhaps the server had been hacked, having completely forgoton about the indy docker image I had spun up. I recieved no warning and had no chance to review or discuss the issue before the server was disabled. I use the server to demo various software applications to my clients and would have been in serious trouble if a demo had been scheduled that day.
76Another example of customers agreeing to TOS but then acting like they did not agree. 
77
78In the initial support tickets, I was told that I had to acknowledge that I had violated the terms of service
79Untrue, now you are rewriting history just to improve your complaint. For WHT readers this is exactly what we said in your ticket:
80
81Your server was suspended because we detected a violation of our Terms of Service (TOS). You agreed to comply with the TOS, including any changes/updates that may occur, when you signed up for service.
82
83Here is our TOS that you can refer.
84https://www.ssdnodes.com/SSD_Nodes_TOS.pdf
85
86Use of cryptocurrency application is against our TOS. We can unsuspend it for you, but after that, you will need to fix any TOS violation within four hours. Please make sure that any crontab entries or systemd configuration do not start software that breaches our TOS. If you don't it will likely be suspended again, and that would count as a second suspension.
87
88Please be aware that multiple suspensions can result in our management terminating your service. We don't want that to happen, so we would appreciate your assistance in rectifying this situation.
89
90If you would like to have your server unsuspended, please respond by confirming that you understand the above.
91
92Thank you!
93All that was required from you at that point was to confirm that you understood the TOS and would rectify the issue. Most customers who have services suspended don't find that so difficult. We are wary of people who won't comply.
94
95I suppose I could have agreed, but the whole process got my back up.
96I think that is the real issue, right there. I suspect you think you should be exempt to enforcement of TOS. In your tickets you wrote things like:
97
98I don't need to be lectured on the TOS
99...
100If you saw me as an IT professional working on cutting-edge digital identity technology for a very large government entity, perhaps the process would have been better.
101We treat everyone the same.
102
103I also emailed Matt twice, who I believe is the owner, as I thought he might play the customer advocate role, but no answer.
104Matt set the policies we are following. He wants to make sure the majority of customers get the best service.
105
106Lesson learned on my part not to deal with Micky Mouse hosting providers even if they are cheap. It cost me a couple of hours of work. I leave this post as a warning to others.
107We welcome customers who comply with our TOS and who don't abuse our service by being resource hogs. We understand that sometimes things can go wrong and that might lead to a suspension. If customers engage with us in a positive way those suspensions are quickly resolved. Customers who won't cooperate with that process might have their service terminated.
108
109I was not flagged for high CPU
110Untrue. As I told you in the ticket:
111
112Your assumption that an automated process suspended your server is incorrect. I suspended it due to high CPU usage (affecting other customers) and because, upon investigation, the software you are running falls within our definition of a cryptocurrency application.
113You are trying to rewrite history to make your complaint sound valid. Why did you say in this forum that you were "not flagged for high CPU" when you know full well that is a lie?
114
115If you or others want to do this, BUY DEDICATED resources, stop stealing them from the others taking advantage of what you think is a loophole, it won't end well for you. I don't know anything about SSD Nodes, but I can clearly see the people trying to abuse many cloud resources thinking they belong to them only.
116Exactly.
117
118We work hard to maintain lightly-loaded servers. Since we stepped up enforcement of TOS breaches a few months ago there have been a few extra rants on here from disgruntled abusers, but the average CPU usage on our hosts has dropped to below 40% (there is a live graph on our main page). To achieve that we have terminated some abusers (<1% of customers, who make the most noise), throttled a few (about 3% of customers) but everyone else has unrestricted CPU. Our focus is to ensure that the majority of our customers have loads of CPU burst capacity when they need it.
119
120Untrue. As I told you in the ticket:
121
122You are trying to rewrite history to make your complaint sound valid. Why did you say in this forum that you were "not flagged for high CPU" when you know full well that is a lie?
123Please don't accuse me of lying. That is both rude and unprofessional but probably does lead to the root cause of the issue. You saw me only one way, an "abuser", and have been blind ever since to any other possibility. The possibility that I present is that I am just a technical user with the best of intentions running bussiness apps to demostrate digital identity to a client. 
124
125In some instances, I used blockchain as it is a key future technology for digital identity. I never ran anything in a production capacity or at any kind of load and never had the faintest inkling that I would be accued of violating the TOS. As stated earlier, I have no idea why my CPU was high and never had a chance to find out and certainly was given no details on the matter. Yes I pushed back on earlier requests in the ticket as I was told that I had to admit I was violating the TOS (only cryptocurrency was mentioned) when I was not. Key points:
126
1271. You deleted my account even after I agreed to remove the offending docker image - total back and forth tickets responses ~4
128
1292. Your console clearly stated that my account was suspended for "TOS violation - Cryptocurrency". No other explanation was given.
130
1313. It took two ticket requests just to find out that the offending program was listed as "INDY NODE". Nothing else, no details from the support person
132
1334. It was only in your final response to the ticket that you mentioned the CPU usage was the reason you looked at my server and found the Indy SDK running. It was never stated that my server was suspended for high CPU and I will never know what kind of load I was running. All of that detail should have been in the first ticket response.
