I'm probably wrong (I have no idea which Linux distribution their AMIs are built on), but this sounds like when you stop a service on a Debian/Ubuntu instance,

I'm probably wrong (I have no idea which Linux distribution their AMIs are built on), but this sounds like when you stop a service on a Debian/Ubuntu instance, then run some apt-get command (an upgrade, installing new packages, or whatever) and then it "helpfully" restarts the service for you. That was my first thought anyways. I'm just really annoyed by the fact that Debian/Ubuntu automatically start services before you have a chance to configure them (or even decide that you want them to start automatically, under normal circumstances).