Vernon Riley, your Ezzi Server, (Main IP xx.xx.xx.xx) came under attack this afternoon as shown in part by the log clip below. The server has been taken offline.

There is a $150 Fine for being attacked on our network, this is waived by signing up for DDoS protection services at a cost of $50 1 time and $10/monthly. Both of these options can be purchased on our advanced options page. http://www.ezzi.net/home/solutions/index.cfm?do=Dedicated&Local=Advanced


Tell me this isnt the worst attempt to sell extra services ever. The servers been up right at 1 month. Im a reseller at ezzi and the customer uses it as a Enemy Territory server and Vent server. Am I right in expecting them to DDOS proof their network for my protection in the first place? lol

Is that True?

LMAO!!

Yeah lol. Im still laughing. Whats worse tho is that my customer is still down. Oh yeah not to mention that all these extra services they added were added on after I signed on as a reseller months ago and I was not made aware of any change in policy.

Whats next?

/me wonders what the next email might be like.....


Vernon Riley, your Ezzi Server, (Main IP xx.xx.xx.xx) was detected as errantly receiving ftp traffic on port 80 as shown in part by the log clip below. The server has been taken offline.

There is a $150 Fine for being a a customer on our network , this is waived by signing up for Stateful Firewall services at a cost of $50 1 time and $10/monthly. Both of these options can be purchased on our advanced options page. http://www.ezzi.net/home/solutions/...;Local=Advanced

heres the IP of the attacker if anyone feels like having fun.

<<Removed>>

So Ezzi attacks their own servers to receive the 150$ fine?
or to make you pay 50$ setup + 10$ a month extra

:D :cool:

Originally posted by vriley
heres the IP of the attacker if anyone feels like having fun.

<<Removed>>

What an unprofessional way of handling this!
Are you aware that this might be an IP from an ISP? And if someone attacks this IP he will cause damage to someone who isn't the attacker?

do SEARCH with "ezzi attack" you'll find alot of threads.

seems like servers without "DDoS protection" at ezzi are very vulnerable for attacks.

;)

Sounds unfair to me :(

>> seems like servers without "DDoS protection" at ezzi are very vulnerable for attacks.
yo ;)

acctually this absurd policy they have would prevent me of signing up there directly.
i am at a reseller of them, and several month ago i had a small downtime caused of DDoS attack. the attack was not against the server on which I am, I think I got effected because I was on same switch or thomething like that, i do not remember details, so not sure why i got effected.

the point is due of this absurd policy makes several people happy when a DDoS attaks agains ezzi servers comes up:
1.) competitors of ezzi: since every DDoS results in 150$ fine which further results in a totaly upset customer which further results in negative posts here, competitors have much fun with it :D
2.) and the shareholders of ezzi have also fun with earning some extra-$ ;) :cool:

the only one who has no fun is the customer

ServerMatrix used to have a similar policy. If you didn't order Floodguard, and were ddossed you would be charged a fee($150-$300 I believe, not for sure). I can not find anything on their site about it now, so I am hoping they changed it.

Does ezzi's TOS or AUP state that you must pay $150 if you're attacked? If not, you have no obligation to pay it or get the DDOS protection for your server. Oh, and why do they tack on a $50 setup fee for control panels and firewalls/VLANS/netscreen service once your server is online (but it's $0 setup if you sign up with the service when you order your server)? Doesn't make sense to me, especially since most of their servers can come with $0 seutp.

- Matt

EZZI.net policy works like this on dDoS attacks:

If you buy dDoS protection for $10/mo then you will not get fined for causing an attack. But we do not force anyone to pay the fine. We allow them to buy dDoS solution and we waive the fine. We try to be as fair as possible as we are with everything we do. We also try to make all products as affordable as possible, no matter how much money we spend.

Why do we charge for dDoS protection and firewall services?

So we can make back the money we spent on the Netscreen firewall and dDoS solution. This type of solution cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Last year we had many problems with attacks that caused our network to go down and have lag. Since we have implemented this solution, our core network has been up 100% of the time this year and dDoS attacks have caused little to no problems on our network as a whole.

Our customers have been happier with the uptime and the decrease in attacks. Not sure why this would be considered a bad thing for us to make our network more stable with better uptime.

I see people complaining almost everyday about other companies being down or having lag from dDoS attacks. I also see other companies complaining that since they charge so little for dedicated servers, they cannot afford to pay to protect their network against attacks.

Again, we don’t force anyone to pay anything but we are also reasonable in what we charge for the solution, its $10/mo.

If you have hardware deployed to minimize the effects of dDos attacks on your network, shouldn't the dDos protection offer an additional layer of security for the client so that their box can be kept online during an attack? My server was attacked TWICE last year, at random. I'd leave my host in 2 seconds if they made me pay a $150 "victim's fee" for being dDosed, or made me pay more per month so that I would be immune from the "victim's fee". Sounds like the mafia here? :D

-Josh

I am not saying I agree with ezzi, but if that is a option provided by his business then it is the customer's choice to go with that company or not. This really should only surprise the customers who signup and not read the fine print.

Hope this issue gets resolved though :)

Derrick

Originally posted by ispclub.com
We allow them to buy dDoS solution and we waive the fine. So why do you charge them $50 setup and $10/month, when I can get it for $0 setup, $10/month on a new server?This really should only surprise the customers who signup and not read the fine print.If by fine print, you mean the TOS and AUP, Ezzi has no mention of dDos protection or fines anywhere in those. They have a $150 fee for breaking the TOS, but there's nothing in the TOS that mentions anything about dDos attacks.

Think they should call it "ezzi DDOS bank account protection"

Originally posted by Joshua
If you have hardware deployed to minimize the effects of dDos attacks on your network, shouldn't the dDos protection offer an additional layer of security for the client so that their box can be kept online during an attack? My server was attacked TWICE last year, at random. I'd leave my host in 2 seconds if they made me pay a $150 "victim's fee" for being dDosed, or made me pay more per month so that I would be immune from the "victim's fee". Sounds like the mafia here? :D

-Josh


We do not automatically charge you $150. I have posted in this thread our policy.

If you have dDoS protection we can leave the server up for you to clean it if it was hacked, have done that plenty of times. This of course has to do with the size of the attack. The firewalls do not stop every attack. The attack is sometimes too much for the firewalls, so we have to unplug the server no matter what.

We have let many customers go with attacks that have been around and proven to be non-problem customers. We are much harder on new customers that cause attacks within the first week or so.

We have also let many customers that have been around for a while just pay the $10/mo and not the setup fee. We did give the first 2 months at free setup when the system was in place.

When it comes to minor attacks, most of the time we don’t even bother doing anything as they eventually go away on their own.

We are very fair in what we do here. If we wanted to, when any little attack happens we can just pull servers and try to collect money. But that will get us nowhere and just create angry customers.

We do not nickel and dime customers, we just want to provide a quality service with as little downtime as possible. The techs at EZZI don’t make any extra money by trying to collect an extra $10 here or there. The techs goal each day is to make customers happy and get through the day with the least amount of problems.

When we have to pull servers and do reformats it gives the techs more work, if we can get around that so the customer does not have to start from scratch, everyone is happy. We would rather get that server up as fast as possible, then to have if down and have angry customers waiting for their servers to be up. We understand customers aren’t always the fault of an attack, so we do try to work with them as much as we can.

To us this seems to be fair and all the customers I have dealt with are very happy with our service.

Originally posted by Joshua
So why do you charge them $50 setup and $10/month, when I can get it for $0 setup, $10/month on a new server?This really should only surprise the customers who signup and not read the fine print.If by fine print, you mean the TOS and AUP, Ezzi has no mention of dDos protection or fines anywhere in those. They have a $150 fee for breaking the TOS, but there's nothing in the TOS that mentions anything about dDos attacks.


We charge $50 setup if you do not take the protection when you buy the server. This is to try to push people to buy it when they sign up.

We need to make back the money we spent, the firewalls werent free. Our network is much more stable then it used to be and we have had great uptime this year. With a better and more stable network, we feel it is ok to charge an extra $10 for the protection. The more money we make the more we can spend to keep upgrading the network. But again, we do not force anyone to buy it.

As far as fine print or us hiding what we charge for causing an attack on the network, it is pretty clear on the web pages that describe the firewall solutions. This information is also in our FAQs.

dDoS protection info is here with the price of the fine - http://www.ezzi.net/home/solutions/index.cfm?do=Dedicated&Addon=dDoS

All firewall solutions can be found on the bottom of the homepage.

Causing an attack on our network is breaking our TOS, so there is a fine of $150. We do not try to hide the fact of what we charge for an attack on the network.

But again, like I said in my last post, we are very fair in the steps we take when it comes to taking down a customers machine. It isnt something we enjoy doing.

Joshua,

You missed my point slightly, but I do see the point you are getting at as well :)

My point was we(in the general sense) as customers have the choice of doing business with any company, likewise as a company Ezzi has the choice to have whatever policy they see fit. You and I cannot judge or criticize Ezzi because our respective companies might have some policy or rule that others may not like or see as fair, but again that is our companies policy. Sure having a policy like that may scare away customers, but that is the risk you take when you implement certain policies.

Hope you understand a little better what I meant, and I do see you point as well :)

Derrick

Originally posted by ispclub.com
Causing an attack on our network is breaking our TOS, so there is a fine of $150. We do not try to hide the fact of what we charge for an attack on the network. I do not see anything in your TOS located at http://www.ezzi.net/home/company/index.cfm?do=TOS that mentions that incoming dDos attacks break your TOS. All that I see in terms of network violations is "Attempting to interfere with service to any Subscriber(s), host or network, including but not limited to “flooding”, “mail bombing”, spoofing” or “crashing”.". To me, an incoming dDos doesn't fit under the definition of "attempting to interfere with service to any subscirber" except for the box being attacked. As for "flooding", that would mean flooding the network from traffic going out of the server, not in. They're not the ones causing the attack. If you're going to charge (or make people purchase the protection after they've been attacked) people for being attacked, you might want to back it up a bit stronger in your TOS.

-Josh

I agree.. That's kind of shoddy and should be a feature supported by the ISP anyhow..

ispclub.com, if a customer is under a dDOS attack, he is already a victim. Isn't this fine policy going to add to this suffering?

Originally posted by Arsalan
ispclub.com, if a customer is under a dDOS attack, he is already a victim. Isn't this fine policy going to add to this suffering?

Yes the customer that got attacked or hacked is a victim and so are we and all the customers that got affected. We cannot have one customer causing problems on our network and affecting other customers. If we have one problem customer that keeps causing issues then we will terminate their account. One customer is not worth hurting the business of other customers.

We do not force anyone to pay the fine. They can just buy the service for $10/mo. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a complete firewall and dDoS protection solution from Netscreen.

Since this costs us money, we need to make the money back. If you do not want to buy the service that is fine, but if you cause problems on the network you will have the choice, either pay the fine or buy the dDoS protection with a setup fee attached to it.

Our customers are very happy with what we have done to the network since we implemented a lot more features and even brought in a new core network team. The network is more stable, uptime is better, and attacks have decreased.

If you are a customer and your server keeps having lag or is down because another server is being attacked, wouldnt you want us to do something about it? Wouldnt you want us to make sure the attacks stop and do our best that is doesn’t happen again?

