... and even after all the posts, you still don't get it.

This is total nonsense. Now I'm sure you're just trolling and my vote goes for you to be banned.

Because your flawed logic can be easily extended to include:

- open relay MTAs. So, by your logic, Linode should explicitly prohibit SMTP servers because some people keep open relays either by mistake, ignorance or on purpose.

- IRC clients or servers. Those should be prohibited as well because some people want to control their botnets with it.

- FTP or HTTP servers. These especially, because some people may share illegal content.

- Torrent servers! Linode should ban those, no? Well, I have a torrent service and I'm happy to seed CentOS discs. I do not violate Linode TOS or any law for that matter.

So, do you see the pattern? You're blaming Linode for not explicitly prohibiting TOR while at the same time you totally (and I'd say deliberately) ignore the provisions of the TOS that put the responsibility of your traffic into your hands and prohibit illegal, unlawful content.

I still have no idea how you could misinterpret this paragraph. According to the TOS, Tor is allowed as long as it does not produce abuse complaints. Is it so difficult to understand what the conditional clause means? According to your definition of hypocrisy, it would be hypocritical for a government to say that you may drive as long as you're not drunk. They must have lied when they said you could drive! But that's absurd.

The TOS also makes it very clear that it doesn't matter who is actually responsible for copyright infringement. As soon as your Tor exit node prompts the receipt of DMCA complaints, you have to shut it down. Notice that the TOS doesn't say anything about the legality of said complaints. As soon as any DMCA complaints are received by Linode, the TOS applies to you.

Linode dealt with your case exactly the way the TOS said it would. The policy might be wrong according to some moral standard, but at least there was nothing "hypocritical" about it.

I run a Tor relay to use my spare bandwidth, but not as an exit node to avoid exactly these problems. I reccomend that you do the same. Linode's ToS and AUP are perfectly clear and not unfair in any way from my PoV. If you disagree, you should probably host elsewhere.

That's awesome. If you're not receiving complaints simply because you're lucky enough not to have "bad traffic" come out your end node, the gamble turned out well for you. On the other hand if you actually have some special way of managing your end-node that you believe is the key to avoiding complaints *please* share it on this thread so that other (customers that are still with linode) can continue to operate their nodes without harassment -- this has been my primary request from the VERY BEGINNING. If there are such operators out there on the linode network tell me what you're doing right and what I did wrong (other than obviously be an asshole, as some would discern), because I certainly didn't just throw a base install of an ubuntu VM up there with a stock torrc file and no iptables rules (please presume that I have real professional networking and systems administration knowledge and experience, and that I'm not a total retard, or 13 years old).

Until I see such technical proof of how a node can be managed as such it still appears to me it's simply a roulette wheel gamble if your end node will generate enough complaints to warrant linode to "take action," or not, regardless of any steps taken by the operator to mitigate the "evil" traffic. This has been my entire point from the beginning -- maybe that doesn't make linode out-right hypocrites, but it certainly doesn't make them up-front and helpful.

From the general consensus it seems people believe I was entirely in the wrong and should take the traffic that comes out of any Tor exit node I run very personally, as if I generated the traffic myself, as if I could in any way stop or stem the tide. But seriously, people, I'm not a retard, so tell me what magic iptable/snort/layer5 filtering rule that's going to stop some jackass from spamming a wordpress site. Then tell me how I'm any more responsible than any other Tor relay/bridge/exit node or even big ISP network operator, such traffic was "transmitted" through. Tell me what I really did wrong other than run a Tor node and do everything I could to stop / mitigate complaints, only to have the linode continually reply with blanket-statement non sequiturs. Otherwise I just assume those that seem so personally offended at my point (as if a few DMCA notices alone were going to shut down Linode's datacenters entirely) simply don't understand both the nature of the internet, let alone privatized proxies, nor the technical and political concepts at play in running and operating the Tor network. I certainly recognize if Linode doesn't posses the pair of balls to be progressive on these matters, and is too afraid of "big bad layers" with their empty threats and deep pockets, it's well within Linode's right to stop the operation of any given piece of software -- I'm just not going to give them my money if they act accordingly (but still welcome other happy customers to continue their service).

PS. my exit node has been running on rackspace cloud for about two weeks with nary a DMCA or malicious traffic complaint. Hell of a lot longer than the 72hrs I made it on the linode network. YMMV

Did you even ready what you quoted? He said he was not running as an exit node in order to avoid the problems you had.

And the general consensus wasn't that you were in the wrong or that you should take it personally, but that you weren't doing enough to comply with the Linode ToS. Doing enough is essentially "don't run an exit node". As many told you before, Linode is in a business to sell virtual hosting, not legal protection services. Whether you believe it to be true or not, that is what you are asking them to do.

Congratulations. Don't say you weren't warned when you do receive complaints or are deactivated.

Totally my bad, I did misread his post. Anyway, that just ties back to my point back on page 2 or so, that the *same* traffic is still being routed through their network, Linode just isn't getting complaints about it because that's the whole point of Tor relays (not being able to see the contents of the traffic you're passing, which technically gives you less of an ability to filter malicious traffic) -- so Linode should just come right out and say: "You can't run an exit node on our network." Problem solved. But it didn't play out that way either because they don't understand the technology they're dealing with, or they're aforementioned hypocrites (as inflammatory an adjective as that may be). I wasn't looking for legal protection, and linode wasn't at real risk of legal action. If you believe otherwise I highly encourage you to research the current legal state of such matters. No party involved, other than the REAL originator of the traffic, was at fault -- linode just wanted to hassel me about it, so I'm no longer a customer, and I encourage other similarly minded "internet activists" to do the same. Everyone else, go about your day, don't get upset about my opinions, and don't worry a single moment about the matter. Internet privacy will slowly fade away and it won't matter to you anyway.

and now it's time to stop trolling.

Agreed.

And the winner for the Can't STFU Award goes to.....

tor_zealot

Who just like a bad Mother-in-law, doesn't know when it's time to pack her bags and go home.

I'm sorry that you feel a continued discussion qualifies as trolling. My best advice to you is to not read the thread, or anything that offends you. Unless I misunderstood these are public forums, this sub-forum in particular being devoted to customer testimonials, which I certainly have.

Furthermore I find the discussion of this issue a particularly interesting matter, a poignant one to the open source community (who linode markets to), and a few people on here have brought up some really great points on both sides of the coin that I enjoy furthering intelligent discourse. If this is not your intention I suggest perhaps you are "trolling."

I'm not trolling, or at least not trying to; I'm not just generating posts by quoting things from page 2 just to keep the thread at the top of the page. If nobody else has anything to say I assume the thread will slowly drift down the page and be forever forgotten. But you certainly won't see me responding to anyone unless I feel they have at least a somewhat valid point to make that I find interesting. I hope that's alright with everyone -- otherwise you can message an admin to have my account disabled because you feel I've been abusive in some way. It's great how these forum systems work.

Actually I'm surprised the thread broke more than a page, I figured it would be ignored.

These are examples of what I consider to be trolling posts (posts unrelated to subject of this forum and this thread, designed to provoke flame war):

and what would you call your post then?

Yes, I must have been trolling for agreeing that this thread should die.

@neo

Next time take the blue pill.