Mr. Lehrer, I don't appreciate being treated as a troublemaker when all I am doing is pointing out the obvious. All your closing of the thread does is heighten speculation that something very embarrassing is involved. It's not my purpose to embarrass you. My purpose is to make sure you understand the nature of what happened to the servers I and my co-customers pay you for. And, sorry to say, it is quite clear that at this moment you do not understand.

These /mail subdirectories did not appear, could not have appeared on their own just because a mistake in Anon FTP config existed. The insecure config made it possible, but it was a person or persons who exploited the mistake, and it could not have been random people just looking for Anonymous FTP. It had to be somebody with specific knowledge of your servers to create identical hidden structures in at least three different physical machines, probably more. Do you deny this? Please don't, because you would be denying what is plain for all to see. Please stop being KGB-ish and just share some real answers with us, instead of saying "trust me" and providing no logic for your statements.

I don't expect you to tell us precisely what happened or to name names if you have them. I simply ask you to acknowledge that a person or persons deliberately created these dirs and files outside the jailshell (not necessarily at the command line, but the result was files invisible to account owners using the jailshell) and that, if this person or persons again attempt something similar, you are ready for them. Clearly you are not ready for them if you really believe the FTP config itself was the sole cause of the problem.

Your co-worker Alec said the problem was "fixed" back in February. It wasn't. Now you say it is "fixed" while displaying incomplete grasp of the factors involved. I have worked in computers and networking for 22 years. Pay attention and learn some respect for your elders. I and two other Hostony clients revealed this problem to you. Without us, whoever was exploiting your servers would still be doing so. And this is how you treat us-- to abruptly close a thread in which we ask questions anybody would ask?

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BF

UPDATE: New files are appearing in this phantom /mail directory on my account.

Also, the existence of this /mail folder is almost certainly causing email problems, as a folder with that name on that level is reserved for use by the server mail program.

All you had to say was "yes it is a serious problem we don't fully understand yet and we are working on it". But instead you downplay it as nothing serious and you close the thread. So now you have a ticked-off customer.

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BF

brikface, I respect your experience but please do not teach us how to fix problems. Leave this for us and we'll deal with it the way we think it would be good for everybody. This is our job and we try to do our best. I believe(you can agree or not ) that I have already given enough explaination about the case. I will provide you with additional information as soon as we finish the investigation.

Excuse me, but I never admitted that it was a serious problem. I am saying again that it is not a hack. I repeat, this IS a CPANEL bug.

Excuse me, but I never said you said it was a serious problem. I said that's what you ought to have said. Careful reading is a virtue in a tech support specialist. Or perhaps you could read with all the focus you are capable of and yet fail to comprehend.

I guess it's not a serious problem to you and other Hostony personnel. That' quite a bummer and should be taken into consideration by anyone thinking of signing with Hostony or of extending a contract.

So, you still insist it is merely a Cpanel bug and that somehow these directories, as well as the files within them carrying various creation and modified dates, automagically appeared in our accounts without human intervention of any kind. Amazing.

As I said in my update, there are now new files appearing in my, for all purposes, hacked /mail subdir. What are you doing about it?

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BF

brikface, as I have noticed this thread is not the first one that was closed. I think you are just to be a bit more patient and less aggressive. You'll surely get more help and positive emotions.

P.s: you can check your 'hacked' folder.

All I ask from you is patience and again patience. I would really appreciate that.


Lehrer

Lehrer man, we are talking about a problem first discovered over 5 months ago. Patience, you say?

Anyway, I won't be posting about it again. It's just a bit annoying when you deny the obvious, you know? Somebody was involved in placing those directories and creating/modifying files on various dates. Why bother denying it?

Also, Load on server20 still rarely goes below 4.

Even so, Hostony is still one of the better places for basic shared hosting. It will take a few more weeks of nonsense like this to change my opinion.

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BF

Thank you for understanding and for the compliments. I'd be glad to do everything possible to keep an eye on it.

surely these ftp directories are something related with the convination of IP(or dedicated ip), shared hosting, and anonymous ftp.

I'm totally sure that the Hostony team is working in the problem, and they will found the solution, as always.

I also want to say that in my own experience, "Lehrer" has been always a very helpful, polite and cooperative member of the team.

(Usually I can identify him in a chat session when he is logged as "Need4Support" in AIM, only by his treatment and predisposition. I just think that is important to recognize this.)

Please, let us know when you get an answer about this bug from CPanel

PS 1: Peace
PS 2: the other members of the staff are very nice too )

Thanks, Martin. You are making me shy
Of course we'll let you know about the investigation's results.