134
1355. Once I recognized that it was more than just a debate on blockchain vs. cyrptocurrency, I responded to your final response by saying that I would fix the issue. I also asked if you could work with me by providing more details on the offending process as I suspected and still suspect that some kind of bug was triggered.
136
137
138So in a span of 4 responses to my original ticket, of which two were me just trying to find out what was wrong, my account was deleted and data wiped. All of this could have been avoided with better communication.
139
140I will leave it here as I do not want fill this forum with a running debate on particular customer service incident. I do hope that others will read my posts and understand the risks.
141
142Please don't accuse me of lying.
143You knew your service was flagged for high CPU yet you claimed that it wasn't. Ergo, lie.
144
145You saw me only one way, an "abuser", and have been blind ever since to any other possibility.
146No, we see a breach of TOS and we deal with that by suspending your server. As I already said, what happens next is up to you. If you had responded appropriately, as most people do, your service would have been unsuspended and the issue would have been resolved.
147
148The possibility that I present is that I am just a technical user with the best of intentions running bussiness apps to demostrate digital identity to a client.
149People with the best of intentions don't respond in the way you did. Our TOS, which you agreed to, give us a range of options for responding to a breach. The option we tried first was suspension, however you responded to that with endless argument (as you are continuing to do now). Therefore we resolved the breach by employing another option available to us, termination of service. If you don't like that way of resolving the issue, maybe it would have been better to respond differently to the suspension.
150
151I never ran anything in a production capacity or at any kind of load ...
152Untrue. Your server was using sufficient resource to fight its way to near the top in terms of resource usage on that host. That is why it attracted attention in the first place.
153
154Yes I pushed back on earlier requests in the ticket as I was told that I had to admit I was violating the TOS (only cryptocurrency was mentioned) when I was not.
155Untrue. I have already posted what you were told, and it says nothing of the sort. Again you are trying to rewrite history to manufacture a genuine complaint.
156
157So in a span of 4 responses to my original ticket, of which two were me just trying to find out what was wrong, my account was deleted and data wiped. All of this could have been avoided with better communication.
158Nonsense, the problem is you made a decision to be argumentative because, as you said above, the process "got your back up". I think the reason why may be found in this comment from one of your ticket responses:
159
160If you saw me as an IT professional working on cutting-edge digital identity technology for a very large government entity, perhaps the process would have been better.
161We apply the same rules to everyone.
162
163I will leave it here as I do not want fill this forum with a running debate on particular customer service incident.
164That's an odd comment from the person who started this thread. 
165
166I do hope that others will read my posts and understand the risks.
167After we stepped up enforcement of resource hogs and TOS abusers a few months back there have been several rants against us from disgruntled customers who have been kicked off our service. Those rants have not been very successful, they tend to get responses like:
168
169WHT does not side with rule breakers
170and:
171
172If you or others want to do this, BUY DEDICATED resources, stop stealing them from the others taking advantage of what you think is a loophole, it won't end well for you. I don't know anything about SSD Nodes, but I can clearly see the people trying to abuse many cloud resources thinking they belong to them only.
173The reality is that taking enforcement against abusers is how we maintain good service for the majority of our customers. You are trying to tell the majority that we have been unfair to you. Perhaps the majority likes a VPS platform with the abusers removed?
174
175You use a lot of pejorative terms - "abuser", "Lie" etc. Labels are typically used to lump people into a category and obscure from the individual circumstances. 
176
177I appreciate that you want lightly loaded servers. Heck, I would love to sell a service that users don't use at all. It would be very convenient. Keep in mind you are selling servers with 16GB of memory. It takes some horsepower to use that much memory - not that anything I was running should have used much cpu.
178
179I would be happy to set up a live session with you and demo the app - review all the running processes and monitor the CPU when the app is running. It is basically a REST API passing around JSON files - perhaps 20 transactions for the whole demo. Just PM me.
180
181Also, why not post my servers CPU usage over the last 6 months. I am genuinely curious (as I never looked at the reports) and at least it would be hard data and not labels like "abuser". I suspect it will be mostly flatline with some kind of recent peak when the something I was running went haywire? Could be wrong and would be the first to admit it, if I was.
182
183Finally, as you keep quoting from only your final ticket response and use it call me a liar, I will post what I can of the full tech support conversation. Unfortunately I am missing some of my responses as they were not via email and I don't have access to the SSDNode console anymore - might have missed something. Caveats: 1. I have deleted any potentially identifying information 2. the bolded text was added by me in this post to highlight certain comments and is not in the origanal tickets 3. I am reproducing from email as I do not have access to the web help desk ticketing system.
184
185Yes I argue and yes I am verbose - apologize about being so verbose - gets me in trouble and is a bad habit. Perhaps you could say the same about arguing.
