Traffic to Route 53 was rerouted to an alternative DNS server. But that has nothing to do with my question re. AWS calling out Google in particular in their status update.
325 karma · joined July 30, 2012
Between 4:05 AM PDT and 5:56 AM PDT, some customers may have experienced elevated errors resolving DNS records hosted on Route 53 using DNS resolvers 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4. This issue was caused by a problem with a third-party Internet provider. The issue has been resolved and the service is operating normally.
"Security Intelligence Team" ... yeah, because that team actually exists.
"Since you're a new customer with Hetzner, we ask you for a scan of your passport or ID card (authenticity check). It's only necessary for your first order with us.
Please send the scan by fax or as an email attachment."
When they say they delete it after 21 days, as they did in the mail I've just received, I trust them. I find their communication on this matter, as well as previous matters, open and serious.
I asked them just now if these systems were compromised and they promptly replied:
"The system that stores scans of ids, credit cards and so on was not compromised. In addition to that, we delete that information after 21 days."