The way we setup our policy is the way we have made sure attacks have decreased on the network. We setup a complete solution to protect our network, and as a result it has worked out very well and this year our core network has been up 100%.

If you are going to be a problem customer causing attacks and causing issues for other customers then we do not want you on our network. That right there is what all of our customers like to hear.

Like I said in my last post, we are very fair and if a customer has proven to be a non-problem customer then we are pretty lenient. We are very tough when we have a new customer that causes problems.

Well heres my point. I never was made aware of any change in the TOS. When I signed on as a reseller the TOS had no mention of their DDOS protection software because it wasnt implemented.

In defense of EZZI, they have worked with me thru a number of problems there. And that letter was more or less an automated thing I think.

Heres a valid point tho - if your going to do it that way. EX: charge people $50 extra if they dont get it at setup. Then just raise your prices $10 and include it with the server. That way you can advertise your servers as including the ddos protection. It looks like your servers have "added value" that no one else does , or that everyone else is charging for. Plus you eliminate the 'pissed off customer' factor later saving yourself support time.

Originally posted by vriley
Well heres my point. I never was made aware of any change in the TOS. When I signed on as a reseller the TOS had no mention of their DDOS protection software because it wasnt implemented.

In defense of EZZI, they have worked with me thru a number of problems there. And that letter was more or less an automated thing I think.

Heres a valid point tho - if your going to do it that way. EX: charge people $50 extra if they dont get it at setup. Then just raise your prices $10 and include it with the server. That way you can advertise your servers as including the ddos protection. It looks like your servers have "added value" that no one else does , or that everyone else is charging for. Plus you eliminate the 'pissed off customer' factor later saving yourself support time.


We were actually looking to add a section of servers called "fully secured servers" or something like that and give a discount on the firewall services.

Our goal as a dedicated server provider is to keep our base pricing low, instead of raising our pricing when we upgrade or add solutions. Yes we would make more money right off the top if we raised our pricing... but that isnt our business model. Maybe we will in the future but right now we dont want to do that.

I am sure there are many customers that are happy with our competitive pricing. :)

We do try to put all info on the site and make it easy to find on what we charge for everything, but no matter how clear things are we all know that everyone does not read the TOS, and wont read every page on our website to see what information they are missing.

I have passed along the information posted by Joshua about making our TOS more clear on what a flood is.

I do appreciate the comments and we will do what we have to so situations like this do not come up again.

But we all know, no matter how clear and informative we make things... there will always be some that miss it. But those are things you need to deal with on a case by case basis.

Well it looks like you have lost a customer, i will be getting rid of my reseller account now.

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
Well it looks like you have lost a customer, i will be getting rid of my reseller account now.

Just curious, what would make you want to leave?

Originally posted by ispclub.com
Just curious, what would make you want to leave?

I dont like the idea of having to pay for ddos attacks. Coming from an administrator point of view, you cannot secure a server 100% so there is always possible to get hacked, exploits are found all the time You can only increase security. Onside note, many people get ddos, its just something that happens, and here you are charging them for something they cant control. I just dont like the bussiness ethics going on here.

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
I dont like the idea of having to pay for ddos attacks. Coming from an administrator point of view, you cannot secure a server 100% so there is always possible to get hacked, exploits are found all the time You can only increase security. Onside note, many people get ddos, its just something that happens, and here you are charging them for something they cant control. I just dont like the bussiness ethics going on here.


We spent a lot of money on protecting the network, and it has worked out for us as we have had great uptime this year.

Please let me know what you would rather us do.

Spend two hundred thousand and not try to make the money back and then risk having money problems in the company?

Spend the money on making the network more secure and then force customers to pay for the solution?

Or just not get the solution at all and have dDoS problems frequently, like we ran into last year before we did this?


I heard that Servermatrix charges $50/mo and we are only charging $10/mo... I could be wrong about their pricing... that is last I heard.

EV1 has bumped up their prices across the board to afford their network.


Again, please let me know where we went wrong this and what you as a customer would rather see from us... thanks

Servermatrix does not fine you if you get ddos, you do. EV1 just unplugs the server. The second i got fined 150 bucks i would charge back and tell you bye bye, i wouldnt even bother for the 10 bucks for ddos protection.

ServerMatrix charges $10/month for 8 IPs for their FloodGuard service, which I've heard isn't the best at actually keeping servers online during attacks. The difference here, is that SM doesn't charge $150 or force a customer to spend $50 setup and $10/month to avoid the $150 fee if the customer is attacked. They charge extra if a site wants to add FloodGuard in the middle of an attack, but by no means does the customer have to fork over any more money because they were the target of an attack.

-Josh

Originally posted by Joshua
ServerMatrix charges $10/month for 8 IPs for their FloodGuard service, which I've heard isn't the best at actually keeping servers online during attacks. The difference here, is that SM doesn't charge $150 or force a customer to spend $50 setup and $10/month to avoid the $150 fee if the customer is attacked. They charge extra if a site wants to add FloodGuard in the middle of an attack, but by no means does the customer have to fork over any more money because they were the target of an attack.

-Josh

Exactly.

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
Servermatrix does not fine you if you get ddos, you do. EV1 just unplugs the server. The second i got fined 150 bucks i would charge back and tell you bye bye, i wouldnt even bother for the 10 bucks for ddos protection.


We dont fine anyone if they buy the service.

After EV1 unplugs you then what?

Please let me know as a customer what you would want to see from us.

We never just charge anyone, you have to agree to it... There is no point to just charge customers credit cards without their permission.... that is why it is very rare we see charge backs.

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
Servermatrix does not fine you if you get ddos, you do. EV1 just unplugs the server. The second i got fined 150 bucks i would charge back and tell you bye bye, i wouldnt even bother for the 10 bucks for ddos protection. EV1 just put some new protection into place - http://forums.ev1servers.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46685 .

- Matt

Originally posted by Joshua
ServerMatrix charges $10/month for 8 IPs for their FloodGuard service, which I've heard isn't the best at actually keeping servers online during attacks. The difference here, is that SM doesn't charge $150 or force a customer to spend $50 setup and $10/month to avoid the $150 fee if the customer is attacked. They charge extra if a site wants to add FloodGuard in the middle of an attack, but by no means does the customer have to fork over any more money because they were the target of an attack.

-Josh


So basically the only difference really is the fact we charge the extra $50 setup if someone wants the flood protection after they get the server? Both Servermatrix and us charge $10/mo right?

Besides the fining part of course.

Server matrix does NOT require you to buy anything you do, thats what i dont like.

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
Server matrix does NOT require you to buy anything you do, thats what i dont like.


Ok I see, thanks for the info... I will pass this information along and see what we can do on our policy and try to make as many people as we can happy... thanks

I had some servers from wholesaleinternet and was getting ddos they never charged me, helped me to solve these problems.

you guys should do this i think.

Someone is dossing me, what can I do as I newbie in server/network security? nothing.. but wholesaleinternet were really kind.

Hi ispclub as a customer(reseller) of ezzi i would want ezzi to add this services as a default included with the server, you can either add the 10$ into the servers price so its included, so basicly every server will have the ddos protection etc BECAUSE the 150$ fine scares every client away!!!!!!

EV1 offer this for free for every new server and i guess old ones also

quote from EV1 FORUM:
Fireslayer is currently offered at no cost to all customers. This should not change in the immediate future. There is no need to register for this service. All IPs on all servers at both data centers are protected (and have been for the past few months). You will be notified if your server's traffic is being filtered, complete with graphs depicting the attack metrics over time.


Thank you,

Originally posted by activeforce
Hi ispclub as a customer(reseller) of ezzi i would want ezzi to add this services as a default included with the server, you can either add the 10$ into the servers price so its included, so basicly every server will have the ddos protection etc BECAUSE the 150$ fine scares every client away!!!!!!

EV1 offer this for free for every new server and i guess old ones also

quote from EV1 FORUM:
Fireslayer is currently offered at no cost to all customers. This should not change in the immediate future. There is no need to register for this service. All IPs on all servers at both data centers are protected (and have been for the past few months). You will be notified if your server's traffic is being filtered, complete with graphs depicting the attack metrics over time.


Thank you,


Thank you for the input, I am going to work on this and see what I can do and get back to you guys... hopefully I can push this and get it done by tomorrow or the next day.

It isnt really fair to say give it for free comparing us to EV1 as their pricing is much higher. Their P4-2.4GHz is $149/mo and our P4-2.8Ghz is $89/mo.

Originally posted by ispclub.com
Thank you for the input, I am going to work on this and see what I can do and get back to you guys... hopefully I can push this and get it done by tomorrow or the next day.

It isnt really fair to say give it for free comparing us to EV1 as their pricing is much higher. Their P4-2.4GHz is $149/mo and our P4-2.8Ghz is $89/mo.

correct you should add the services into the server price,
eg: 89$+ the 10$ for ddos which makes every new client protect and will be good for the network also ;)

Originally posted by Shoey
I had some servers from wholesaleinternet and was getting ddos they never charged me, helped me to solve these problems.

you guys should do this i think.

Someone is dossing me, what can I do as I newbie in server/network security? nothing.. but wholesaleinternet were really kind.


The thing with us is if you buy the protection, the server may not get attacked, that is the service we provide. Of course if your server is under attack, we are going to help... that is what we are here for. We are not going to just ignore your problem.

We have a solution that will stop the attacks and also stop hackers from getting into your server. Is it full proof? No, but we have had great success with it.

Originally posted by activeforce
correct you should add the services into the server price,
eg: 89$+ the 10$ for ddos which makes every new client protect and will be good for the network also ;)


Will post here once I find out what we can do and get everyones input on this... thanks a lot.

<i>Servermatrix does not fine you if you get ddos, you do.</i>

What happens to other servers on the network if one server get DoS? Is there some sort of pretection there?

Anyway. One good thing about this thread is that Ezzi do seem reasonably responsive.

Ezzi should just raise its prices by $10 and provide the service free of charge. You don't have to be the cheapest to get business, you just need to separate yourself from the rest of the pack. The netscreen DDOS product seems to be working well, why not run with it. The people that are looking for $79 servers are probably the ones getting the DDOS attacks anyway. The $150 fine shows that Ezzi wants to sell this service to everyone, the just need to "encourage" those who don't see the need.

EV1 obviously raised its prices, and I don't think they skipped a beat when it comes to the volume of buiness they do. In such a competitive market, its easy to forget that weather its $129 or 149, EV1 provides and excellent value for what your get.

Let the $79 folks go to Managed and let them deal with the headaches.

Originally posted by DoubleD
Ezzi should just raise its prices by $10 and provide the service free of charge. You don't have to be the cheapest to get business, you just need to separate yourself from the rest of the pack. The netscreen DDOS product seems to be working well, why not run with it. The people that are looking for $79 servers are probably the ones getting the DDOS attacks anyway. The $150 fine shows that Ezzi wants to sell this service to everyone, the just need to "encourage" those who don't see the need.

EV1 obviously raised its prices, and I don't think they skipped a beat when it comes to the volume of buiness they do. In such a competitive market, its easy to forget that weather its $129 or 149, EV1 provides and excellent value for what your get.

Let the $79 folks go to Managed and let them deal with the headaches.


Well said.

