[tor-relays] AWS abuse handling

Hi All,

I have a free membership for a year on Amazon's AWS (capped at 15GB/month of traffic each way).

I've been running an exit node with a reduced exit policy on an ec2 instance for months and have received my first abuse notice. I'm sure a few on this mailing list may have received the same or similar abuse notification from Amazon. Besides shutting down the exit, what measures did you take to deal with this? What would be the consequences of ignoring their email and continuing to run it?

Note: I'm a student and am running on a really tight budget at the moment (reason for not hosting it on a paid vps)

Any suggestion(s)/help is appreciated :)

Best,

Snehan

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The contents of the Abuse notice:
Hello,

We've received a report(s) that your EC2 instance(s)

Instance Id:
IP Address:

has been has been operating as a TOR Exit node. Operating a TOR Exit node is forbidden in the AWS Acceptable Use Policy (hxxps://aws.amazon.com/aup/). We've included the original report below for your review.

Please take action to stop the reported activity and reply directly to this email with details of the corrective actions you have taken. If you do not consider the activity described in these reports to be abusive, please reply to this email with details of your use case.

If you're unaware of this activity, it's possible that your environment has been compromised by an external attacker, or a vulnerability is allowing your machine to be used in a way that it was not intended.

We are unable to assist you with troubleshooting or technical inquiries. However, for guidance on securing your instance, we recommend reviewing the following resources:

* Amazon EC2 Security Groups User Guide:
hxxps://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-network-security.html (Linux)
hxxps://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/using-network-security.html (Windows)

* Tips for Securing EC2 Instances:
hxxps://aws.amazon.com/articles/1233 (Linux)
hxxps://aws.amazon.com/articles/1767 (Windows)

* AWS Security Best Practices:
hxxp://media.amazonwebservices.com/AWS_Security_Best_Practices.pdf

If you require further assistance with this matter, you can take advantage of our developer forums:

hxxps://forums.aws.amazon.com/index.jspa

Or, if you are subscribed to a Premium Support package, you may reach out for one-on-one assistance here:

hxxps://console.aws.amazon.com/support/home#/case/create?issueType=technical

Please remember that you are responsible for ensuring that your instances and all applications are properly secured. If you require any further information to assist you in identifying or rectifying this issue, please let us know in a direct reply to this message.

Regards,
AWS Abuse "

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