specialized Linux hosting question

[Christopher Browne]

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 10:50 AM, Dave Mason <dmason-bqArmZWzea/GcjXNFnLQ/w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 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.

Paranoia is all well and fun, and I wouldn't want to discourage you
from any such fun.

But it is also apropos to consider risks realistically.

Consider:
- Irrespective of where you may choose to locate your servers, it will
be necessary to get data onto and off of those servers.

- If those servers are not located close enough for you to have direct
physical access, then it is unlikely that you will be able to transfer
data without it passing over the Internet.

- If the data passes over the Internet, then you have little or no way
of controlling whether or not the data transfer process takes routes
that pass through the "United States of Paranoia."

- If that data passes thru the "United States of Paranoia," then those
spooks are quite likely to have the ability to "snoop" through your
data anyways.

It's all well and good to imagine that you are avoiding "Patriot Act"
risks, but for that to actually be so has rather more stringent
requirements than you are considering.
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