186
187Initial notification of suspension with no warning. Note that the violation listed is for cryptocurrency, no mention of CPU. Also note, this is a X-large server
188
189This is a notification that your service has now been suspended. The details of this suspension are below:
190
191Product/Service: KVM - X-Large
192Domain: ssdnodes-xxxxx
193Amount: xxxxx USD
194Due Date: xxxxx
195Suspension Reason: Breach of TOS - Cryptocurrency Application (#1)
196
197Please contact us as soon as possible to get your service reactivated.
198
199
200
201Here is my initial ticket request. At this point, I was perplexed and thought it was possible that I had been hacked and that someone had installed a mining app on the server. Note, that sawtooth is also part of hyperledger and again is a business blockchain. It is idle without a transaction
202
203Not sure why my account is suspended or what actions are required to remove the suspension.
204
205The note says violating the terms of service for bitcoin mining, which leads me to think that the account was hacked as I am not mining bitcoin.
206
207The other possibility is that the installed blockchain service (sawtooth) was picked up as bitcoin mining for some reason. I hope not.
208
209
210
211Here is SSDnodes response: I have highlighted the last sentence, as to me it says I have to admit I violated the TOS, without any understanding of what exactly I had done. Sure I could have and made things easy, admit guilt that was not true and get the server back, but to me that is just wrong
212
213Your server was suspended because we detected a violation of our Terms of Service (TOS). You agreed to comply with the TOS, including any changes/updates that may occur, when you signed up for service.
214
215Here is our TOS that you can refer.
216(deleted as I can not post links yet)
217
218Use of cryptocurrency application is against our TOS. We can unsuspend it for you, but after that, you will need to fix any TOS violation within four hours. Please make sure that any crontab entries or systemd configuration do not start software that breaches our TOS. If you don't it will likely be suspended again, and that would count as a second suspension.
219
220Please be aware that multiple suspensions can result in our management terminating your service. We don't want that to happen, so we would appreciate your assistance in rectifying this situation.
221
222If you would like to have your server unsuspended, please respond by confirming that you understand the above.
223
224Thank you!
225
226Here is the next response from SSDnodes after I asked for clarification. I don't have my text. This is the first response that clued me into what might be happening. It was not sawtooth but the indy-node sdk that was flagged. As noted, before I spun this up to do some quick tests and forgot about it. The docker image was basically a Jupyter notebook hooked up throught the sdk to indy. It is a self contained demo that has not other purpose but to learn the python api. You can find the code in github. Note, no mention of high CPU
227
228It appears you're using cryptocurrency application (INDY NODE) which is against our TOS that you agreed upon signup. I can surely unsuspend the server for you. You will need to make sure that you remove the software that violates our TOS and update this ticket within 4hrs of unsuspension. Let me know when you can work on this and I will go ahead and unsuspend the server for you.
229
230Failure to do this will result in suspension of the service. Also if the same abuse processes are run again on your server, we will be forced to terminate your server without further warnings.
231
232If you would like to have your server unsuspended, please respond by confirming that you understand the TOS and will fix any TOS violation within 4 hours after the unsuspension.
233
234My response - tone could have been better. I am basically arguing that indy-node is not cyrptocurrency and also that the TOS had provisions for warning first. I assumed, based on the way this issue was reported ("INDY NODE"), that the suspension was due to some automated tool and asked if SSDNodes would do some research on what Indy actually was. My niave assumption was that someone would look into it and agree that I was not running cryptocurrency 
235
236You need to rely less on automated tools and more on human analysis. Indy is part of the Linux Foundation Hyperledger project. Hyperledger is a mainstream consortium that is dedicated to developing distributed ledger technology (DLT) and is supported by IBM. Microsoft etc.. It is focused on business applications and has nothing to do with cryptocurrency. Indy is specifically focused on Digital Identity at global scale. 
237(link removed as I can't post links)
238
239I am running a development instance of Indy to develop and test identity applications. It is not a node and I do not believe it is even running but can't confirm as you took my console access away. 
240
241Right now I feel like I am in a Kafka novel - admit to something you did not do and promise not to do it again. All based on some sort of automated tooling that likely just picked up the sdk code installed in a docker image.
242
243I can't ever imagine running production code on your service. Guilty until proven innocent is not a way to run a business. 
244
245I should have been warned first that my server was flagged and then given a chance (human to human) to review the issue and discuss whether or not the flag was a false positive or not. There was no immediate risk that required you to take the server offline as a first step.
246
247This is a bad process and I refuse to say that I violated your terms of service, just to get access back to my server.
248
249Please re-enable my server, while this issue is under review. Thanks,
250
251This is your first response. This is also the first time anything is mentioned about CPU. Still, don't know why you could not have just throttled my server and notified me of the issue with full details in an initial ticket? 
252
253Your assumption that an automated process suspended your server is incorrect. I suspended it due to high CPU usage (affecting other customers) and because, upon investigation, the software you are running falls within our definition of a cryptocurrency application.
254
255I am surprised that you claim there was "no immediate risk". How could you possibly make that judgment? You have no information about what is happening on our platform. Your server was one of the higher CPU users on our platform at the time it was suspended. We take that action to protect the quality of service received by other customers.
