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HostDoc are closing down
This discussion has been closed.
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RIP
It looked like a good host to me.
Never give up because of the bad times, good times will come (back) and pay you for your hard work
The ugly problem since eternity: people want a culprit.
From what (little) I know there seems to have been a security problem with @HostDoc's panel. The second hint we have comes from the doc who hinted at some person or persons whom he trusted having created damage. Putting those two factors together leads me to the assumption that some person(s) whom he trusted abused or misused their means/access to f_ck up the panel, probably with bad intent.
The fact that @dahartigan is someone who enjoyed HostDocs trust does not equate to "dahartigan is the evil guy!".
Also the fact that HostDoc hosting was a "one man show" (I doubt it really was) does not mean that it was somehow bad or bound to sooner or later sink. There are quite a few "one man shows" - which actually are not really one man shows - that operate fine since years and years.
While I can look at the, certainly not complete, information I have available and come to this or that conclusion/assumption there is something that I know for a fact and that is worth remembering: HostDoc is/was a fine and good hosting operation. Really good products for a quite low price, plus, also worth mentioning, very good support and operations driven by a man who always seriously tried to make his company even better.
So my conclusion is not "A was behind it" or "B was the evil guy" but rather:
Thank you HostDoc! You have built an amazing hosting operation widely known and recognized as very good
I'm learning with sadness that you chose to end it but I respect your decision - and it is your right to make that decision, not ours, not other hosters but yours alone.
I'm certainly not the only one here who wishes you well from the bottom of his heart.
Best of luck @HostDoc with your future. 🤙
Best regarding
Definitely not the case. The person he trusted was indeed me. He trusted that I'd keep quiet about the issues. I did, until I saw it happen again recently and he wasn't taking it seriously and then someone else mentioned on LES they saw someone else's details. I broke my silence at that point and the rest is history.
Thank you. I never thought of myself as anything other than a whistleblower in this. I wish Chike all the best, I just wish he wasn't so shit at PR. This whole thing could have blown over had he handled it right.
Sad, Good Luck for the Future.
which seems okay for a reason but also shows that you underestimated the whole business thing and your abilities by... a lot. your clients which relied on your promises are now taking the damage.
see above. if you can't take the heat, then this is obviously not the industry you should work in OR the communities and ponds for fishing and solely building your business model upon.
I'm not in a position to judge you and I do not know enough to judge you, but I see an ugly problem. You both have your point of view and I can rationally understand both of them. I can see that you didn't act with evil intentions but felt there was a necessity to "blow the whistle" -but- I can also understand that HostDoc had a right to expect your loyalty and now feels gravely betrayed.
Again, I'm not in a position to judge either of you, but the point I would focus on is the question "how?". Was the way you reacted really the good and correct one? Was your impression that he didn't take the security problem seriously really correct? And most importantly: was there no better way to resolve the situation than to basically destroy his work? And btw, "someone mentioned on LES they saw someone else's details" is a very questionable basis. Also, if you found that hear-say so super important, why didn't you first tell the HostDoc and demand proper action to be taken? To basically turn against HostDoc, to whom you owed loyalty, based on some LES hear-say was definitely not an acceptable path to go in my books.
@HostDoc
I'm a professional in IT security (albeit with little PHP knowledge). Maybe there still is a way to turn the ship around by fixing your security problem. I'm willing to invest some free work to help you out. I know that I'm late with my offer but maybe not too late to do what should have been done in the first place, which is to take care of the leaking/security. Feel free to contact me by PM.
You can't fix false accusations and 9 threaded i7 7700's.
@jsg Just to be fair to@dahartigan, there were at least three different people I saw posting about the leak in LES and they all said they contacted Doc and were assured the issue was taken care of. After I went with the de-listing, by my rough count, at least another five more Doc customers said they had a similar experience and reported to Doc but the problem persisted for months. I am not sure what else can be done short of coming public.
Thanks for offering help and if Doc sorts everything out, we are more than happy to have one more reliable provider around instead of one fewer.
just my 2 cents ... this was your principal reason for close down. Next time if will be , take it like : i am unique , let see what i can do to be different , do not play with i need to be more cheap than other, and i am sure you will have succes. Cheers.
EDIT : i feel bad for you , 2 years working is not a trash.
Can't be a coincidence. Clearly a case of success and proof that Mike's are awesome.
I joined HostDoc in May 2019 and a week after I joined I noticed this very issue and I believe I reported it to Chike at least 10 to 15 times after each time the problem occurred so they can’t say they didn’t know about it. Each time I reported it I was told I was the only one reporting such a problem and that it could be my browser cache.