Originally posted by DoubleD
Ezzi should just raise its prices by $10 and provide the service free of charge. You don't have to be the cheapest to get business, you just need to separate yourself from the rest of the pack. The netscreen DDOS product seems to be working well, why not run with it. The people that are looking for $79 servers are probably the ones getting the DDOS attacks anyway. The $150 fine shows that Ezzi wants to sell this service to everyone, the just need to "encourage" those who don't see the need.

EV1 obviously raised its prices, and I don't think they skipped a beat when it comes to the volume of buiness they do. In such a competitive market, its easy to forget that weather its $129 or 149, EV1 provides and excellent value for what your get.

Let the $79 folks go to Managed and let them deal with the headaches.


Thank you for the input, makes a lot of sense if you ask me.

Originally posted by jasjbow

Anyway. One good thing about this thread is that Ezzi do seem reasonably responsive.

We try to listen to our customers to get input from them as it is in our best interest to keep our customers happy and potential customers interested in our service.

If it takes changing a policy or whatnot, then that is what needs to be done. I have nothing to lose in listening to what our customers want from us and try to make it happen, only to gain.

i place a bet of 150$ that if the thread-started would refuse to pay the 150$ fine, ezzi would have no chance to win that case in front of court.
its correct that the info is somewhere on the site, but somewhat unclear and hidden that no judge will approve that.

and this rule would scare me off too, if i would be a reseller of ezzi.
but signing up at a reseller of ezzi is ok, since than that reseller has that pain with that rule ;)

funnily in todays email was a logrotate report showing me that yesterday someone tryed to hack into my account on ezzi server.
the point is, that account i have only for development of a new software, it is not public, there is no domainname assigned to it.
so the attaker came to me over the IP.
looks for me that someone has fun playing around on the ezzi-ip-range

Originally posted by alexmue
i place a bet of 150$ that if the thread-started would refuse to pay the 150$ fine, ezzi would have no chance to win that case in front of court.
its correct that the info is somewhere on the site, but somewhat unclear and hidden that no judge will approve that.

and this rule would scare me off too, if i would be a reseller of ezzi.
but signing up at a reseller of ezzi is ok, since than that reseller has that pain with that rule ;)

funnily in todays email was a logrotate report showing me that yesterday someone tryed to hack into my account on ezzi server.
the point is, that account i have only for development of a new software, it is not public, there is no domainname assigned to it.
so the attaker came to me over the IP.
looks for me that someone has fun playing around on the ezzi-ip-range

You are aware there are self spreading worms, such as phatbot, rbot, rxbot that picks random ranges right?

Originally posted by alexmue
i place a bet of 150$ that if the thread-started would refuse to pay the 150$ fine, ezzi would have no chance to win that case in front of court.
its correct that the info is somewhere on the site, but somewhat unclear and hidden that no judge will approve that.

and this rule would scare me off too, if i would be a reseller of ezzi.
but signing up at a reseller of ezzi is ok, since than that reseller has that pain with that rule ;)

funnily in todays email was a logrotate report showing me that yesterday someone tryed to hack into my account on ezzi server.
the point is, that account i have only for development of a new software, it is not public, there is no domainname assigned to it.
so the attaker came to me over the IP.
looks for me that someone has fun playing around on the ezzi-ip-range



It is very rare that we force anyone to pay the fine. We made a deal with the thread starter and he is happy. Like I have said, we are very fair in everything we do.

The thread starter was asked to contact me on his server, but he decided to come to WHT first. Things are fine now.

When it comes to trying to hack a server and looking for vulnerabilities, like thelinuxguy said, there are many programs that do that for you.

This firewall protection actually looks for that type of IP or port scanning and blocks it - Please do not link to your site.

Originally posted by ispclub.com
We try to listen to our customers to get input from them as it is in our best interest to keep our customers happy and potential customers interested in our service

I am glad to see you making dialog about it. But I still get the sense you don't see the problem with this "fine". Surely you can see where the customers would see this as taking advantage of a victim?

Let's say lightning strikes my house and it burns to the ground. The fire department came and put it out but most everything is ruined by the fire/water/smoke. It's like the fire department charging me for the water they used to try and put out my house fire before they leave the scene. Was I responsible for the fire? no. Am I a victim? yes. Should I have to pay for the water? according to you, yes. ;)

Originally posted by Webtiva
I am glad to see you making dialog about it. But I still get the sense you don't see the problem with this "fine". Surely you can see where the customers would see this as taking advantage of a victim?

Let's say lightning strikes my house and it burns to the ground. The fire department came and put it out but most everything is ruined by the fire/water/smoke. It's like the fire department charging me for the water they used to try and put out my house fire before they leave the scene. Was I responsible for the fire? no. Am I a victim? yes. Should I have to pay for the water? according to you, yes. ;)


Dont really see the comparison as we do allow customers to just buy the protection and not pay the fine...

Its more like you dont have to buy insurance and you opted not to get it... you get hurt and sit in the hosptial and now have big bills to pay... but the insurance company isnt going to let you buy insurance now... but in our case after the damage is done we allow you to buy the dDoS protection.

Not looking to get into analogy wars... but I do see what people are saying and that is why I am going to work on what we can do. It isnt my decision, I just help enforce company policy.

Originally posted by ispclub.com
Not looking to get into analogy wars... but I do see what people are saying and that is why I am going to work on what we can do. It isnt my decision, I just help enforce company policy.

I do see your point. Maybe it's just the fact that you keep referring to it as a "penalty" and a "fine" and they "cause disruption to the network" when all they might be doing is throwing a server onto the internet to host some pages...

DDoS attacks are expensive for a network to defend. The costs associated should be the responsibility of the end-user. But perhaps EZZI could clarify its policies.

DDoS attacks are expensive for a network to defend. The costs associated should be the responsibility of the end-user. But perhaps EZZI could clarify its policies.

Wouldn't the world be better if everything was like this? I mean it would be so effective if citizens would take care of crime themselves [/sarcasm]

We have been with EZZI for almost 2 years now, and having almost 40 servers hosted with them, we were probably one of the first to complain last year when the continual DDoS attacks were flowing in, on sometimes a daily basis.

They listened to us, knew there was a problem there, and spent literally millions on upgrading their core network, including new switches and routers, and the new Netscreen (now Junipers) firewall services.

I haven nothing but praise for what Phil and his team have done, our uptime was respectable before the introduction of the new equipment, but now all of our customers are impressed with our increased uptimes, and we have had a 50% increase in sales. We do not do any advertising at all, we make all of our new sales via wod of mouth (and a few plugs in WHT), simply because our great network and offerings. Since the new services were added, we have not had a single issue with the EZZI network, apart from a few issues tht were on our end, and they were always fast to help us resolve.

To be honest, we probably would have left EZZI if they hadnt of introduced the new firewall solution, but now i can tell you i would not go anywhere else.

We pay the $10 per month Fee on "ALL" of our boxes, and while it is a bit of a charge, we definatelly believe it is worth paying it.

If your complaining that they are trying to sell you their product, we'll maybe you should buy it? It will save you the $150 fee for being attacked.

Other ISP's would probably just cancel your account, or null route your IP, making your box useless if you came under attack.

Originally posted by Webtiva
I am glad to see you making dialog about it. But I still get the sense you don't see the problem with this "fine". Surely you can see where the customers would see this as taking advantage of a victim?

Let's say lightning strikes my house and it burns to the ground. The fire department came and put it out but most everything is ruined by the fire/water/smoke. It's like the fire department charging me for the water they used to try and put out my house fire before they leave the scene. Was I responsible for the fire? no. Am I a victim? yes. Should I have to pay for the water? according to you, yes. ;)

Let's take a look at this from a different point of view...

Do you have car insurance? If I'm not mistaken, most states require it under law and will fine you if you do not have it.... I know for a fact that NC and VA both do because at one time in my life I had to pay each state a fine for not having current auto-insurance when I got in an accident.. and they weren't even my fault! The other driver was charged in both instances but I was also charged and fined for no insurance because it had lapsed by 5 days (15 days in one instance).

Same principle here. Ezzi is requiring dDoS "insurance" at a rate of $10 per month and if you do not have it and you "get in a wreck" (get dDoS'ed) and you don't have the "insurance" that is required, you get fined. If you do have it then you are covered (with no deductible even!!)

Even though I completely understand the "innocent victim" point and do agree that most victims of dDoS attacks had nothing to do with causing it, this policy Makes perfect sense to me. It's insurance and serves two purposes. One is to keep your servers online in the event of an attack (rental car insurance) and the other is to protect you from the costs associated with the attack (repair costs). See my point?

(oh.. and technically, you DO pay for the water and firefighters labor, equipment, etc because all fire departments are at least partially funded by taxes... which comes from property taxes on your house, car etc and the E-911 tax on your phone line and even privately owned and operated rural volunteer departments get tax money to help them operate.. so while you don't pay when it happens, you still pay for it and if you want to get technical, you are paying for it and may never use or need it so that could easily be considered a penalty or fine as well! I know.. I'm a volunteer firefighter and former county government employee at the E-911 and emergency management level. ;) )

I don't see why someone would not pay the $10 for DDoS protection. One of my servers at Ezzi got hammered with a rather large DDoS attack. While the attack was wailing away, Ezzi was able to track down the attack and actually block it.

It saved my butt (and my server :) ).

Originally posted by Two-A-T
Let's take a look at this from a different point of view...

Do you have car insurance? If I'm not mistaken, most states require it under law and will fine you if you do not have it.... I know for a fact that NC and VA both do because at one time in my life I had to pay each state a fine for not having current auto-insurance when I got in an accident.. and they weren't even my fault! The other driver was charged in both instances but I was also charged and fined for no insurance because it had lapsed by 5 days (15 days in one instance).

Same principle here.

no this has nothing to do with this here.
when you violate a law thats good that you get fined. and its prety criminal to drive around without insurence.

and that car-insurence is to protect YOUR victims (people which YOU damage with your car).

but the ezzi custumer did not damaged anybody, vice verca, he got damaged.

the ezzi fee only depends only on the action of a third person.
so its not even a tos-violation.
since to tos can only violated by one of the contractors (ezzi and customer) but not by a third person.
the customer did nothing. and it is impossible to violate a tos by doing nothing.

I am no customer of Ezzi but a big plus for them is their responsiveness in this thread....

Originally posted by ispclub.com
We dont fine anyone if they buy the service.

ispclub.com, I see where you've already mentioned you would re-evaluate this policy. Good. I would cancel any service upon being informed I would be fined for failing to upgrade my account! Looking past keeping your customers happy, this sort of thing violates anti-trust law, too. It's good that you invested in a nice anti-DOS system, but if the cost exceeds your revenue model, you need to increase prices with an explanation, as opposed to extorting customers after the fact. Instead of raising your rates $10/month across the board, those who fail to voluntarily pay more could be subject to a $150 fine? Sorry for the harsh words, like extortion, but I do mean well.

lets see how this turns up.

ispclub.com, do let us know what your company finalizes about this.

Originally posted by ispclub.com
The thing with us is if you buy the protection, the server may not get attacked, that is the service we provide. Of course if your server is under attack, we are going to help... that is what we are here for. We are not going to just ignore your problem.

We have a solution that will stop the attacks and also stop hackers from getting into your server. Is it full proof? No, but we have had great success with it.

hmmm, good.. thanks for the answer!

