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What constitutes abuse? I imagine certain applications that would be fine with the server going up and down every 2 hours. That would effectively mean that they

by ryao 10y ago

What constitutes abuse? I imagine certain applications that would be fine with the server going up and down every 2 hours. That would effectively mean that they would have free service indefinitely. For example, a Tor bridge.

rounce 10y ago
Shhhh, you're gonna ruin it for everybody else!
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  We were all thinking it.
wheelerwj 10y ago
Or bitcoin miners
- brianwawok 10y ago
  You would mine maybe 1 penny per day. Not worth the click.
  - wheelerwj 10y ago
    ....that's not how fraud works. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7490766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7490766 Just google aws bitcoin mining abuse and see what happens when shitty people have access to free servers.
    - iancarroll 10y ago
      Pretty sure it only makes sense when you can spin up AWS GPU instances, which you probably cannot do here.
      - wheelerwj 10y ago
        When there are no costs, it makes sense spin up anything. You literally can't lose. It's just opportunity costs at that point.
        brianwawok 10y ago
        Unless you missed the no API part. If it takes a person 5 clicks to launch an instance, the reward has to pay for the cost. Why aren't people using AWS free tier to Bitcoin mine? Seems a bad prop.
        wheelerwj 10y ago
        I am sure that some people did try to use the free tier, and that AWS probably has some decent controls in place to monitor for this type of activity. They are also a MASSIVE company that can absorb loss much easier than a startup. [1] As far as the API goes, I don't know if you're aware of how hacking works, but not having an api has protected exactly no one ever. Calling your application secure because "it has a button, not an API" is completely absurd. [2] As far as costs, you understand that people do thousands of tasks on mechanic turk for pennies right? 5 clicks to make a penny or two isn't out of the question, EVEN WITHOUT AUTOMATION, when the cost for living in some parts of the world is egregiously low. [3] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818015 [2] http://www.seleniumhq.org/docs/01_introducing_selenium.jsp http://www.seleniumhq.org/docs/01_introducing_selenium.jsp [3] http://online-job-work.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mechanicalturk.jpg http://online-job-work.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mechan...
        MaulingMonkey 10y ago
        > As far as costs, you understand that people do thousands of tasks on mechanic turk for pennies right? You still have to invest either your time or hire someone to set things up for the mechanical turk setup - the opportunity cost you pointed out earlier. And pennies per turk isn't worth it if your ROI is micropennies per turk. Depending on how much friction there is, it may be cheaper to trick your turks into running the bitcoin miner on their own computers. Not saying there's no potential for abuse - as you say, there is - but saying there's "no costs" and that "You literally can't lose" is about as accurate as saying there's "no profits" and that "You literally can't win". Unless CPU bitcoin mining is wildly more profitable than my understanding, given that you're competing against GPU and ASIC miners. Maybe one of the alt-currencies that are supposedly harder to GPU mine...?
OwainX 10y ago
In general abuse is anything that is illegal under US law, causes a disruption of service or is otherwise disruptive to our ability to run the service. As far as our TOS goes, if we say it's abuse, it is. We will be very strict in our enforcement. We're hoping that backend procedures and processes we have in place will help us to profile abusers and prevent them from using the services as our goal is to prevent abuse while making the barrier to getting started as low as possible for legitimate users. A tor bridge/relay might not be an issue but TOR exit nodes will almost certainly result in abuse complaints and action being taken.

by ryao 10y ago

rounce 10y ago

Shhhh, you're gonna ruin it for everybody else!

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
We were all thinking it.

wheelerwj 10y ago

Or bitcoin miners

brianwawok 10y ago
You would mine maybe 1 penny per day. Not worth the click.
- wheelerwj 10y ago
  ....that's not how fraud works. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7490766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7490766 Just google aws bitcoin mining abuse and see what happens when shitty people have access to free servers.
  - iancarroll 10y ago
    Pretty sure it only makes sense when you can spin up AWS GPU instances, which you probably cannot do here.
    - wheelerwj 10y ago
      When there are no costs, it makes sense spin up anything. You literally can't lose. It's just opportunity costs at that point.
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        Unless you missed the no API part. If it takes a person 5 clicks to launch an instance, the reward has to pay for the cost. Why aren't people using AWS free tier to Bitcoin mine? Seems a bad prop.
        wheelerwj 10y ago
        I am sure that some people did try to use the free tier, and that AWS probably has some decent controls in place to monitor for this type of activity. They are also a MASSIVE company that can absorb loss much easier than a startup. [1] As far as the API goes, I don't know if you're aware of how hacking works, but not having an api has protected exactly no one ever. Calling your application secure because "it has a button, not an API" is completely absurd. [2] As far as costs, you understand that people do thousands of tasks on mechanic turk for pennies right? 5 clicks to make a penny or two isn't out of the question, EVEN WITHOUT AUTOMATION, when the cost for living in some parts of the world is egregiously low. [3] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818015 [2] http://www.seleniumhq.org/docs/01_introducing_selenium.jsp http://www.seleniumhq.org/docs/01_introducing_selenium.jsp [3] http://online-job-work.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mechanicalturk.jpg http://online-job-work.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mechan...
        MaulingMonkey 10y ago
        > As far as costs, you understand that people do thousands of tasks on mechanic turk for pennies right? You still have to invest either your time or hire someone to set things up for the mechanical turk setup - the opportunity cost you pointed out earlier. And pennies per turk isn't worth it if your ROI is micropennies per turk. Depending on how much friction there is, it may be cheaper to trick your turks into running the bitcoin miner on their own computers. Not saying there's no potential for abuse - as you say, there is - but saying there's "no costs" and that "You literally can't lose" is about as accurate as saying there's "no profits" and that "You literally can't win". Unless CPU bitcoin mining is wildly more profitable than my understanding, given that you're competing against GPU and ASIC miners. Maybe one of the alt-currencies that are supposedly harder to GPU mine...?

OwainX 10y ago

In general abuse is anything that is illegal under US law, causes a disruption of service or is otherwise disruptive to our ability to run the service. As far as our TOS goes, if we say it's abuse, it is. We will be very strict in our enforcement. We're hoping that backend procedures and processes we have in place will help us to profile abusers and prevent them from using the services as our goal is to prevent abuse while making the barrier to getting started as low as possible for legitimate users. A tor bridge/relay might not be an issue but TOR exit nodes will almost certainly result in abuse complaints and action being taken.