4 ms·

I have reported spammers/phishers to Hetzner in the past and experienced the same: Hetzner's default policy is to forward a complaint to the server's owner - wh

by raphman 13y ago

I have reported spammers/phishers to Hetzner in the past and experienced the same: Hetzner's default policy is to forward a complaint to the server's owner - which also kind of surprised and annoyed me. On the phone, support staff told me that Hetzner sees itself just as an uninvolved messenger between both parties. Apparently, their support ticket system automatically forwards all complaints to the server's owner without any way to opt out. The support person offered two alternatives: send anonymous complaints through a freemail service, or send the complaint to the personal address of a support team member, so that they can manually enter it into the system. Yes, this is pretty annoying.

dsl 13y ago
Mind sharing any team member emails you've gotten? I am still looking for a competent abuse contact at Hetzner.
oellegaard 13y ago
As a Hetzner customer I think this is more than fair. If someone reports abuse from my server, hetzner should forward me the report. They do not have access to the server, so why in the world would they do anything but forwarding it to the person or company that does in fact have access? Protip: Don't put your credit card number in the abuse report. Just put the logs or whatever is required to prove that there was in fact abuse from that server.
- danudey 13y ago
  The problem is that if you have someone using Hetzner's network for spamming or other illegal activities, you'd expect the ISP to want to keep their network clean of these sorts of things and investigate. Instead, they just say 'whatever, not our problem'. On top of that, though, forwarding the complaint to the server owner just makes a mess of things, because now the server owner can target you and make your life hell. They can send you threats, DDoS your mail system, flood your inbox, etc., all the while knowing that Hetzner has their back. It's like if you saw someone assaulting someone in an alley and called the police, and the police took the information you gave them and gave it to the person who assaulted them. Now they know who you are, and they can come after you too. Now your only real solution is to just not report it when someone does bad things, because you know it's not going to get fixed and it's just likely to cause problems for you down the road.
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    Well, Hetzner does not state it in their RIPE record (https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html?searchtext=5.9.120.209&flags=&sources=RIPE_NCC&grssources=&inverse=&types=#resultsAnchor https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html?searchtext=5.9.12...) that the email is NOT handled by Hetzner staff. In contrast, Manitu (another German hoster) explicitly states this: https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html?searchtext=217.11.51.9&searchSubmit=search#resultsAnchor#resultsAnchor#resultsAnchor https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html?searchtext=217.11...

by raphman 13y ago

dsl 13y ago

Mind sharing any team member emails you've gotten? I am still looking for a competent abuse contact at Hetzner.

oellegaard 13y ago

As a Hetzner customer I think this is more than fair. If someone reports abuse from my server, hetzner should forward me the report. They do not have access to the server, so why in the world would they do anything but forwarding it to the person or company that does in fact have access? Protip: Don't put your credit card number in the abuse report. Just put the logs or whatever is required to prove that there was in fact abuse from that server.

danudey 13y ago
The problem is that if you have someone using Hetzner's network for spamming or other illegal activities, you'd expect the ISP to want to keep their network clean of these sorts of things and investigate. Instead, they just say 'whatever, not our problem'. On top of that, though, forwarding the complaint to the server owner just makes a mess of things, because now the server owner can target you and make your life hell. They can send you threats, DDoS your mail system, flood your inbox, etc., all the while knowing that Hetzner has their back. It's like if you saw someone assaulting someone in an alley and called the police, and the police took the information you gave them and gave it to the person who assaulted them. Now they know who you are, and they can come after you too. Now your only real solution is to just not report it when someone does bad things, because you know it's not going to get fixed and it's just likely to cause problems for you down the road.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  Well, Hetzner does not state it in their RIPE record (https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html?searchtext=5.9.120.209&flags=&sources=RIPE_NCC&grssources=&inverse=&types=#resultsAnchor https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html?searchtext=5.9.12...) that the email is NOT handled by Hetzner staff. In contrast, Manitu (another German hoster) explicitly states this: https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html?searchtext=217.11.51.9&searchSubmit=search#resultsAnchor#resultsAnchor#resultsAnchor https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html?searchtext=217.11...