Originally posted by Two-A-T
Do you have car insurance? Same principle here. Ezzi is requiring dDoS "insurance" at a rate of $10 per month and if you do not have it and you "get in a wreck" (get dDoS'ed) and you don't have the "insurance" that is required, you get fined. If you do have it then you are covered (with no deductible even!!)

Firstly, charging $10/mo for ddos insurance is fine. I don't have a problem with it. I think the difference to me is that in an auto accident there are two victims - hence the term "accident". A ddos has one victim and an attacker. Insurance is to cover and "accident". There aren't people roaming the streets looking for someone to hit, as there are attackers on the net. And you don't pay a "you crashed your car" fee after an accident. Although you can argue that your insurance will go up, I know.. it's not the greatest analogy... :)

Even though I completely understand the "innocent victim" point and do agree that most victims of dDoS attacks had nothing to do with causing it, this policy Makes perfect sense to me. It's insurance and serves two purposes. One is to keep your servers online in the event of an attack (rental car insurance) and the other is to protect you from the costs associated with the attack (repair costs). See my point?

Of course I understand the idea behind it. It's great they go the extra mile to reduce attacks. I have no problem with $10/mo extra for protection. My issue with it is the wording of the policy regarding the $150 fee. It's a fee for being attacked. Something you have no control over. To me it seems wrong. But it's their policy, I was just voicing my opinion on how it makes them look to me.

(oh.. and technically, you DO pay for the water and firefighters labor, equipment, etc because all fire departments are at least partially funded by taxes... which comes from property taxes on your house, car etc and the E-911 tax on your phone line and even privately owned and operated rural volunteer departments get tax money to help them operate.. so while you don't pay when it happens, you still pay for it and if you want to get technical, you are paying for it and may never use or need it so that could easily be considered a penalty or fine as well! I know.. I'm a volunteer firefighter and former county government employee at the E-911 and emergency management level. ;) )

Did you hear the woosh as the point went flying over your head? ;)

Of course I know these things are paid for! Lol! What I was saying is they don't come to you after the fire and charge you a "you had a fire" fee to help cover the costs of fighting it.

Originally posted by BigBison
ispclub.com, I see where you've already mentioned you would re-evaluate this policy. Good. I would cancel any service upon being informed I would be fined for failing to upgrade my account! Looking past keeping your customers happy, this sort of thing violates anti-trust law, too. It's good that you invested in a nice anti-DOS system, but if the cost exceeds your revenue model, you need to increase prices with an explanation, as opposed to extorting customers after the fact. Instead of raising your rates $10/month across the board, those who fail to voluntarily pay more could be subject to a $150 fine? Sorry for the harsh words, like extortion, but I do mean well.


Extortion is a pretty big word, and I dont see how that can possibly be used here.

We are upfront with everything we do, we have the information of costs and fines and whatnot on our website where we describe the firewall and dos solutions, we have the information in our FAQs as well.

Basically what we do is this, if someone doesnt have the dos protection and your server happens to get hacked and cause an attack or someone attacks your server, all we do is make you buy the protection at that time.

We arent out to screw anyone out of their money, we are upfront about it all. We have many people jumping on the dos protection and our very happy with it the way we have set things up. A company will never make every single person happy with they way they do things.

From this thread, it looks like most are saying well just bump up pricing and include the service. We just always thought we would give the customer the opportunity to order it, not force them. We would rather force them when it becomes a problem, but it sounds like some would rather be forced to buy it upfront, not later when they need it.

Originally posted by Webtiva

Of course I understand the idea behind it. It's great they go the extra mile to reduce attacks. I have no problem with $10/mo extra for protection. My issue with it is the wording of the policy regarding the $150 fee. It's a fee for being attacked. Something you have no control over. To me it seems wrong. But it's their policy, I was just voicing my opinion on how it makes them look to me.



I think everyone is getting confused and thinking we charge every customer who gets an attack a $150 fine. I know I personally havent charged one customer that fine and we arent looking to charge fines just get people to buy the dos protection.

So basically the way it works is, if you dont buy the dos protection upfront and you have a problem with a dos attack, you buy it later. That is basically it.

If we just got rid of the whole fine (since we really dont do it anyway) and just forced people to buy the dos protection if they have a dos attack, would that be what people are looking for?

Originally posted by ispclub.com
I think everyone is getting confused and thinking we charge every customer who gets an attack a $150 fine

Is this the actual wording of the email sent to Vernon (thread starter) when a ddos was launched against him?

There is a $150 Fine for being attacked on our network, this is waived by signing up for DDoS protection services at a cost of $50 1 time and $10/monthly.

If so, I'm not confused. I know you say you don't actually charge for it, and that's great. But I would be insulted (and prob cancel) if I got an email like this right after being attacked just because emotions would be running high and probably having lost customers as a result, etc... Certainly not trying to tell you how to inform your customers of policy and services, but that's not the way. ;)

If it was me I would word it as

We regret to inform you that your Ezzi Server, (Main IP xx.xx.xx.xx) came under attack this afternoon as shown in part by the log clip below. The server has been taken offline.

We want to resolve this issue and work with you to prevent this from happening in the future. We do offer a protection against ddos attacks that can possibly help to keep your server up during events such as these. For $10/month you can subscribe to this service and be protected against such attacks in the future. If you would like to purchase this service you can sign up here...

and if it's a continuing problem, put in a line like "We strongly suggest you subscribe to this service, as this is an ongoing problem and must be addressed."

By the way, it's not DDOS "insurance" for $10/month, it's DDOS protection. They're not just charging you extra because you were attacked, they're charging extra to put on DDOS protection. I don't think it's necessary after just one small attack, but if a server is attacked 2 or more times, then I think they should be required to get the $10/month protection.

- Matt

This is my 2 cents.

I actively sell Netscreen and Cisco Firewall and security products. The price of implementing a Netscreen solution is cheaper than a cisco solution and as such most of my clients tend to choose netscreen over cisco. Deploying Netscreen or any other hardware firewall/IDS/DDOS blocking hardware at a datacenter level is a huge undertaking and requires alot of capital. EZZI obviously is not going tp provide the service for free. Like everything else it is a Value added feature. You can pay $10 bucks a month and get verry minimal to no damage/downtime at all due do DDos and Dos attacks. That to me is worth it. I have a number of dedicateds spread across the country and all in all DDOS attacks are going to continue. Datacenters that have inadequate methods of dealing with them are well known to have the wort reviews here ( Not naming any names) I have one new sever at ezzi no problems since we have had it. One inbound DDOS that was stoped/blocked within 5 min. Ezzi and every other datacenter company has to keep techs on staff for support issues.
If all the techs were dealing with a DDOS attack that could have been prevented or minimized my belief is someone has to pay. Eventhough it's not insurance it's protection. But just like insurance if your house was flooded I'm sure you wouldn't want to pay for repairs to it or the people who built it. Plus it's a simple solution with hardware DDOS/DOS protection you have one less thing to stress out about if your server is not managed for you.

Originally posted by ispclub.com
Extortion is a pretty big word, and I dont see how that can possibly be used here.

With my tongue in my cheek. What I'm saying is, if one of my hosts implemented such a policy, that's how I would interpret it on my way out. If you lose customers because you increase prices to implement a solution to a problem, so be it... this will make room for the new customers who sign up specifically because you're marketing the high-end solution you've implemented. You stop giving your customers a choice when you impose a fine for choosing wrong. Your upgrade is done - bravo, btw - the negative publicity from the current policy IMHO outweighs the business you'll (temporarily) lose from a price hike, which can be overcome by shifting your marketing focus to account for the increased prices the upgrade has mandated.

There's nothing wrong with 'Value-Added Features'. However, if a customer doesn't opt for one, they shouldn't be subject to a (possible) fine, or a forced upsell. I'm wearing my 'general consumer advocacy' hat here.

Originally posted by ispclub.com
If we just got rid of the whole fine (since we really dont do it anyway) and just forced people to buy the dos protection if they have a dos attack, would that be what people are looking for?

If I were your customer, I would upgrade to avoid the fine, and keep my mouth shut while shopping for a new host. It wouldn't sit right. Informing me that your rates will go up in 3 months by x amount because of upgrade y, will sit right even if I can't afford it - good to know before the crisis as webtiva mentioned - even if I move on, I'd still recommend you and perhaps come back in a year - or after my next DDOS attack.

Originally posted by mainarea
Does ezzi's TOS or AUP state that you must pay $150 if you're attacked? If not, you have no obligation to pay it or get the DDOS protection for your server. Oh, and why do they tack on a $50 setup fee for control panels and firewalls/VLANS/netscreen service once your server is online (but it's $0 setup if you sign up with the service when you order your server)? Doesn't make sense to me, especially since most of their servers can come with $0 seutp.

- Matt

Why not just give ddos protection free with all your servers like a host should do and not nickle and dime people for extra services? I mean protecting "YOUR" servers benefits you and your other customers as well, downtime due to ddos can hurt more then one customer and make your company lose sales. If you allow irc services on your network to satrt with then your asking to be attacked, I know, I used to own and run CyNet IRC Network for 5+ years.

Well let me start with I got one of the loball 89 dollar servers from Ezzi to use as my test box (I have a cPanel dev license so I didnt purchase a license) and I cant be happier. I got the ting setup in under 8 hours after being told it was a 24-72hr setup time, gotta love that. Now I have approx 8 sites on there, all very low volume, just enough to let me do testing on the things that I develop or need to attempt to replicate.
Could I get a dDos attack on this box? I would be naive to say I couldnt, but there is nothing on there that should cause one due to content.
Now as I said this is a test box with no clients jsut some BS accounts so I can play. I dont have have the 10/m protection on it. Mainly because I dont make money from it, its my play toy, so why spend more $$ then I need to.
Now if I were hit by a random dDos (maybe this IP used to belong to someone that someone else hated) and they told me I had to upgrade or pay fee, I would be pissed. I mean what if it wasnt even directed at my but the old person. Now I can see a 1 time free be per 6 months (or hell year even). More than that the server needs additional protection for the rest of the network. But someone that gets hit once ever has to pay more money, I dunno bout that. That right there would really urk me off.

If I got hit with a DoS and they shut off my server, I would befine with it, as long as once the attack stopped they turned it back on. As I said though this is a test box, no biggy for me there. And if I got a second DoS attack, damn right I would get protection (well that and start kickin my own *** to see what I did to get DoSed twice.)

I think the big thing here is people feel they weren't notified well enough, becasue I also read your TOS and it says nothing of this, I did not read all of your added features to see penalties I would receive. I would expect this to be in a single document, the TOS as I believe everyone else also would.

But that is just my .02

Originally posted by ispclub.com
EZZI.net policy works like this on dDoS attacks:

If you buy dDoS protection for $10/mo then you will not get fined for causing an attack.

That is the most pathetic policy I have ever seen from a company. Who's to say he "caused" an attack? How can you sit here and accuse your client of fraudulent activity in a public forum?

Originally posted by ispclub.com
We cannot have one customer causing problems on our network and affecting other customers. If we have one problem customer that keeps causing issues then we will terminate their account.

How is he causing issues? He is not the one attacking the server. This thread just made up my mind about ezzi.net consideration, this is a complete joke.