256
257We are familiar with our TOS, thank you, as we apply it every day. Please refer to Clause 3 (Term and Termination) in the TOS. We have the right to terminate service upon breach or if any breach is not rectified by you upon notice.
258
259We have advised you that your use of the service falls outside our AUP and requested that you remedy that. Thus far you have refused to do so. Per Clause 3 the next step will be either you promptly agree to rectify the breach or your service will be terminated.
260
261
262
263This is my last reponse - phew. After this my account was deleted with no further communication. I have highlighted were I agree to fix the issue. Two possibilities: 1. you did not read it. 2. you read it and still deleted my account. Yes I am still argumentative and yes I probably should have put my agreement first, but I really was not happy with the way the ticket was handled. 
264
265Please read the information I was given. Start from the beginning. This is the first mention of high CPU or anything other than cryptocurrency. Throughout the process, communication has been very poor. The description - INDY NODE - in previous tickets led me to believe the process was automated as it is an odd description with none of the details I would expect from a manual discovery.
266
267You are wrong about Indy falling into cryptocurrency and it is unfortunate that your word seems to be the only remedy. Indy does not do any sort of mining and is only a DLT. Please do some more research.
268
269It is also unfortunate that you don't see that there was a much more reasonable way to handle this issue through discussion. The assumption that I was doing something bad has coloured your actions. If you saw me as an IT professional working on cutting-edge digital identity technology for xxxxxxxx, perhaps the process would have been better.
270
271I will shutdown and remove the Jupyter notebook/Indy docker instance that appears to have created the issue. Will also look into the High CPU as it is likely a bug. None of the applications I am running should use much if any CPU while idle, which is 99% of the time. It would be nice if you could provide me more details on exactly what you saw - which process, CPU, memory etc.. That is where this ticket should likely have started.
272
273Please provide me access to the image to carry out these actions.
274
275I would be happy to set up a live session with you and demo the app
276Why do you think we would be interested in doing that? You seem to think we are going to alter our TOS because of you, or because of some demonstration/argument you make. We are not.
277
278review all the running processes and monitor the CPU when the app is running.
279The CPU you use in your demonstration is not relevant. We know your server was a high CPU user when that node's performance was reviewed, that is all we need to know.
280
281You are exhibiting a frequent characteristic we see in abuse cases - the tendancy to argue, using increasingly unrealistic means, until you get what you want. That is why suspension did not resolve the issue satisfactorily and we terminated your service.
282
283Yes I argue and yes I am verbose - apologize about being so verbose - gets me in trouble and is a bad habit. Perhaps you could say the same about arguing.
284This is one reason our TOS, like most others in this industry, give us a range of options in an abuse case - including immediate termination of service. That course of action is not our first choice, but if someone is going to be difficult we will use it. You were, and are, difficult - that is the course of action we chose. See your paragraph above.
285
286> The note says violating the terms of service for bitcoin mining
287
288It did not say that. It said "cryptocurrency applications". This is one of the reasons you create a problem - you get upset about something that is different to what was written to you.
289
290> Here is SSDnodes response: I have highlighted the last sentence, as to me it says I have to admit
291> I violated the TOS, without any understanding of what exactly I had done.
292
293It does not say that - and I know you are going to keep writing posts claiming it does, but that doesn't make it true. Again, difficult. See your paragraph above.
294
295You will not be surprised to discover that this is a standard (templated) response. As any sensible reader can see it (literally) says this:
296
297Your server was suspended because we detected a violation of our Terms of Service (TOS).
298You agreed to comply with the TOS, including any changes/updates that may occur, when you signed up for service.
299Here is our TOS that you can refer.
300Use of cryptocurrency application is against our TOS.
301We can unsuspend it for you, but after that, you will need to fix any TOS violation within four hours.
302Please make sure that any crontab entries or systemd configuration do not start software that breaches our TOS.
303If you don't it will likely be suspended again, and that would count as a second suspension.
304Please be aware that multiple suspensions can result in our management terminating your service.
305We don't want that to happen, so we would appreciate your assistance in rectifying this situation.
306If you would like to have your server unsuspended, please respond by confirming that you understand the above.
307
308
309The reason for this is that further breaches are much more likely to result in termination of service, so we want to make it clear to customers what the consequences are (under our TOS) for further breaches.
310
311The problem you have with the final sentence of that message is of your own making. Nobody else has had that problem, just you. You started out this ticket by focussing on something that the suspension message did not say (bitcoing mining) and now you are going on an entirely unnecessary crusade based on a twisted interpretation of a sentence in a templated ticket response (that, as I said, nobody else had a problem with). Difficult, see above.
312
313I'm just going to leave this here, as I think it gives some insight:
314
315Sure I could have and made things easy, admit guilt that was not true and get the server back, but to me that is just wrong.
316And about our next ticket response you say:
317
318Note, no mention of high CPU
319This is because at this point the ticket is being dealt with by our front-line support staff. They have brief notes I left them from when the server was suspended, but they do not have the detail and insight that I have. Their job is to move the ticket through a process to get the customer unsuspended. I would normally only get involved again if the customer becomes uncooperative, which is what happened in this case, or there is a further breach.
