Locke Cole
09-29-2004, 10:43 PM
Hello all,
Some of you in the chatroom may already know this story, however if you don't, please feel free to sit back, get some :popcorn: and learn of the interesting events that took place and caused our forums to be unavailable for the month of September.
First off, our forums were being hosted on our old Lintbox server, a server leased from a company called Angel Networkz (referred to as AN). I prepaid this server for 6 months of service, at $99/month in June.
The server went offline without notice the last week of August. I contacted AN within an hour of the downtime, and learned that not only was our server down, but all of the AN servers were down.
I waited for more information, for 3 full days. Finally, word comes not from AN staff, but from another forum I post on. Its called WHT, a place where people who run webhosts discuss all sorts of security issues, software, and just general tips on being the best host :) Rumor had it that AN's servers had been disconnected due to lack of payment to their provider Managed Inc. Rumor also told the missing money exceeded $70,000.
Where did this money go? I mean, all AN's clients pay for their services in advance, so the money should have been available. Alas, no straight answers. We wait longer, hoping for any sign of relief. About a week into the downtime, we are told an agreement has been reached, but we will have to pay ANOTHER month of service to have our server reactivated. At this point I still had 3 1/2 months of paid service, and did not have that kind of money to be giving to crooks.
I hesitated, as I did not have the cash at the time, and awaited another solution. During this time, Lintbox's clients were also down and I was not feeling too good about it. I hunted for another service provider, and eventually turned up one, and restored all of Lintbox's accounts. Alas, still nothing but lies from AN, as they kept promising answers and never had them, their site continued to go online and offline, it was a mess.
Silly me, I had all of the backups of our data writing to a second harddisk inside the server itself, never expecting the plug to be pulled. Thus, our files were being held hostage this entire time. Finally, just this morning, I managed to rake together $130USD (the amount demanded to get the files back!) and had service to the server restored. Its not pocket change, in fact it hit me pretty hard, but I saw it as my fault for the loss of data, and felt it was the least I could do to recover our forums, and other client data.
Files were transferred and ta-da, the forums are back.
Alas, still no refund or word from AN, they are still to this day screwing over what's left of their clients. I doubt I'll ever see that money again. AN use to be one of the most recommended dedicated server providers, now they are known for causing one of the largest scams in dedicated hosting history.
Now you know in a quick and easy form, why the forums have been missing. I'm sorry for the downtime, and promise to keep backups in a safer place from now on. I hope everyone comes back.
Some of you in the chatroom may already know this story, however if you don't, please feel free to sit back, get some :popcorn: and learn of the interesting events that took place and caused our forums to be unavailable for the month of September.
First off, our forums were being hosted on our old Lintbox server, a server leased from a company called Angel Networkz (referred to as AN). I prepaid this server for 6 months of service, at $99/month in June.
The server went offline without notice the last week of August. I contacted AN within an hour of the downtime, and learned that not only was our server down, but all of the AN servers were down.
I waited for more information, for 3 full days. Finally, word comes not from AN staff, but from another forum I post on. Its called WHT, a place where people who run webhosts discuss all sorts of security issues, software, and just general tips on being the best host :) Rumor had it that AN's servers had been disconnected due to lack of payment to their provider Managed Inc. Rumor also told the missing money exceeded $70,000.
Where did this money go? I mean, all AN's clients pay for their services in advance, so the money should have been available. Alas, no straight answers. We wait longer, hoping for any sign of relief. About a week into the downtime, we are told an agreement has been reached, but we will have to pay ANOTHER month of service to have our server reactivated. At this point I still had 3 1/2 months of paid service, and did not have that kind of money to be giving to crooks.
I hesitated, as I did not have the cash at the time, and awaited another solution. During this time, Lintbox's clients were also down and I was not feeling too good about it. I hunted for another service provider, and eventually turned up one, and restored all of Lintbox's accounts. Alas, still nothing but lies from AN, as they kept promising answers and never had them, their site continued to go online and offline, it was a mess.
Silly me, I had all of the backups of our data writing to a second harddisk inside the server itself, never expecting the plug to be pulled. Thus, our files were being held hostage this entire time. Finally, just this morning, I managed to rake together $130USD (the amount demanded to get the files back!) and had service to the server restored. Its not pocket change, in fact it hit me pretty hard, but I saw it as my fault for the loss of data, and felt it was the least I could do to recover our forums, and other client data.
Files were transferred and ta-da, the forums are back.
Alas, still no refund or word from AN, they are still to this day screwing over what's left of their clients. I doubt I'll ever see that money again. AN use to be one of the most recommended dedicated server providers, now they are known for causing one of the largest scams in dedicated hosting history.
Now you know in a quick and easy form, why the forums have been missing. I'm sorry for the downtime, and promise to keep backups in a safer place from now on. I hope everyone comes back.