Originally posted by Amdac
How is he causing issues? He is not the one attacking the server. This thread just made up my mind about ezzi.net consideration, this is a complete joke.

So you believe that if you signup for a dedicated server with an ISP, and get continuously DDoS'd that your ISP should allow you to continue service even though your most likely loosing them, and other customers money by being attacked?

I think not.

Its easy to critisize from the wrong side of the fence.

What would you say if your ISP kept going down because of another customer on the network who was getting DDoS'd ?

I'm sure you'd be included to be angry with your ISP for not letting giving that customer the boot... what differs from EZZI's polciy? It is simple, and it DOES work, i can vouch for it first hand.

Originally posted by Amdac
That is the most pathetic policy I have ever seen from a company. Who's to say he "caused" an attack? How can you sit here and accuse your client of fraudulent activity in a public forum?

Also, i noticed your with EV1.

If your box is DDoS'd badly, they will simply unplug your server, and if it happens often, they terminate your account without notice.

I used to be with EV1 a few years ago, and their practises are no different now.

Originally posted by oktagone
Also, i noticed your with EV1.

If your box is DDoS'd badly, they will simply unplug your server, and if it happens often, they terminate your account without notice.

I used to be with EV1 a few years ago, and their practises are no different now.

The server you just looked up are my personal sites, I only have 1 server with EV1 that I use for personal use. I understand what DoS attacks can do to a server. My above comments were regarding the fact that the policy stated is not in their TOS or AUP. That is what I find pathetic, that they can tack on additional charges without notifying the client before signing up, then coming here and accusing that client of "causing" the attacks.

so when you get robed a few times, according to your logic the country must ask you to leave the country because you are causing too much trouble for police and law enforcments autorities??

oh and yes the police must ask you to pay a fine of 150$ each time when you got robed, because its your fault when you leave the house without a bodyguard

This is how the game works for many server providers, not all.
And your comparision with robbery is not very good, a DDOS will not only impact the attacked server but also the network.

If (I am no customer of them), if Ezzi is one of the providers who are responsive and caring when a server get's attacked, cudos to them. But expect to pay for this.

ok, then lets change my example to :

you get shoot by a snipper. (this effects the whole 'network' because also people who standing beside you can get hit by the bullet after it exited your body.

so you would expect now that the police comes and takes 150$ out of your wallet as fine because you got shoot?

yo! nice!

if ezzi makes expenses for ddos-protection then it should just increase the pricces an all servers accordingly, and everybody pays its part for this protection.
but paying fines for beeing a victim is the most silliest thing i ever saw.

If it affects multiple servers then it seems like the attack isn't on the server as much as it is on the entire network. Would seem reasonable that an ISP should pay to protect their own network as a cost of doing business and add that to their costs.

Kindof bugs me that an ISP would interpret a server being attacked as being caused by the one who rents their server.

If it's $10 a server if it's voluntary, then I'm guessing the real amounts needed would be lower since they have more actual users that they can spread the technology around on.

Originally posted by MagiCat
If it affects multiple servers then it seems like the attack isn't on the server as much as it is on the entire network. Would seem reasonable that an ISP should pay to protect their own network as a cost of doing business and add that to their costs.

Kindof bugs me that an ISP would interpret a server being attacked as being caused by the one who rents their server.

Exactly. :gthumb:

Originally posted by alexmue
ok, then lets change my example to :

you get shoot by a snipper. (this effects the whole 'network' because also people who standing beside you can get hit by the bullet after it exited your body.

so you would expect now that the police comes and takes 150$ out of your wallet as fine because you got shoot?

yo! nice!

if ezzi makes expenses for ddos-protection then it should just increase the pricces an all servers accordingly, and everybody pays its part for this protection.
but paying fines for beeing a victim is the most silliest thing i ever saw.

Have you not read the last 4 pages of this thread?

Phil allready stated that the DDoS protection is optional, so if you dont get attacked, and choose not to have the protection, your saving $10 a month.

If you do get attacked, and you apply for the protection, you are paying an extra $10 a month - big deal, then it is included in your cost!

Why slug every customer $10 a month, when they make it optional, not everybody is going to get hit by a DDoS attack, so why should it be a $10 enforced fee for all customers?

I believe this is a very fair policy, and Amdac, the $150 fine policy *IS* on EZZI's website, if you signup for a dedicated server, it displays the Terms of Service, and the Firewall services, which explain the Fine costs if your server is attacked.

Originally posted by alexmue
ok, then lets change my example to :

you get shoot by a snipper. (this effects the whole 'network' because also people who standing beside you can get hit by the bullet after it exited your body.

so you would expect now that the police comes and takes 150$ out of your wallet as fine because you got shoot?

yo! nice!

if ezzi makes expenses for ddos-protection then it should just increase the pricces an all servers accordingly, and everybody pays its part for this protection.
but paying fines for beeing a victim is the most silliest thing i ever saw.


I take it you havent read this whole thread by posting this. We have said numerous times that we do not force anyone to pay the fine. We give them the opportunity to just add the dDoS protection.

So basically you would like us to just charge you the extra money instead of giving you the choice?

What we do if you do not buy it right away, you just have to buy it later when on when you have the attack? All we are really doing is saving you money by not forcing you to buy it when you sign up.

It also does say in our TOS that if you cause a flood on the network, that is breaking our TOS. Breaking our TOS, results in a $150 fine.

But agian, we arent interested in fining people, all we really want is them to buy the protection. Could we just raise our pricing, of course we can but we didnt because we want to give the best pricing we possible could.

This is why we are working on re-wording our TOS, which was also talked about in this thread so its more clear for people.

We arent going to be able to make everyone happy with our policy, no matter what we do. I am sure everyone has something they do not like about every dedicated server company.

But what I can tell you is that all of our customers are very happy that we went from having downtime last year to having great uptime this year. With what we have done in turning things around, doing a ton of upgrading, and now having protection on our network from dDoS attacks that are just getting worse as time goes on, our customers are happier than they have ever been.

The two main things about this thread ar:

People want us to get rid of the $150 fine, we dont charge the fine anyway, since no one opts to pay it, so that is easy to do.

People want us to just include dDoS protection it in base the price, we would rather give the choice whether you want to spend the extra month, so we are working on that one.

How can somebody break your TOS if they are on the RECEIVING END of an attack?
It's not about securing either, because if somebody just rams 100 Mbit/s of traffic over my IP, there is little that can be done..

read my other comments: it is impossible to brake the tos by doing nothing.
so this is not a tos violation.

this is much more big ********.

ddos-protection is a security of which all benefit.
like police is a security of which all benefit.

since everybody profits from police everybody must pay for it (over taxes)
this must be also with ddos-protection.

your system is:
"hey folks , you dont need to pay taxes, but when you did not pay tax and you get robbed or shooted, then police comes and collects $150 fine, or if you dont want to pay fine you can just start paying taxes"

crap.

police brings security to all,so all pay for it
ddos-protection brings security for all , so all pay for it.

beside that with your system, that you waive fine when someone opts-in in your 10$ plan, everybody who signs up for this plan from the beginning must be totally silly, since its pure moneywasting.
so for everybody planing to go to ezzi: DO NOT singn up the $10 ddos - protection, in case of ddos-attack you still get the option to opt-in to this afterwards, and as ispclub.com has declared here, 150$ gets waived anyway when youoptin afterwards. so definitely no need to sign up from beginning

Originally posted by thaphantom
Well let me start with I got one of the loball 89 dollar servers from Ezzi to use as my test box (I have a cPanel dev license so I didnt purchase a license) and I cant be happier. I got the ting setup in under 8 hours after being told it was a 24-72hr setup time, gotta love that. Now I have approx 8 sites on there, all very low volume, just enough to let me do testing on the things that I develop or need to attempt to replicate.
Could I get a dDos attack on this box? I would be naive to say I couldnt, but there is nothing on there that should cause one due to content.
Now as I said this is a test box with no clients jsut some BS accounts so I can play. I dont have have the 10/m protection on it. Mainly because I dont make money from it, its my play toy, so why spend more $$ then I need to.
Now if I were hit by a random dDos (maybe this IP used to belong to someone that someone else hated) and they told me I had to upgrade or pay fee, I would be pissed. I mean what if it wasnt even directed at my but the old person. Now I can see a 1 time free be per 6 months (or hell year even). More than that the server needs additional protection for the rest of the network. But someone that gets hit once ever has to pay more money, I dunno bout that. That right there would really urk me off.

If I got hit with a DoS and they shut off my server, I would befine with it, as long as once the attack stopped they turned it back on. As I said though this is a test box, no biggy for me there. And if I got a second DoS attack, damn right I would get protection (well that and start kickin my own *** to see what I did to get DoSed twice.)

I think the big thing here is people feel they weren't notified well enough, becasue I also read your TOS and it says nothing of this, I did not read all of your added features to see penalties I would receive. I would expect this to be in a single document, the TOS as I believe everyone else also would.

But that is just my .02


We do look into every situation where we would have to take down a server because of an attack. If you were attacked and weren’t protected we would just take down your server. Then we would say, here is what happened, do you know why. Most of the time there is some sort of proof of why the attack happened. The machine got hacked or something like some kid wasn’t happy cause he got fragged and wanted to take down the server.

In your case if we looked at the machine and you worked with us on seeing what happen, and we saw the machine was a test machine or whatnot. We would work with you and give you another chance. We had one customer for a year and never had a problem, then one day he got hit. So we gave him another chance, then got hit again, then gave him another chance then got hit a third time. Well after 3 times he even was like I don’t know, and we reformatted and everything was fine after that.

The TOS and other policies are there to protect the company. If we were that strict on forcing people to pay fines and were trying to nickel and dime customers don’t you think there would be a whole lot of threads about people complaining about us taking their money or unfair practices. We all know it doesn’t take much for someone to put a thread up and start bashing a company.

Not seeing threads like that us shows something. We have been on this forum for a long time and it’s very rare that you see someone saying we ripped them off and was unfair.

The money that the company makes doesn’t go into the techs pocket or my pocket. All we want is for our customers to be happy, so we work with everyone and are fair about it. The last thing I want to do is affect someone’s business. We are always trying to make sure we make the right decision, instead of living under the TOS and saying well there is nothing we can do about it.

The problem is people do not post good things as much as they post bad. But if we had the ability to have every customer that praises us via our live chat or sends an email saying good things about us, you would be very impressed.

I say this all the time, you cannot make everyone happy, but our customers who have been with us when we did have problems and stuck with us while we did the upgrades. Now, they are happier everyday that passes and love what we did.

Our customers are the most important thing to us and since they are happy with how we set everything up, we are happy. But we would like to see as many people as we can happy, that is why I am here trying to see how I can do that. I could easily say well that’s our TOS too bad, nothing we can do about it.

But I am taking extra time out and working with people in this thread to see what we can do.



thaphantom, if you arent happy with how we setup our policy, please let me know what you would change.

