Icecast - Dec 2014 - Looking for company behind serverhostingcenter.com and directhostingcenter.com for causing problems on dir.xiph.org

Hi everyone,

as most of you probably know we are operating http://dir.xiph.org - an
open streaming directory.
There are always some misconfigured servers that keep trying to list
something broken. Most common are those where the server admin thinks
they can just put their homepage domain into the <hostname> field
(pro-tip: don't do that, ever, use the proper hostname of that machine!
Test the listenurl shown in admin!).

But there are also serial offenders, like *hostingcenter.com and their
many instances.
In most cases I manage to eventually reach someone or if it's just a
single instance, I blacklist it. Blacklisting actually has the positive
effect, that their error.log will contain a sensible error message, if
they bother to read it. Their listing was broken to begin with.
The problem with stream-hosting outfits is, that quite often they will
host a dozen or more servers on one IPv4 address and associated FQDN.
This means, that if I can't reach such a company, I am forced to pull
the plug on *ALL* their clients. I'm rather reluctant to do that, as it
will hit innocent bystanders who's only fault it is to have bought
services from an incompetent company.

So once again, if anyone has hints as to which company is hiding behind
the domains:
serverhostingcenter.com
directhostingcenter.com
and more importantly knows a way to reach someone responsible.

Just to be clear, I tried whois and mailed the address(es) there, I
tried to reach some of the customers of theirs, etc. I'm not willing to
invest more of my time into chasing them down anymore. Either I get a
direct technical contact at that company, or next week their domains and
IP ranges will be blacklisted from dir.xiph.org, collateral damage assumed.

If for some reason you don't want to post to the mailing list, then
*don't* press reply but send a mail to thomas at ruecker.fi instead.

Cheers

Thomas

PS: If you have an Icecast server that's listing on dir.xiph.org, please
make sure to put a working technical contact email address into the
<admin> field. We're actually using that to reach out to people who
manage to break their listings and such.

Hi,

Have you tried doing a whois on the *IP address* and contacting the 
hosting company (assuming it's not one of the above)?

Geoff.

On 12/29/2014 02:04 PM, Geoff Shang wrote:
> Have you tried doing a whois on the *IP address* and contacting the 
> hosting company (assuming it's not one of the above)?
The IP range I checked belonged to some big data center company. I don't
remember if I tried to reach them too, probably did.
I haven't heard back from any of those.

I've probably spent several days worth of work on tracking down various
problematic Icecast instances and don't feel like wasting more time on
sending emails to addresses like "public.whois.lookup.emaill.address@"
(actual local part on whois email!).

I sent this email to the list in the hope someone would actually know
the company.
I know how to use whois for networks and domains, but I'm not willing to
waste *more* time on that. The directory is a free service and it's my
time that goes into maintaining it and I'm not willing to pour more time
into finding some hoster who thinks playing hide and seek is cool. If
someone wants to pay me to play internet detective, contact me off list.

Cheers

Thomas