320
321My response - tone could have been better. I am basically arguing ...
322Maybe a lesson to take away from this experience is if a provider has several options for dealing with an issue and chooses a less severe option, arguing with them and being difficult may not be the best course of action.
323
324the TOS had provisions for warning first.
325Arguing with a provider about the provider's own TOS is just dumb, because the provider surely knows them better than you and likely has taken legal advice on them (as we have).
326
327Three of the things you overlooked when lecturing us about our TOS were:
328
329In Step 1 of the Table C AUP violation process on Page 10 we have the right, at our sole discretion, to skip direct to Step 3 (suspension) when there is an adverse impact to other customers. I was looking at the server hosting your VM because there was a higher than expected CPU load, and your VM was near the top of the list.
330Clause 16 (Permitted Use) gives us the right to decide what our platform may be used for.
331Clause 3 (Term and Termination) on Page 2 gives us the ability to immediately terminate a customer for violation of AUP and/or for use of our service for anything outside what we consider to be a permitted use (Clause 16).
332
333
334I assumed, based on the way this issue was reported, "INDY NODE" , was due to some automated tool and asked that SSD Nodes would do some research on what indy actually was. My niave assumption was that someone would look into it and agree that I was not running cryptocurrency
335You have made several incorrect assumptions. One is that we don't know what indy_node is. Another is that it would make any difference, as we have already told you it is not permitted - that is why your service was suspended. Another is that this was done by an automated process. Another is that we want a lecture on your pet project.
336
337Right now I feel like I am in a Kafka novel - admit to something you did not do and promise not to do it again. All based on some sort of automated tooling that likely just picked up the sdk code installed in a docker image.
338None of that is correct, and that is part of the reason you have got yourself into this situation. You have, for no good reason, decided to make this situation as difficult as possible.
339
340This is my last reponse - phew. After this my account was deleted with no further communication. I have highlighted were I agree to fix the issue. Two possibilities: 1. you did not read it. 2. you read it and still deleted my account. Yes I am still argumentative and yes I probably should have put my agreement first, but I really was not happy with the way the ticket was handled.
341Of course I read it. The main (but not only) issues I saw were:
342
343You are wrong about Indy falling into cryptocurrency and it is unfortunate that your word seems to be the only remedy. Indy does not do any sort of mining and is only a DLT. Please do some more research.
344You are still arguing about our right, in our sole discretion, to determine what our service may be used for (Clause 16 TOS).
345
346It is also unfortunate that you don't see that there was a much more reasonable way to handle this issue through discussion.
347You are still arguing about the process under our TOS for dealing with abuses case.
348
349As we had already explained it is a requirement, prior to unsuspension, that the customer agrees to comply with our TOS. You are not agreeing, you are arguing. Your service was terminated per Clause 3 (Term and Termination).
350
351You are still arguing, and the more you argue the more evidence you provide that termination was the right call.
352
353The comments in italics are exactly as originally written in the ticket, copied from my email. I think it is pretty obvious I meant cryptocurrency when saying bitcoin mining - a simple mistake. I could edit the text but that would not be honest.
354
355The original point I made at the start of this thread was that SSDNodes lacks the business process maturity to host production workloads still stands. In fact, many of the comments made by 4n6expert reinforce that point. That a senior technical resource is the one responding to this thread as opposed to someone in marketing (or at least more customer savvy) drives home the point.
356
357I would still recommend SSDNodes as a place to get a cheap VPS to play with but nothing more. It is what it is.
358
359The original point I made at the start of this thread was that SSDNodes lacks the business process maturity to host production workloads still stands. In fact, many of the comments made by 4n6expert reinforce that point.
360A business process is not "immature" because it results in a difficult and uncooperative customer who now says they do not agree to our TOS being terminated.
361
362The purpose of the process is to resolve a TOS/AUP breach in the best way possible. What "the best way possible" is depends how the customer responds to that process. For customers without an enforcement history the process starts with a moderate response (suspension). In most cases, with most customers, the issue is quickly resolved. Some customers expect special treatment and/or think that the rules do not apply to them. They argue and/or bully and/or threaten (usually to post a bad review if we don't give them special treatment). That never works. As I said before, we treat everyone the same. I think that is the hallmark of a good process.
363
364What you are trying to divert attention from is your contribution to the process - being difficult and argumentative - is what got you this outcome. 
365
3664n6expert:
367
368Your logic is circular - "you are an abuser, therefore, you are an abuser".
369
370The SSDNODES TOS states the following about cryptocurrency
371
372Cryptocurrency: The use of cryptocurrency applications is in direct violation of this AUP and shall trigger the Methods of Resolution
373under this AUP as set forth below in Table C. This includes, but is not limited to Steem and Bitcoin.
374
375Acting in good faith, how could I possibly have known that a digital identity SDK demo would be considered cryptocurrency?