Originally posted by alexmue

beside that with your system, that you waive fine when someone opts-in in your 10$ plan, everybody who signs up for this plan from the beginning must be totally silly, since its pure moneywasting.
so for everybody planing to go to ezzi: DO NOT singn up the $10 ddos - protection, in case of ddos-attack you still get the option to opt-in to this afterwards, and as ispclub.com has declared here, 150$ gets waived anyway when youoptin afterwards. so definitely no need to sign up from beginning


That is fine if no one signs up with the dDoS protection, we want to keep our base pricing competitive. That was our whole point.

alexmue, please let me know how you what you would like us to change the policy if you arent happy with it. I am working now on seeing what we can do and how to make everyone happy on our policy on dDoS attacks. So, if you have time please let me know what you would like to see as I am gathering a bunch of ideas and going to take it to the decision makers.

Well actally overall I was stating I was happy. I think u should get 1 chance (ie a single DoS attack) and if u get a second within a year or so u require the DoS protection.

what comes next?

you reduce your price by an other 10$ and collect 150$ fine each time the diesel generator needs to be turned on caused of power failure???

all this (ddos-protection, diesel-generators, and so on) are all things which are most likly never used, but they let us sleep better since they bring security of uptime.
thats why these things are a benefit for ALL, so ALL should pay equal amount for it.

you should deside what you want to be?
either you got to be a quality host and offer these security stuff as quality and charge prices according to quality.
- or - you deside to beat the prices of managed.com by cutting out all security stuff, sell your diesel generators, sell your ddos- stuff, and just offer crap for low price.

but this 2 ways cant be mixed you need to decide what you want.
you can not offer security-items as addon. because security items are by deffinition a benifit for all and cant be splitted to single users.

Originally posted by alexmue
what comes next?

you reduce your price by an other 10$ and collect 150$ fine each time the diesel generator needs to be turned on caused of power failure???

all this (ddos-protection, diesel-generators, and so on) are all things which are most likly never used, but they let us sleep better since they bring security of uptime.
thats why these things are a benefit for ALL, so ALL should pay equal amount for it.

you should deside what you want to be?
either you got to be a quality host and offer these security stuff as quality and charge prices according to quality.
- or - you deside to beat the prices of managed.com by cutting out all security stuff, sell your diesel generators, sell your ddos- stuff, and just offer crap for low price.

but this 2 ways cant be mixed you need to decide what you want.
you can not offer security-items as addon. because security items are by deffinition a benifit for all and cant be splitted to single users.



Not sure where you are coming up with generators and stuff, but if you want to go down that road a generator, UPS, cooling, 24/7 support are all basic services of an ISP or a data center. dDoS protection or firewall protection are not part of the same category, they are extra or add-on features.

No one walks into Globix, Tel-X or Telehouse and expects them to have dDoS protection or firewalls, but they do expect backup power and the liking.

We just opted to give it as an add-on feature, thats all, not forcing people to buy it.

Just let me know if what I got from your post is correct. You would rather us just bump up our pricing across the board and include the dDoS protection, correct? Instead of having it as an add-on feature?

Thank you for your input, just gathering up as much info as I can here.

Originally posted by thaphantom
Well actally overall I was stating I was happy. I think u should get 1 chance (ie a single DoS attack) and if u get a second within a year or so u require the DoS protection.


Great, thanks for the feedback.

Originally posted by ispclub.com
Not sure where you are coming up with generators and stuff, but if you want to go down that road a generator, UPS, cooling, 24/7 support are all basic services of an ISP or a data center. dDoS protection or firewall protection are not part of the same category, they are extra or add-on features.


no, no and no
i.e. 24/7 support is not basic service at all datacenters

so i try it with your words.

types of datacenters:
1.) crapy datacenter
basic stuff =
2.) low quality datacenter
basic stuff = generator, UPS, cooling
3.) medium quality datacenter
basic stuff = generator, UPS, cooling, 24/7 support
4.) hight quality datacenter
basic stuff = generator, UPS, cooling, 24/7 support, dDoS protection or firewall protection

as i said ddos protection belongs in the category "basic stuff" because it automaticly benefits ALL servers.
and everything which brings benefits to ALL servers is basic stuff.

the other question is how much basic stuff you offer.
this makes up the quality of the datacenter.

when you want to offer a hight quality datacenter you must offer more and better "basic stuff" than a low quality datacenter.

thats why i said you need to chose what you want.

if you offer ddos-protection then include it to the price of all servers as included basic stuff.

Originally posted by thaphantom
Well actally overall I was stating I was happy. I think u should get 1 chance (ie a single DoS attack) and if u get a second within a year or so u require the DoS protection.

and when no ddos-attacs at all comes in anymore, because all bad guys a scared of ezzi?
who then pays the ddos-protection? nobody?

and if a ddos-atack cames in, it is somewhat random.
this world has several billions of internet-users, so you can sure that for every website you would be able to finde someone who hates it for some reason.
also the attacker may simly misstype the IP or whatever.
so what you do is you let a random effect choose who must pay your ddos-protection.
thats not fair.
you are getting a host for gamblers which no longer need to drive to atlantic city, since they can gamble whith you about which one must pay the cost of ddos-protection

I am a happy Ezzi.net customer but that policy stinks simply because there is absolutely nothing you can do to 100% secure your network. Clearly Ezzi has a firewall solution in place for the network and still things get through. I assume that even if I ignore all packets originating from an ip range, your network would still see it as traffic addressed to me therefore, even if I drop the packets with no reply, its still my fault for a DOS? I think not.

The key here is that if this new solution was a big ticket/price item, build it into the cost spread across all servers. It's part of being a host.

I could do everthing by the book, hire the rack911 guys to secure my server and do everything right and some clown who doesn't like ezzi.net, gets a hold of one of their ip's and starts blasting the entire class c range with me on it. So through no fault of mine, maybe even due to Ezzi's turfing some spammer who decides to get even, I would have to pay $150 or buy an ongoing service??? No sir. If you asked for that money, I would take my business elsewhere if after I explained the due diligence I employed you still insisted on charging me.

I totally agee with Ezzi needing to recoup this money. I just disagree with HOW they are planning on doing it.

Originally posted by coolraul
I am a happy Ezzi.net customer but that policy stinks simply because there is absolutely nothing you can do to 100% secure your network. Clearly Ezzi has a firewall solution in place for the network and still things get through. I assume that even if I ignore all packets originating from an ip range, your network would still see it as traffic addressed to me therefore, even if I drop the packets with no reply, its still my fault for a DOS? I think not.

The key here is that if this new solution was a big ticket/price item, build it into the cost spread across all servers. It's part of being a host.

I could do everthing by the book, hire the rack911 guys to secure my server and do everything right and some clown who doesn't like ezzi.net, gets a hold of one of their ip's and starts blasting the entire class c range with me on it. So through no fault of mine, maybe even due to Ezzi's turfing some spammer who decides to get even, I would have to pay $150 or buy an ongoing service??? No sir. If you asked for that money, I would take my business elsewhere if after I explained the due diligence I employed you still insisted on charging me.

I totally agee with Ezzi needing to recoup this money. I just disagree with HOW they are planning on doing it.


Thanks for the input and glad you are happy with the service.

Just want to make sure I have this right for the data I have been collecting.

You would rather us change our policy and start charging you the extra $10/mo now, correct? Instead of charging you if you have a dDoS attack?

When I had a DDOS they waived the $150 when I asked nicly

Originally posted by ispclub.com
The two main things about this thread ar:

People want us to get rid of the $150 fine, we dont charge the fine anyway, since no one opts to pay it, so that is easy to do.

People want us to just include dDoS protection it in base the price, we would rather give the choice whether you want to spend the extra month, so we are working on that one. [/B]

I think you're missing the one overriding point as far as I'm concerned, that you're treating this as a violation of our ToS for "causing" an attack on your network.

Honestly, if you were even to make the letter a lot better. Don't sound like you're blaming the people who have the DoS attacks. Definately don't announce some sort of fine since that's going to make people defensive from the start.

Optionally, I'd say get rid of the $50 setup charge (the setup charge kindof reminds me of the Sprint Commercials about the new kids getting to play with the cool toys) since it's free when signing up. The $50 sounds like you're trying to nickle and dime them for services charges, the $10 can be explained as an ala carte cost that you're mostly passing on to customers.

If you need a stick, tell them that the realities of the situation are that servers that get DoS attacks need to be taken down and generally kept down for a while after the DoS attack ceases.

Originally posted by ServerzDelux
When I had a DDOS they waived the $150 when I asked nicly



Yes we are a very fair company and that is why you do not see many threads on here saying otherwise, considering how quick people are to bash a company.

Glad things worked out for you.

Phil was really great - helped me out with what I could do to bring some retribution on the offending person that did the attack, got the server back up quick as well.

The thing I think that needs fixed is the tos. Change the wording a bit. Word it so that it states that

"in the event of your server being the victim of a ddos attack, said attack being a drain on the network resources and affecting the whole of EZZI's network, your server will automatically be taken offline to prevent loss of connectivity to other customers.

To bring the server back online you may pay a fine of $150 or you have the option of adding $10 per month to your total bill for ddos protection on your server. In the event of a repeat attack $150 will be automatically billed to your account and the ddos protection added for $10 more per month automatically and your server will be brought back online once fine is payed."

yeah change the wording about the customer causing the attack as well. Im a reseller for EZZI and my customer runs some games on there mostly ET. I searched his logs using grep and found the IP of the person that did the ddos attack in the game logs. So it was just someone pissed off cause he either had a bad game day or whatever.

Originally posted by vriley
Phil was really great - helped me out with what I could do to bring some retribution on the offending person that did the attack, got the server back up quick as well.

The thing I think that needs fixed is the tos. Change the wording a bit. Word it so that it states that

"in the event of your server being the victim of a ddos attack, said attack being a drain on the network resources and affecting the whole of EZZI's network, your server will automatically be taken offline to prevent loss of connectivity to other customers.

To bring the server back online you may pay a fine of $150 or you have the option of adding $10 per month to your total bill for ddos protection on your server. In the event of a repeat attack $150 will be automatically billed to your account and the ddos protection added for $10 more per month automatically and your server will be brought back online once fine is payed."


Glad in the end you are still a happy customer. As you are proof we are easy to deal with as we want your servers to be up and running.

We are working on changing the policy. Exactly what we are going to do, not sure, but we will change something.

Originally posted by ispclub.com We are working on changing the policy. Exactly what we are going to do, not sure, but we will change something. [/B]

I have to applaud EZZI (and ispclub.com) for their patience and willingness to listen to all sides of the argument in this thread. I, for one, think they handled themselves professionally and curteously. The fact that a change is being made is a HUGE step in the right direction and will make me take a close look at them when I start shopping around.

yeah, some ISPs will just jump in and tell you to like it or lump it. Dont even bother listening. Ezzi listens to their customers and where needed they can bend to make change. Good co.

how many of your customers have enrooled to the 10$ plan?
50%? 25%?

if you would include that cost automaticly into all servers (100%) the cost per server would obviously drop down. maybe to 5$?

all customers get exacly the same security.
some pay 10$ some 0$. (and who belongs to which group is picked randomly [see my above post regarding this])
come on thats not fair.
since all get same, let all pay the same (lower) fee, i.e. 5$ (to be included in server prices)

Originally posted by Webtiva
I have to applaud EZZI (and ispclub.com) for their patience and willingness to listen to all sides of the argument in this thread. I, for one, think they handled themselves professionally and curteously. The fact that a change is being made is a HUGE step in the right direction and will make me take a close look at them when I start shopping around.

I felt exactly the same.

