specialized Linux hosting question

[Dave Mason]

I haven't followed all of the details of this conversation, but I feel
that I need to point out that linode.com is an american corporation and
hence falls under the US Patriot Act, which means that the machine is
subject to secret inspection.  (The fact its servers are spread around
the US just makes it easier.)  The Patriot Act has very broad definition
of 'access' with minimal judicial oversight and prevents even informing
the investigated party (you) that your information has been accessed.
You might be told that there was a power failure while in reality US law
enforcement hit the reset button, captured the contents of main memory
and your disks, and then rebooted your machine.

If you have any content that US law enforcement might find interesting,
(and you'd be surprised how broadly that net can be) you may want to
have it reside on a machine not accessible by US citizens or
corporations (i.e. a US company with servers in Toronto doesn't help, a
service contract from a US company could expose you).

Unfortunately, it is really hard to figure out what providers are not
encumbered.  I have been looking at http://iweb.com/ but in the corner
of their web page it says "iWeb Canada" which suggests there may be an
iWeb US...  And even if it is fully Canadian, (putting my conspiracy hat
on) if US spooks *really* want access to your data but want to avoid
that messy break and enter to Canadian premises stuff, they could help
say linode.com to buy iweb.com, and then invoke their USPA access rights.

../Dave
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