376
377In addition, the CPU comments are misleading for the following reasons (also not flagged in the suspension reason provided by support):
378
3791. I purchased an X-Large KVM with 4 Virtual CPUs and run the same workload on a laptop without any impact on performance
380
3812. It really should not be possible to exceed the CPU allocated for a given VPS.
382
3833. If it is possible to exceed the allocated CPU then there should be other mechanisms to manage high CPU without suspending the account - i.e some form of throttling, customer communication etc.. Runaway processes happen.
384
3854. If none of the above is true then what does it even mean to have four virtual CPUs? How much load is too much and how does the customer know? 
386
387Ideally, a customer should not need to worry about how much CPU they are using except as it impacts their workload.
388
389Finally, here is the last step in the TOS/AUP process that you used to delete my account. Bold emphasis is mine:
390
391Step 4: Failure to address violation and resolve violation: if Customer fails to address the violation AND fails to resolve the
392violation, a permanent suspension of services shall occur. This is a last resort for Strasmore and only results when the Customer
393completely fails to participate in Strasmore’s resolution process. A permanent suspension of services includes reclamation of all
394virtual and dedicated services and the destruction of Customer’s data.
395
396Clearly, I was cooperating as per my last ticket response. Nothing in the terms says I had to agree with you. You violated the spirit, if not the intent of the TOS.
397
398Wow, this escalated quickly. I don't believe timbl is abuser, he is focused on his project and seems genuinely interested in what happened. Customer support handled this very poorly, suspending server is understandable, but getting provoked into argument by snarky customer, calling him a liar (on public forum for all places) and even knee-jerk deleting his account?
399
400Why instead just unsuspend, throttle container to something ridiculously small like 5% until he can fix it and move on. Would have saved lot of time.
401
402My main project has been last few yrs with LunaNode and they have neat system with burstable CPU. I really hate those TOS that talk about "fair share" and "CPU abuse", those terms mean absolutely nothing unless they are quantified and this is exactly what LN did, they explain what % of CPU you have included in the baseline plan, how much and for how long you can you burst, how much will you be billed for more CPU (opt-in). No suspension BS, it just gets throttled. A host with common sense.
403
404@Mike_A: Appreciate the advice. It was my mistake for using the service, which I signed up for as a play account, for more serious work. I would note that I had no issues for two years until I installed the Indy demo SDK to run a quick test. CPU load was always fairly minimal when I checked. I am now using Google and Amazon, but I also liked what I saw at DigitalOcean.
405
406@romanz: Thanks for the support and taking the time to read through what I wrote. It must have been a bit of a slog. Agree that without proper measurable definitions and controls "CPU abuse" is meaningless. I was using SSD Nodes in good faith and was floored by the outcome.
407
408@4n6expert: I assume you updated the SSD Nodes TOS as per fraudrecord.com requirements for using their service?
409
410Checking.... guess not. So this was just done on whim and was not part of a formal and well thought out policy? One of the key aspects of good governance is the separation of responsibilities, so one person does not become judge, jury, and executioner - so to speak.
411
412@Matt Connor, if you are listening .... I don't think @4n6expert is doing SSDNodes any favours on the public relations front.
413
414I don’t know about this. The TOS states that you can’t use cryptocurrency APPLICATIONS, and not mining or whatsoever. And yours, seems to be one of the applications. Cores are not dedicated, you can’t just keep one for yourself. This post just made me want to try out ssdnodes more. The replies are professional 
415
416@4n6expert: I assume you updated the SSD Nodes TOS as per fraudrecord.com requirements for using their service?
417
418Checking.... guess not. So this was just done on whim and was not part of a formal and well thought out policy? One of the key aspects of good governance is the separation of responsibilities, so one person does not become judge, jury, and executioner - so to speak.
419Browsing around fraudrecord's site I didn't see a "requirements" list beyond what the software requires. What changes are needed? Or are you referring to GDPR changes?
420-Steven | u2-web@Cooini, LLC - Business Shared Hosting | Isolate sites with Webspaces | Site Builder | PHP-FPM | MariaDB
421WHMCS Modules: Staff Knowledgebase | Custom Modules and Hooks 
422"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" -Aristotle
423
424I don’t know about this. The TOS states that you can’t use cryptocurrency APPLICATIONS, and not mining or whatsoever. And yours, seems to be one of the applications. Cores are not dedicated, you can’t just keep one for yourself. This post just made me want to try out ssdnodes more. The replies are professional 
425For those reading, this is the TL;DR version of the thread.  
426
427BTW, no complaints with SSDN, but their prices are about 2x what you'll see from ColoCrossing resellers.
428
429All I know is if SSDNodes is reporting users to 'FraudReport' then I will put them on my list of vendors to never again do business with and I have in the past. There is nothing FRAUDELENT about anything posted here and is the same garbage a low end host tried on me after having their server go down nearly daily to the point I demanded a refund. Calling this FRAUD is the exact definition of a garbage host because all they did was violate your TOS at the worst and from what I am reading I am quite sure you kept their money.