Originally posted by alexmue
how many of your customers have enrooled to the 10$ plan?
50%? 25%?

if you would include that cost automaticly into all servers (100%) the cost per server would obviously drop down. maybe to 5$?

all customers get exacly the same security.
some pay 10$ some 0$. (and who belongs to which group is picked randomly [see my above post regarding this])
come on thats not fair.
since all get same, let all pay the same (lower) fee, i.e. 5$ (to be included in server prices)



Not a bad way to look at it, probably will take me until next monday or so to get an ok and I will try to get some more input from you guys.

Originally posted by ispclub.com
No one walks into Globix, Tel-X or Telehouse and expects them to have dDoS protection or firewalls, but they do expect backup power and the liking.

in the interests of correctness, neither tel-x nor telehouse provide any networking services at all. globix is a high end (as in expensive) managed hosting provider, so i would indeed expect them to hold everything i've got sticking out during a ddos attack.

obviously, this is indeed a value added service with a budget provider, especially if that budget is $89.

paul

Originally posted by rusko
in the interests of correctness, neither tel-x nor telehouse provide any networking services at all. globix is a high end (as in expensive) managed hosting provider, so i would indeed expect them to hold everything i've got sticking out during a ddos attack.

obviously, this is indeed a value added service with a budget provider, especially if that budget is $89.

paul


I had servers in Globix back in 1999 and we had an attack on one of them. All the did was unplug the server and say come in and fix it.

But yes, the other companies do not offer networking services, all I was just trying to do was get a basic point across that the dDoS protection and a firewall solution isnt something that is a standard service, thats all.

If I was wrong in the way I came across I appologize about that.

Question for ISPClub:
I was just curious what the outcome of your decision was.

I would think it would be better to raise the price of your servers about 5$ and charge everyone for it since everyone is reaping the benefits for the service.

BTW, what is your First name.

Taking no protection against being DOSed is like ****ing without a rubber.

I'm sure phil will let us know when they have made a decision :)

How often / what percent of servers get DDOSed? Can I do something to prevent this as the server admin? If I'm just running a simple web host on ezzi should i get the DDOS protection?

Since Im currently shopping around for a host I just read this entire thread.

First off I like the way ezzi handled this thread.

Now to the actual topic, I understand what ezzi was trying to do with the entire "we are trying to save people 10 dollars by not forcing them to buy it until they get attacked" situation.

However, I feel it would be much better if they did just UP the price of servers 5 dollars a month and have everyone protected.

For one, a person just checking out your site, the entire 10 dollars a month does look like a money grab since they dont get the option of reading this entire thread and understanding where the fee is coming from.

Second, having an entire network protected the same may deter some attackers all together.

So yeah, just raise the price 5 dollars a month.

I've just ordered a server from Ezzi, and although this thread worried me a little, I do think most of the entries were made a while back - obviously things have changed.

However, one thing I took from this thread is that Ezzi's communicaton of current terms, services, etc could be better - I ordered my server without the dDoS service (as its just for playing with at the moment), and I'd hope not to be charged $50 for adding the service later. I also noticed that to be protected from the fine, you need to get both dDoS and Deep Packet firewall running - $20/mo.

Given that some people here didn't know about some of the terms, and I didn't know about the $50 upgrade charge, and the $10 has turned into $20/mo... can Ezzi confirm the current situation completely (and post that to their web site).

I personally do not have a problem with the charge for the security - when I looked EV1 was more expensive for their servers by the amount I'd pay Ezzi for the services - so it works out the same there.

Obviously, I'd like this protection for as cheap as possible, so I think its a good idea to bundle the dDoS and DP firewall, as the cost would then be spread out amongst all users. Ezzi could then make a fuss about this feature - the network-level security was one of the reasons I chose Ezzi in the first place.

So, Ezzi - don;t say 'we'll fine you if you dont buy this' on your web - instead say 'look how great it is, and only $10', and give us some details on how well it works (ie, real-life dDoS attacks that were stopped), and consider adding it for less (maybe bundle several of the security options together at a discount)

Originally posted by gbjbaanb
I've just ordered a server from Ezzi, and although this thread worried me a little, I do think most of the entries were made a while back - obviously things have changed.

However, one thing I took from this thread is that Ezzi's communicaton of current terms, services, etc could be better - I ordered my server without the dDoS service (as its just for playing with at the moment), and I'd hope not to be charged $50 for adding the service later. I also noticed that to be protected from the fine, you need to get both dDoS and Deep Packet firewall running - $20/mo.

Given that some people here didn't know about some of the terms, and I didn't know about the $50 upgrade charge, and the $10 has turned into $20/mo... can Ezzi confirm the current situation completely (and post that to their web site).

I personally do not have a problem with the charge for the security - when I looked EV1 was more expensive for their servers by the amount I'd pay Ezzi for the services - so it works out the same there.

Obviously, I'd like this protection for as cheap as possible, so I think its a good idea to bundle the dDoS and DP firewall, as the cost would then be spread out amongst all users. Ezzi could then make a fuss about this feature - the network-level security was one of the reasons I chose Ezzi in the first place.

So, Ezzi - don;t say 'we'll fine you if you dont buy this' on your web - instead say 'look how great it is, and only $10', and give us some details on how well it works (ie, real-life dDoS attacks that were stopped), and consider adding it for less (maybe bundle several of the security options together at a discount)


You only need the dDoS protection to waive the fine, you need dDoS and Deep Packet Inspection in order to get free reformats.

There are links on the www.ezzi.net homepage for the firewall services that explains all this.

While we are on Ezzi's dDos defense I had a few questions.

Why did you guys go with Netscreen 500's instead of a larger dDos mitigation system that could protect your entire network? It would seem much more simple to me to setup a few large firewalls (be they RiverHeads, TopLayers, etc.) then one netscreen 500 per 75 servers.

Also does that not leave you with a huge hole? From what I understrand is if one of those netscreen's get hammered all 75 customers drop instead of just the one server being attacked, that seems like a big rick to me. If the guy right next to me starts getting slammed all the time my server goes down because of his bad deeds, that seems kinda crappy.

Anyone who has worked with a netscreen knows that it dosen't take much to knock these boxes over, especially if you have deep packet inspection going.

Care to enlighten me?

Originally posted by dk2
While we are on Ezzi's dDos defense I had a few questions.

Why did you guys go with Netscreen 500's instead of a larger dDos mitigation system that could protect your entire network? It would seem much more simple to me to setup a few large firewalls (be they RiverHeads, TopLayers, etc.) then one netscreen 500 per 75 servers.

Also does that not leave you with a huge hole? From what I understrand is if one of those netscreen's get hammered all 75 customers drop instead of just the one server being attacked, that seems like a big rick to me. If the guy right next to me starts getting slammed all the time my server goes down because of his bad deeds, that seems kinda crappy.

Anyone who has worked with a netscreen knows that it dosen't take much to knock these boxes over, especially if you have deep packet inspection going.

Care to enlighten me?


I am not at liberty to talk about our network topology and what exact firewalls we have and how they are setup in the network. That isnt the smartest thing to do on a public forum.

Bottom line is, what we have implemented in terms of network upgrades and protecting the network has given our core network 100% uptime for the year. Our customers are very happy and we get praise all the time from the success we have had.

We had many problems last year, we spent a lot of money on ugrades and now things have been very stable... that is what is important.

Originally posted by ispclub.com
I am not at liberty to talk about our network topology and what exact firewalls we have and how they are setup in the network. That isnt the smartest thing to do on a public forum.

Bottom line is, what we have implemented in terms of network upgrades and protecting the network has given our core network 100% uptime for the year. Our customers are very happy and we get praise all the time from the success we have had.

We had many problems last year, we spent a lot of money on ugrades and now things have been very stable... that is what is important.

I understand....

I just don't understand how a bunch of small firewalls help protect your network? Seems to me if you get slammed with a major ddos attack your network is still going to be effected.

Originally posted by dk2
I understand....

I just don't understand how a bunch of small firewalls help protect your network? Seems to me if you get slammed with a major ddos attack your network is still going to be effected.


Not sure where you got your information from on what exact firewalls we have internally and externally but they arent small.

You would be very surprised how many times a day we see attacks, big and small, so far this we have held up for the almost a year now (knock on wood) :)

A large dDoS attack can take down any network, we are not unbreakable... but at the same time we are very very strict on what servers run on our network. We have people watching for IRC and any other problem servers all day long...

There are many that will complain about how we run things, but we have been very stable and that is what matters. If the $150 fine scares off "trouble makers" that are prone to attacks then we are better off.

Many enjoy the uptime and pay $10 for the protection, instead of being on a network with no protection that goes down regularly when an attack hits.

Originally posted by alexmue
so when you get robed a few times, according to your logic the country must ask you to leave the country because you are causing too much trouble for police and law enforcments autorities??

oh and yes the police must ask you to pay a fine of 150$ each time when you got robed, because its your fault when you leave the house without a bodyguard


Alex, let me first start off by saying I have no real opinion of you or EZZI. I just wanted to comment on this and other analogies relating to taxing, police, and 'countries'.

There is a big difference in the responsibility of a private enterprise to an individual 'customer' and the responsibility of the government to its 'citizens'.

Keep in mind that no company will risk their entire business on one customer. Unfortunately, by giving customers exactly what they want in this market : advertising IPs (that you as a datacenter have no 'real' content/usage control over) over an extremely fast network connection, companies are often risking a LOT for one customer.

If a country finds that it needs additional resources for law enforcement, it will raise taxes/borrow money etc. The only thing that a company can do is raise pricing: this is essentially what EZZI is doing. It's sort of a 'tax' or 'insurance' for assigning the extra resources (be it equipment, time) to deal with (smaller) attacks. Of course, I suppose some EZZI bashers may call it 'extortion', but that's a matter for a seperate debate. Back to the government analogy : do you consider paying a toll for crossing a bridge to be extortion? :)

If one customer, who is on a month-to-month contract (it works to a customers disadvantage, in some ways, to have a month-to-month contract) is causing a datacenter significant costs through network outages (and no matter what people tell you, it is POSSIBLE to take down even the biggest networks regardless of supposed protection) then what do you expect that datacenter to do?

What seperates the good datacenters from the bad ones, when it comes to dealing with DoS is

(a) the clue of their network staff
(b) the ability of their network (headroom, equipment, etc) and
their providers networks to absorb and filter the attack

What is not a seperating factor is finding a company that penalizes a user for causing problems with its network: they'll all do it in some form or another. Whether it's EV1 simply disconnecting your server or EZZI charging a fee. It's going to happen.

Just some honest thoughts from a neutral (in this case)bystander...

I didnt read through all of the threads so you might have already answered this question.&nbsp; Was your server up to date with security patches and such?&nbsp; If so then it does seem a bit unfare.&nbsp; If not, then you should pay them something for compromising their network.&nbsp; My 2 cents.

I have read this thread for the most part, skipped certain things so I may have missed some parts, but this is what I am led to believe;

That ezzi have spent a lot of money on firewalls and expect users to pay for this service as an addiitonal charge, when most companies and clients expect it as standard, the fee itself, makes me wonder, i heard a lot about how a ddos affects other clients, does this fee goto the other clients affected ? is there some type of compensation ? or is this just money grabbing ?