Maybe @SmartHost can take over to keep the servers alive or someone who leases from ovh also take over the servers?
I love how all the hosts here are like vultures on the corpse. xD They smell fresh blood (new customers) and everyone is picking on doc but still remember to entice new customers in the same post.
A slightly different perspective:
With my own website - that I've got every interest in keeping running nicely and securely - so the effort is not something that should be questioned.
About a year ago, I had problems with visitor subscription confirmation emails not reaching the visitors. After some 2 weeks of back and forth with the hosting provider and SpamExperts, it was resolved.
In order to prevent it from re-occuring, I signed up with MXroute - which was a wise move. Never again have I had any problems caused by mail server, spam filter etc.
However, after a while, the problem re-occured. This time, it turned out it was caused by a Captcha plugin (for prevention of bot signups). Tried some other plugins, finding one that worked. All's well again.
Only for it to stop working once more, a few months later. With no plugin updates I can remember. Back to the drawing board. This time, unlike when dealing with hosting provider and SpamExperts that the provider was using - support from the mail hosting provider (MXroute) was direct, super fast and has helped me pinpoint the culprit (my take on pros and cons of using a hosted email service).
As it turned out, the very plugin that had worked for a few months was causing the problems. Without showing any errors. Back to the drawing board. Ended up with using another plugin for spam registration prevention. So far so good.
The point of all the drivel: modern systems are quite complex (IMO) and often figuring out the problems and preventing them from re-occuring is not easy.
It's a thin line between being incompetent/careless and just having bad luck, to put it that way.
There definitely is a line. But it is hard to tell often - is a provider really doing everything that can reasonably be expected from them to solve a problem? Also, if it is something they make a living off, how quick would they be in publicly announcing: customer data is leaking and I still have no idea what's causing it. Tried some patches, but it keeps comming back.
I can't really say what I'd do until getting into a similar position. Out of a chair - sure, letting the customers know makes perfect sense.
Based on the available info - I can surely say that HostDoc's PR was far from good.
Not 100% sure about the other things - though it does give an impression of not being dealt with seriously enough - but so does my own example with my website.
Either way, sad to see it all resulted in a business being shut down, instead of changing and improving. Hope HostDoc gets better and wiser.
For a full disclosure, based on the info available: I think it was good to let the customers know, publicly, about the persistent data leaking problem.
This is the LET model of hosting providers. Nobody will buy unless its cheaper than the last offer.
And then nobody will buy/renew if it gets more expensive than the cheapest offer ever made in the history of the provider because another provider will be along to do it cheaper.
You only need to take a look at all the Direct Admin offers of late, the majority of which are in the exact same position of offering services for pretty much free. It is only a matter of time before so many others go the same way.
I told him privately months ago, and he has done nothing meaningful except clear the cache and call it fixed. There's a whole trail of evidence and testimony from people other than me.
I owe him nothing. I worked for him for free. Spent many late nights working the live chat. I just wanted to make that very clear
And it wasn't some LES hear-say at all man, it was my own observation (I have screenshots of the issue) along with the reports of others and HostDoc's inaction which caused me to throw my 2 cents in.
It looks like my 2 cents was extremely powerful, because now everyone has their pitchforks out and HostDoc has deadpooled. If only he fixed the issue and took ownership, instead of trying to make it personal, and then moved forward things would be fine. Once he started attacking me and @poisson with bullshit accusations and conspiracy theories, my patience wore thin and I no longer felt like it was worth defending a person with a character like his.
@jsg I respect you man, but please double check before making assumptions particularly about me
Whole thing is unfortunate. Pity...don't think I'll find a comparable replacement
@dahartigan
First and most importantly, kindly note that I repeatedly and clearly stated that I can't (and don't want to) judge either of you! I also clearly stated that what I think and say is based on what I know so far (which is certainly incomplete).
That's one way to see it and a valid one - but not the only one. Another one is to look at it this way: It's his trust in you and your agreement to work for HostDoc that makes you owe him loyalty. The amount of money you get for your work, even if zero, does not change the basic agreement.
And again, to avoid misunderstandings and bad feelings, I do understand your point of view and I do not think that you acted with bad intentions. I just happen to disagree with the way you handled it, but I know fully well that both your and my point of view in the end are but subjective takes and mine doesn't weigh heavier than yours.
Some of you know me a bit better outwith the shitshow that are these forums and will recognise that I genuinely try to give constructive as well as critical feedback..