430
431That's the real fraud. Any company I find reporting users for fraud for stuff like this signed their own death certificate with me and SSDNodes is now in that group. I had done business with them in the past but there isn't a snowballs chance in hades I will knowing this. 
432
433People need to learn what fraud is.
434
435https://fraudrecord.com/images/sample.png
436
437Just so everyone knows about FraudReport...this is what providers can cite as FRAUD:
438
439Submitting too many trouble tickets
440Complaining about support being too slow
441
442FRAUD?
443
444My guess is these guys at SSD nodes have already sent something in. KNOW WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH and read the fine print because they MUST identify themselves if they are using this service in their hosting company. They DONT have to tell you they reported you and from what I see they don't have to provide a lick of proof that their complaint about you is justified. They are also retaining identifiers on you as well.
445
446"[Your Company Name] utilizes FraudRecord to screen new orders for previous fraudulent activity and report existing clients who violate our Terms of Service. In case of a violation, you may be reported to FraudRecord for misbehaviour using one-way hashed information."
447
448This MUST be in their sign up process. Now you know.
449
450We're going off topic here, but Google says fraud is: wrongful (not fair, just, or legal) or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain. Fraud is typically criminal but as that definition states it does not have to be to be fraud. 
451
452So in the context of WHT, lets say bobpress44 complains on here that their host is slow to reply to tickets in the hopes the host will give them a refund, credits, or other action that benefit that person. If the host actually replies within seconds, then the complaint would be wrongful (not fair or just) because no one can reply faster. Or if the terms of service says the host can take days to reply, then again it would be wrongful because it was spelled out (though buried) that they could do that. In both cases it would be a fraudulent complaint because it goes against the "wrongful" part of the definition. 
453
454Is fraudrecord used for just fraud reporting? Nope. Is it used to weed out "troublemakers" from "peaceful" customers, absolutely. And per their about / what is page, that is the intended purpose:
455Quote Originally Posted by fraudrecord-site
456It is designed to help them combine their knowledge and combat against misbehaving clients. Our member companies can report unpleasant clients to Fraudrecord, so that when the same client moves to another company, the new company can check the history of the same client using our service, and act accordingly.
457(bold is mine)
458
459We are talking human vs human here and so there will always be bias and vindictiveness on both sides. 
460
461You know another industry that has "scoring" or reporting of their customers? Finance -- credit cards, loans, etc via credit scores but that has some laws backing it.
462
463The problem here is 'Fraudrecord' is owned and operated by one person who lives in Sweden. Actually participates in the forums here on a regular basis. This one person has decided he is God over customers. I have read and checked out the site and even signed up as a 'reporting agency' which was never verified. So in reality I can create an account there, report anyone I want and that's it. No one verifies the vendors claims. No proof at all is necessary. A vindictive host can file claims on someone without ever showing they were even a customer. There is no reliable way to verify if you have been added to this list or if you are denied services because of this list.
464
465That's where the big problem arises. Credit cards REQUIRE you back up a bad credit claim with proof otherwise that record can and usually will be removed. They also have to put on your record who reported you and why. There is also no avenue to report misbehaving vendors who are ripping people off then making threats to report them for fraud when the fraud is at the vendors end. You also are not allowed to add a statement onto any report made against you. At least with credit you can attach a memo to any reported credit issues.
466
467The problem here is a hidden system that even vendors like SSD nodes use without notifying clients they are doing so. The site who claimed to have reported me - same deal - not a single indicator that they utilize this service. That's totally against the law with the new EU privacy laws as you MUST notify a user when their data is being stored in any manner and none of these companies are doing it.
468
469The real irony is most of the vendors who commented on this service don't really take it very seriously at all and most of them are these small barely operational cheap vendors who are the most likely ones to be not providing the service they sell and are known for overselling their services.
470
471Just seems to be a system rife with corruption, possibly against the law and does not allow anyone to dispute any claims being made. That's not an internet company I'd want to deal with.
472
473The problem here is 'Fraudrecord' is owned and operated by one person who lives in Sweden. Actually participates in the forums here on a regular basis. This one person has decided he is God over customers. I have read and checked out the site and even signed up as a 'reporting agency' which was never verified. So in reality I can create an account there, report anyone I want and that's it. No one verifies the vendors claims. No proof at all is necessary. A vindictive host can file claims on someone without ever showing they were even a customer. There is no reliable way to verify if you have been added to this list or if you are denied services because of this list.
474
475That's where the big problem arises. Credit cards REQUIRE you back up a bad credit claim with proof otherwise that record can and usually will be removed. They also have to put on your record who reported you and why. There is also no avenue to report misbehaving vendors who are ripping people off then making threats to report them for fraud when the fraud is at the vendors end. You also are not allowed to add a statement onto any report made against you. At least with credit you can attach a memo to any reported credit issues.
476
477The problem here is a hidden system that even vendors like SSD nodes use without notifying clients they are doing so. The site who claimed to have reported me - same deal - not a single indicator that they utilize this service. That's totally against the law with the new EU privacy laws as you MUST notify a user when their data is being stored in any manner and none of these companies are doing it.
