Ask HN: Hetzner asking for passport for new account? just me, or everyone?

2 pointsposted 11 hours ago
by casenmgreen

Item id: 46050904

3 Comments

arwt

10 hours ago

You raised some red flags with the information you provided. This doesn't happen to everyone. A support rep from Hetzner has spoke a bit more about this process on WebHostingTalk before[1], although they don't get into which specific heuristics may result in flagged accounts for obvious reasons. I'd imagine it's a combination of things like unpaid balances on previous accounts, IP address reputation, uncommon e-mail domains and so on.

[1] https://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1810197&p=10...

casenmgreen

10 hours ago

Good.

I've seen, or I think I've seen, AWS and Twitter giving completely fake "security" reasons for eliciting additional information. I made an account on Twitter, did nothing with it at all, next day was told I violated the T&C and needed to prove my identity by handing over phone number.

So I'm cagey about this sort of thing. Obviously, actual real security concerns are a good thing to see, people are thinking about the issue and taking care, and asking for validation is naturally what you do and it's better than a flat no. OTOH, passport is BS - solves their security risk but gives me a security risk.

bluelu

2 hours ago

Either you want to be a customer or you won't.

Using a friend's paypal will get you banned for sure.

Why not just provide the passport if you want to use their service, jf that's their requirement.