Emotions can run high, especially when dealing with your own service(s) and put under continual pressure - one of the reasons why I burnt out, as IT Consultant. In this, I understand what @HostDoc has been going through; I do wish he'd had constrained his growth in hosting but it's all too easy to fall into the trap.
I was one of the people who noticed the leaked customer details and immediately pointed it out to him, in Live Chat. I was very concerned though assured it would be addressed. This was at a time where system level backups were causing excessive Load and quite a few Hostdoc related DNS anomalies were happening - I attempted to assist (for free) there.
See the pressure rising? Add in (sad/heartfelt personal) other issues and a spiral of events takes over. I wish he'd halted expansionism there but easy to say for an outsider. It's also easy to find any flaws with anything, using the benefit of hindsight.
Too much typing for a Sunday morning.. so this is a 2-part documentary.. more coffee required..
Likes required before I continue, or I'll just shut my pus.
Sad news. Make me a little bit angry, because I need to move to another provider. And that's going to take some time. I'm quite busy without this too. A month is quite a short time when you have other things to do.
Hopefully the Doc himself is okay with this decision. The more time passes the better I understand this. I'm not that angry anymore.
I was too fast with my moves and changed my vote on provider poll. That was about last year and I was happy then. Should keep my vote for Doc there...
My bad, you did say that and I ignored it apparently.
I agree, having the provider rep tag at the time would have made my testimony more damaging, looking back. The footnote is that I stopped working for hostdoc months ago, just never made a big public deal about it out of respect.
Thanks for clarifying that, and I'm happy that we can agree to disagree :-)
I could've handled it better, but I know I didn't handle it the way I wanted to and showed a lot more restraint than is probably visible.
Thanks for sharing your input and again for clarifying your last post, I took it the wrong way and that was silly of me.
.. glugs more coffee.
Even with the aforementioned issues, with great consideration and some reservations, I'd decided to retain my services at HostDoc. If OVH-US had their full Cloud VPS offerings in place then things may have been different. A (second) return to SmartHost was(/is) also on the cards. Some may remember that I rate Live Chat highly in my decision making - so neither are ideal options.
Yesterday I made my rounds of paying my monthly dues, all up front and some many weeks in advance. Not long after midnight, I received a PayPal refund, from guess where?
My thoughts..
What? Surely HostDoc hasn't refunded everyone for the month, due to the shitstorm - he can't afford to do that! EDIT: considering giving him it back. :-o
Perhaps, he's got pissed off with my contribution to the above and it's the "select few".
Hmm.
I attempted to contact him on Live Chat, to see what the situation was, with a "Are you still awake?" tag line. Unsurprisingly, there was no reply; given what was actually going on. I'm sad because had I'd know what email was to be sent shortly after, I'd have tried my damnedness (spelling?) to persuade him not to. Admittedly, partly for my own benefit, I'd have asked for him to ride out the storm, having already been through the eye of the hurricane. T'was not to be.
Crap. Gotta suspend software upgrades again, in lieu of yet another host change.
Is there any way to retract the @HostDoc decision?
Documentary over (for now); hope y'all enjoyed the journey. Others may have been hurt during the making of this series.
P.S. @seriesn Do make sure that you don't paddle too close to the edge.
I am sad to see HostDoc closing. After initially getting a VPS with Woothosting who were then taken over by the muppets that were Alpharacks I thought I had finally found a reliable host I could use for the foreseeable future.
But It looks as though I am going to have to spend another few hours migrating over to a new provider. I think I will just pay more money to get one that is going to be around for a long while. As it costs me money in the time it takes to keep switching providers every year.
But as least Host Doc have given us notice on the closure so at least we have time to prepare the migration.
classic summer host, still can't understand why there was so much hype here on LET
Hardly.
TNTLET - we know drama.HostDoc is not just another summer host in my opinion. He shows his passion and he is always there when in need. He is not spending those income (if any) to buy steam games or for a luxury. He have a full-time job and a family to feed. But still he spend quite a large amount of time to provide services.
Anyway, let's not continue bashing, there are better things to do in life and let's wish him all the best in the future.
Boss,
HD wasn't a summer host. He had the right intentions, just bad luck and bad timing.
On the other hand, it is a summer host type model. Not bashing, just a general statement about hosting providers that rely on the LET model.
Never make enough money for it be something that could turn into a profitable business no matter how many clients you get, always spending the money it does take on new locations, servers or services to cling on to the customers or attract more but never able to sell at a price that will ever provide a reasonable return.
By the sounds of it, a decision he already knew would come long before now. This event just provided the opportunity.