478
479The real irony is most of the vendors who commented on this service don't really take it very seriously at all and most of them are these small barely operational cheap vendors who are the most likely ones to be not providing the service they sell and are known for overselling their services.
480
481Just seems to be a system rife with corruption, possibly against the law and does not allow anyone to dispute any claims being made. That's not an internet company I'd want to deal with.
482It's kind of ironic IMHO to have this conversation on WHT.
483
484FraudRecord effectively serves the same niche as WHT, just for the opposite market. If you've signed up a vendor, you already know this. Tons of end-users use WHT to rant about providers (and contribute nothing else of worth to the system, expecting it to simply serve their needs), while it's unthinkable that a provider would publicly dish about a bad client. FraudRecord gives providers the ability to do that, and decide whether or not they want to take on a given client based simply on rumor. I know a lot of smaller/more tight knit markets already do the same (IE: think Casino's as a good example, where they all share a *ton* of information they gather on visitors, to make sure problem gamblers [not just fraudsters, but deadbeats, people who start fights, people who are abusive, etc.] are known among the entire industry so they can be dealt with accordingly). Casino's appear able to do this without issue, and they share much more then just hashes obviously.
485
486In terms of legality, it all centers around the fact that your data isn't encrypted on their systems, data isn't stored at all. Only a hash is, which by nature cannot be reversed back into your information. I doubt too many courts have enough competency to truly understand the concept, and I doubt even more that the idea has been actually litigated/tried before at this point (not that it won't at some point of course).
487
488Tons of end-users use WHT to rant about providers (and contribute nothing else of worth to the system, expecting it to simply serve their needs), while it's unthinkable that a provider would publicly dish about a bad client.
489The only big difference is that if a customer gives negative feedback on a vendor at WHT then the said vendor gets an equal right to refute said feedback and present their side (as evident from this thread where both parties did present their respective cases). However I don't see any way for a client to refute a fraud claim filed by a vendor at Fraudrecord. Either that site should have stricter submission norms where due diligence is done before allowing a vendor to submit a fraud report or the clients being reported should get a chance to refute the reports against them.
490
491Since neither of this happens, it makes that site's reliability & its "blacklist" highly questionable & unethical.
492
493The only big difference is that if a customer gives negative feedback on a vendor at WHT then the said vendor gets an equal right to refute said feedback and present their side (as evident from this thread where both parties did present their respective cases). However I don't see any way for a client to refute a fraud claim filed by a vendor at Fraudrecord. Either that site should have stricter submission norms where due diligence is done before allowing a vendor to submit a fraud report or the clients being reported should get a chance to refute the reports against them.
494
495Since neither of this happens, it makes that site's reliability & its "blacklist" highly questionable & unethical.
496You'll notice most of the threads on WHT where somebody is dishing on a provider, the provider actually does damage control, but that's it. They don't reply with their side of the story, because they have confidentiality obligations, and try to avoid airing dirty laundry, thus sure they can reply, but their hands are tied behind their backs throughout the entire process. WHT threads serve as an attempt to publicly damage a providers business, while FR is entirely hidden from the public view by nature of the results/hashing, the impact of the two is enormously different as such.
497
498I wouldn't call FraudRecord a blacklist by any means, some vendors on there have credibility, some do not. Most people ignore any matches that don't have many hits, etc. It's simply an additional source of information for providers to review before doing business with an unknown entity.
499
500If you have somebody with 1 hit, on limited fields, from a purported host you've never heard of, 5 years ago, are you going to loose a potential customer over it? I don't think so, it's not some exclusive sellers market, providers work for business. If you see somebody with a dozen hits, from reputable vendors, all claiming the same pattern of behavior, are you going to avoid 'em? Most likely yes, assuming the pattern of behavior they describe is incompatible with your business.
501
502Unless you behave in a manner that makes multiple parties report you, you have little to worry about. If you do behave in a manner which causes this reaction, great, the service isn't there to serve you, so your opinion simply does not matter.
503
504WHT threads serve as an attempt to publicly damage a providers business
505Quote Originally Posted by porcupine  View Post
506Most people ignore any matches that don't have many hits, etc. It's simply an additional source of information for providers to review before doing business with an unknown entity.
507
508If you have somebody with 1 hit, on limited fields, from a purported host you've never heard of, 5 years ago, are you going to loose a potential customer over it? I don't think so, it's not some exclusive sellers market, providers work for business. If you see somebody with a dozen hits, from reputable vendors, all claiming the same pattern of behavior, are you going to avoid 'em? Most likely yes, assuming the pattern of behavior they describe is incompatible with your business.
509Same thing applies to threads on WHT. Someone who is new here & trashes a vendor isn't going to get traction & hardly anyone is likely to take what that person says negatively about the vendor. Someone with a rep here gives a negative review of a vendor and/or multiple people express their experience similarly then that vendor's business would take a hit if a potential customer sees those reviews.
510
511So unless a vendor behaves in a manner that makes multiple customers report them, they have little to worry about.
512
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