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Our personal data
Hello,
we often don't know who is the owner of a lowend-vps-project, sometimes such a project is only existing some months and than we will never hear something again from this providers.
But why we should give these providers our true, and fully personal data, like our name, our address, our number, our paypal-mailaddress, our creditcard, etc? Is there a way to get normal vps half-anonym? (Like a trust-company which address we can give to the vps provider?) Or complete anonym, but legally?
That we are keeping our files on the servers of them is another question and thing about we could discuss, but I think the personal details are more important.
Comments
www.prq.se $30-100/month+
feel free
hehe, yes I know them. They have hosted WikiLeaks a long time, I am not sure, if they are still hosting them.
But when I here PRQ, I always think for halb-legal things. I want to use normal vps offers like (only for example!) buyvm, ramhost, edis, and so on...
There are more "offshore hosters", but exactly that I don't want!
I don't think you'll find an onshore hoster that doesn't verify your data.
There was a provider who accepted BitCoin as a payment method and probably would have cared about customers privacy, but they are deadpooled now.
Actually I thought of that as a more important issue to me since I don't keep a lot of credit in my prepaid card to worry about (furthermore, it haven't been ripped off ever yet). So, if there's something to worry about it would be storing anything personal on my space with similar hosts. But in either case I try picking a reputable provider.
Find a company with an easy to understand privacy policy. Providing false/inaccurate information will get your account terminated without refund in most cases so try not to make a habit of it.
If you do not want to trust a company with your personal information then hosting is not for you (even if you colocate, you need to provide accurate information). Short of starting your own data center or hosting out of your house the majority of companies (especially LEB providers) will verify all information and not allow anonymous usage.
Never use a company that you don't trust, no matter how good of a deal it is or how many people recommend them to you if you don't trust them, always go with your instincts and walk away. If a company hides any information, then walk away.
On the opposite side of the spectrum if a client has something to hide then they're not the type of client I want. I've had dozens of people contact me in regards to privacy and currently host a handful of sites that would result in a lot of jail time for people in certain countries where governments censor all forms of media. I, as well as the majority of US hosts, only operate under US law (and any international treaties) and we have a right to free speech which we respect. No amount of legal threats or money will make me change my mind about that.
Shouldn't be giving any provider or anyone else on line a credit card. Should just be going to the processor.
I don't even look at privacy policies anymore. Too many companies who put them out just ignore them anyway and do nothing about the situation when it's pointed out that they have violated their policies. There's no legal requirement for them to follow it anyway.
When I give out an address, it;s for one of the places I volunteer at. Phone number? Voice mail. (edit: And out of state voice mail at that.) Even the banks have those bits.
Of course I have a crazy "ex" who has caused problems in the past...
A contract is a contract is a contact. If a company violates a contract they can be taken to court if thed. They will not be arrested and charged with a crime, but they will be found in breach of that contract.
So what? Big deal. My word vs. a company. Ever try suing a company for breech of contract?
No, but if you're basing your legal argument on your word versus theirs without any proof, of course it's not going to end well.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_172403.html
Excellent read. Not sure how it pertains to this thread but I still enjoyed it none-the-less.
Fighting for $761... shame on Google. How about you just tell them whats wrong with what the person did? ...I know its off-topic. Probably could have saved them thousands just by writing off the $761 to him, because I know that Lawyer cost more. Lol.
Meh, to be completely honest... if you wouldn't trust us to protect your privacy and respect client confidentiality, then I would hard a hard time figuring out why I would trust you to use the VPS honestly, legally, and not cause problems for us.
@Amfy your best bet is to go with a company located in a country with very strong privacy laws whilst also being a respectable company. Example of this would be one located in sweden,austria and iceland to be realistic as internet is non existent in the best privacy locations ie the british virgin islands.
Perhaps take a look at EDIS. They have their own datacentre in Graz Austria and colocate servers around the world. They offer kvm in Chicago, Graz and Zurich and v server in the same locations plus Milan, London and Frankfurt
http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/edis-e3-99-256mb-kvm-vps-in-switzerland/
http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/edis-e2-99-256mb-linux-vserver-vps-in-austriaswitzerlanduk/
http://en.edis.at/virtual-root-server_82.htm
However you will still have to give your information.
/my 2 cents.
VMStorm.
There are many that won't verify your data, but you have to trust the payment processor / paypal anyway...
Make sure that the country of the IP you are connecting from matches the country you are prettending to come from though or you'll be flagged as fraud!
It's an example (and I'll admit a one that I found via a quick google as I was trying to get work done last night. Security ran me out of the mall at 11:30 and I didn't get home until 1:30ish and it's now 7ish) of one's fight against a company and how difficult it is to get anything out of them.
@drmike
Like this? http://ddq74coujkv1i.cloudfront.net/SO-Segway-article_Page_1.jpg
@net I felt he felt bad (seriously did), when looking at it. That must be how real trolls are, not those pretending to be :P
I won't have any problem trusting your company and any preferred company that has been running for sometime, offering decent service, and with no question marks over the owner, or real owner etc, I guess the problem for registration data and my stored data on the VPS, is with this type of companies.
You should read the follow-up: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_213176.html
Anyway, privacy policy is not a contract. Even if it technically is, there is no way for you to prove which privacy policy you "signed" as they can change it at any time. I don't know about US, but most European countries have pretty decent privacy protection laws which would prevent those "companies" from doing with your private information whatever they want.
How are you going to prove they shared your private information, that's a different story.
Actually they have a couple of those. The three wheeled versions.
I did. Just reenforces the point I was trying to make.
In my wordpress/automattic days, their privacy policy, once they wrote and released one after about 18 months of operation, was pretty much ignored when needed. Right before I left, they were releasing users' emails in the support forums.