0008 - Azure disabled my account, trip to the cabin
And all my tools are currently unreachable.
Last updated 2025-12-22
To those being redirected here from guestbooks.meadow.cafe: know that the service is currently unreachable because my Azure account was disabled. This post explains a bit more why. I'm currently in talks with the Azure support team to see if they can re-enable access. I understand that they will, but first they need to review the data to be sure that I didn't actually do anything malicious.
I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I hope this issue gets resolved soon, though I suspect that since most people are away on holidays, it might take longer than usual.
Happy holidays!
Service, mud, Azure blocks my account.
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Some days ago I mentioned a “scraper trap” I made and how it was working really well. It turns out it ended up working TOO well.
Shortly after passing 2 million scrapes, I got an email from Azure saying that my account had been suspended because I was violating their “Acceptable Use Policy”. In the details, they just said that I was using my Azure resources for “malicious activities”. I opened a support request to contest this as I don't really feel like I was doing anything wrong, but sadly still haven't received any answer.
It's too bad because I host all my other tools on Azure! Now my VM is down so those tools are inaccessible. Some of them even have a respectable number of users (eg, Guestbooks has ~ 1k registered guestbooks, and More has at least a couple of daily users!). I'm really sorry for everyone that's being impacted by this.
In retrospect, I should've been more careful about the scraper thing. I don't yet know for sure if that's the reason why my account was blocked1, but I should've foreseen that a sudden and dramatic increase in network traffic would get flagged as unusual and trigger a general security review.
On one hand I think the fact that Azure does this kind of check is great because it might very well have caught a real malicious user, or maybe a case where someone had hacked into my VM and was using it “with ill intent”. But it's also silly that getting an answer from them is taking so long. Well, it is holiday season so maybe that's why? Still, if I were hosting a legitimate business on the blocked account then this downtime could be costing me real money!
Another thing I learned, and it's possibly the most important of all, is that one should never trust all of one's backups to the same service provider!
I have automatic DB backup procedures set up for all my tools, but the way it works is that it uploads said backups to Azure’s file storage service (Blob Storage). Since my account is disabled I can't even access those! If I could, I would've already spun up the same tools on another (nicer) provider like Digital Ocean or similar. When I regain access I'll change my backup system to also copy the backups somewhere else, or send them by email, so I still have access to them if my main provider becomes unavailable.
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I've actually been thinking of migrating off Azure for a while. I don't really have any specific reason for this as the whole platform is really well made. The only thing is that I feel it's sometimes way (waaay) too complicated for what I do. I don't need a hundred different services just to spin up a web app. I just need a single VM!
Most hyper-scalers work that way I guess. They push you to use as many of their services as possible so you end up paying more. I think a simpler provider might work best for me.
The only reason why I've stuck with Azure for so long is that (due to some unexpected turns of life) I have a lot of Azure credits, which makes hosting my stuff pretty much free. I get a monthly quota that comfortably covers my hosting expenses, with the only term being that I can't use it for things that generate revenue (nor for malicious activities).
(By pure chance, I actually do have a local copy of some of the DBs from some months ago, so if the worst comes to happen and I fail to regain access then I guess I can restart with that? At the same time it would be a mess.)
Hopefully I'll be able to resolve this issue soon! And again, I'm really sorry for everyone impacted by it.
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On another, more positive note, this morning’s sunrise was spectacular! They're always nice, but this was out of the ordinary. I tried snapping a picture but it doesn't entirely capture it.
Today we're doing a day trip to a small cabin my in-laws own. I might do a post about that if anything interesting happens. Or maybe just share some pictures 🤗
Our trip to the cabin was fun, though the weather was crazy. It kept switching from sun, to cold winds, to rain, then rain with wind, then cloudy and cold.
My mood was also all over the place. For some reason I got somewhat irritated before leaving home and couldn't shake the feeling until we came back home. Not sure what it was but I hope I didn't bring anybody down with my moodiness. Though it wasn't so bad, so probably no one else noticed besides my wife.
It's funny because I was so excited to go! I was even thinking of this as one of my “happy places”. It seems the place isn't everything.
Well, here are some pictures as I promised.
Footnotes
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But I'm pretty sure it is. At least I can't think of any other thing that might be construed as “malicious activity”. Another option might be something like folks using Guestbooks on disreputable sites, or Mire doing lots of requests when polling RSS feeds. We'll see. I'm curious what the Azure support folks will say. ↩