I have been reading several threads about ezzi today and i personally wouldn't go anywhere near ezzi even if the service was free.

food for thought for anyone looking to get a dedicated server with ezzi

Same, I read through the thread here tonight and am staying well clear of Ezzi

[ begin rant ]

Typical...

It's sad that people will make a decision about a company based on a few threads in a forum like this... regardless of any positive statements made by others.

We have been using Ezzi for over a year and a half now and are completely satisfied with them, their services, their support & sales staff and their terms & policies. Yes, they have had some issues at times and yes they have made some mistakes. But, if you look in the outages section of this very forum, you will see many, many threads about outages at all of the "high and mighty" data centers, server providers, etc who in my opinion have more problems than Ezzi. I myself have not seen a COMPLETE outage at Ezzi since December of last year. It is IMPOSSIBLE to make a complete and educated choice about ANY provider based on what is posted here.

Quite honestly, anyone that makes their decisions based only on the ramblings in this (or any other) forum should not be running a business. A wise business person will investigate a potential provider of ANY product or service themselves before making a choice. Contrary to the general belief here, Forums are NOT the end all, beat all gospel when it comes to how a company performs. While one person may have had a bad experience with a company and felt the need to make it public here, there may be hundreds more that are completely satisfied with the same company's performance who either don't bother to come to the forums and post about it because they are busy dealing with IMPORTANT business issues or they simply don't know about the forums.

You don't hear about the many hours the Ezzi techs spend on the phone, in live chat and in tickets helping out when a server is hacked because a client on it was running an unsecure script... you don't hear about the way their techs have gone above and beyond the call of duty (and their support normal support levels) to help when a server is the target of a completely random dDoS attack... you don't hear about the many times they have spent hours helped with things that they SHOULD have charged for but didn't.... all you typically hear about is the few here and there that have a problem and fly off the handle about it. I *DO* know about those things that you never hear about because some have happened to us (and I have even posted about some of them)!

I have personally and physically been to the Ezzi data center, I have personally and physically put my hands on my servers and talked to the techs that were there and I talk to the staff on a regular basis so I know what I am talking about. Before anyone can say different, they need to be able to say the same about themselves.

So, read the forums, get input from others then CHECK FOR YOURSELF before you say you are going to steer clear of Ezzi or any other company. Or, take the words posted in the forums as the gospel and jump off a cliff because a small handfull of people say the sky is falling... either way, Ezzi will continue to do business with others who are happy with them.

[ /rant]

Quite honestly, anyone that makes their decisions based only on the ramblings in this (or any other) forum should not be running a business. A wise business person will investigate a potential provider of ANY product or service

Sorry i was under the impression that would be clients would use a forum such as this to ascertain if they are looking at a reliable and professional company or a cow boy outfit. Maybe you clarify why this forum is here exactly then ?

Ezzi will continue to do business with others who are happy with them.

From some of the claims that i have seen, the most worrying would be ezzi don't really care about short term contracts, if your in a business, every customer is important, not just the 12 month contracts, but then again, ezzi has the right to run it's business as it want's, which at this rate i am sure many of it's competitors are laughing.

there may be hundreds more that are completely satisfied with the same company's performance who either don't bother to come to the forums and post about it


I am also sure that there many people who have / did have grievances not with just ezzi but other providers as well, who just simply walk away from it all and not know about forums such as these..... you seem to be thinking that every user knows of WHT or similar boards.

Originally posted by S.Lorentsen
From some of the claims that i have seen, the most worrying would be ezzi don't really care about short term contracts, if your in a business, every customer is important, not just the 12 month contracts, but then again, ezzi has the right to run it's business as it want's, which at this rate i am sure many of it's competitors are laughing.



You mentioned this in another thread and I posted asking where you got your information from... but I guess you didnt see that post.

Can you direct me to where EZZI has said they dont care about short term customers?

All of our dedicated servers customers are considered short term because we do not have contracts with any of them.

Just wondering where you are reading this information that we have dedicated server customers with 12 month contracts and that we do not care about customers with short term contracts.

Originally posted by S.Lorentsen
Sorry i was under the impression that would be clients would use a forum such as this to ascertain if they are looking at a reliable and professional company or a cow boy outfit. Maybe you clarify why this forum is here exactly then ?
There is a difference between using a forum such as this as an additional means of information about a company and making a decision to not use that company based soley on a few comments made in the forums. Forums are not the end all, beat all gospel on a company nor should they be taken as such. Forums are nothing more than a collection of OPINIONS from various people and in many cases NOT based on facts that can be proven. Many times it has been proven that false claims have even been made with the sole intention of harming a compeditor. Because of these things it is simply poor judgement to base a decision exclusively on what is said in ANY forum yet several have claimed that is what they are doing. This is a simple concept to understand for anyone who has a real business background.
From some of the claims that i have seen, the most worrying would be ezzi don't really care about short term contracts, if your in a business, every customer is important, not just the 12 month contracts, but then again, ezzi has the right to run it's business as it want's, which at this rate i am sure many of it's competitors are laughing.
To my knowledge, ALL clients are considered "short term" because Ezzi does not require contracts. Doesn't matter if you plan to have your server for a month or for 10 years, your status is the same with them. And, unless you tell them you only plan to use the server for a pre-set time frame, they wouldn't even know so how could it be an issue for them to care any more or less?

By the way.. Ezzi's compeditors can laugh all they want but until they can say they have been in business for over 12 years like Ezzi (which most have NOT) they have no room to talk. Look in the outages section of this forum site... looks to me like all of the "big hitters" that even come close have had quite a bit more problem reports than Ezzi has in the past 10 months or so since they made some major improvements to resolve several issues.

there may be hundreds more that are completely satisfied with the same company's performance who either don't bother to come to the forums and post about it

I am also sure that there many people who have / did have grievances not with just ezzi but other providers as well, who just simply walk away from it all and not know about forums such as these..... you seem to be thinking that every user knows of WHT or similar boards.
As for this, next time you may want to be sure you read (AND QUOTE) the entire statement that you conveniently mis-quoted before you comment. Here is the COMPLETE statement that you cut off... please note the bold part at the end. I believe it will void your comment:While one person may have had a bad experience with a company and felt the need to make it public here, there may be hundreds more that are completely satisfied with the same company's performance who either don't bother to come to the forums and post about it because they are busy dealing with IMPORTANT business issues or they simply don't know about the forums.

There is a difference between using a forum such as this as an additional means of information about a company and making a decision to not use that company based soley on a few comments made in the forums. Forums are not the end all, beat all gospel on a company nor should they be taken as such. Forums are nothing more than a collection of OPINIONS from various people and in many cases NOT based on facts that can be proven. Many times it has been proven that false claims have even been made with the sole intention of harming a compeditor. Because of these things it is simply poor judgement to base a decision exclusively on what is said in ANY forum yet several have claimed that is what they are doing. This is a simple concept to understand for anyone who has a real business background.

And it's fact that some claims from registered users are from the same company to say that a certain company is great, goes both ways.

To my knowledge, ALL clients are considered "short term" because Ezzi does not require contracts. Doesn't matter if you plan to have your server for a month or for 10 years, your status is the same with them. And, unless you tell them you only plan to use the server for a pre-set time frame, they wouldn't even know so how could it be an issue for them to care any more or less?

If you think of every client as short term, then i would assume that your own business module would not entertain to creating relationships with clients to create them into long term clients, but alas, if your happy wth short term clients, then thats your business decision.


As for this, next time you may want to be sure you read (AND QUOTE) the entire statement that you conveniently mis-quoted before you comment. Here is the COMPLETE statement that you cut off... please note the bold part at the end. I believe it will void your comment:

My mistake, i missed that part, am only human.

Originally posted by S.Lorentsen
And it's fact that some claims from registered users are from the same company to say that a certain company is great, goes both ways.
This is very true which proves my point even more. To make a decision to completely avoid any company based exclusively on what is said here or any other forum is absolutely rediculous. Yet, several in this (and other threads) have claimed that is what they are going to do which was my whole reason for bringing it up in the first place.
If you think of every client as short term, then i would assume that your own business module would not entertain to creating relationships with clients to create them into long term clients, but alas, if your happy wth short term clients, then thats your business decision.
No, the assumption is that all clients could leave at any time and as such are short term. But, the reason why clients like me HAVE stayed long term is how we have been treated. There is nothing wrong with being realistic and understanding that in this industry clients come and go pretty quickly at times. How long they stay is in many cases not within your control. But, working to keep them is always the goal and that is the treatement WE have gotten from Ezzi... which is one of the many reasons why we are still there.
My mistake, i missed that part, am only human.
Happens the the best of us. :)

Originally posted by frozen
ServerMatrix used to have a similar policy. If you didn't order Floodguard, and were ddossed you would be charged a fee($150-$300 I believe, not for sure). I can not find anything on their site about it now, so I am hoping they changed it.

No, they never did that.

What they did do, was if you came under a DDoS attack, you had the OPTION of paying for an emergency manual-deployment of FloodGuard for 250$.

They never forced anybody to pay it. If you didn't want to pay it, you could just ride out the DDoS attack. Heck, you could even ride it out and get FloodGuard without the fee later.

I think it's fair to have to pay 250$ to get a company to spend the time to manually filter out an attack with a complex DDoS mitigation system that normally works automatically.

So again, it was an OPTION you could purchase if you WANTED. Never forced.

When are people going to understand that this is a free market and vendors can charge what they see fit. If their price is to high, competion will enter the market.

I recently had a roof put on my house and got 4 estimates. 3 of them were all in the same range where 1 was over 30% lower. Who did I choose....................not the cheapest that's for sure becuase I don't want it to rain on my head in the middle of the night when the job comes up short and the contractor disappears to another job cause he's short on this one.

I have never colocated any equipment for my clients at the cheapest datacenter, becuase price is never my #1 concern. If your not happy paying what Ezzi is charging then look elsewhere for services. And can we please stop comparing Ezzi to A, B , and C datacenters that may be in different parts of the country with completely different cost structures. Last time I checked, LI is one of the most expensive places to live and operate a business in the country and your crazy to think that its not going to effect Ezzi's pricing to some degree when they have to pay their staff 30% more than a similarly qualified tech in Texas, and thier monthty property taxes are probably double of the US median.

I have plenty of people try and talk me down on my rates but my response is firm, "If you want quality work, you have to pay for it"

DD

Originally posted by mainarea
Does ezzi's TOS or AUP state that you must pay $150 if you're attacked? If not, you have no obligation to pay it or get the DDOS protection for your server. Oh, and why do they tack on a $50 setup fee for control panels and firewalls/VLANS/netscreen service once your server is online (but it's $0 setup if you sign up with the service when you order your server)? Doesn't make sense to me, especially since most of their servers can come with $0 seutp.

- Matt

hidden charge. just like my SBC Dishnetwork service. sales and install tech told me there is no charge for 4 room tv setup but i just got my bill and they list install fee $59 twice!!! :angry:

i call them about this and they say no you have to pay the setup i mean install fee but i have install tech call the company to make sure 4 room install is free. they can only remove one install fee but i have to talk to manager about the other. thing like this really drive me away from any service provider. if you say it's free when i sign up. it should be free i bet there are thousand if not million of people never bother to check their bill and service provider like this have got away with it. :angry: