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Making an Independent Web Site?
KinsmanCa asks: "Lately I've been thinking of opening a website - but looking over what web hosts provide, I don't like the idea of having a bandwith limit of so many gigabtyes per month, or having to be mindful of what the provider considers community standards. How can I create a website that's as independent as possible? By which I mean, pay as few bills to as few people as possible, and have to answer to nobody but the law itself as far as my content goes? Assume that I'm willing to pay a lot as far as hardware or initial setup costs go.
How much autonomy can a regular person get on the Internet?"
Just get a server, T3, and host it yourself.
Colocate
Well, the obvious and most straight-to-the point answer would be to get your own T1 or other high speed line, a router, and server(s).
Only through this method will you get the control and administrative capabilities you seek.
heyitsme
Try a free adult host.
You'll have to put up with a banner ad top and
bottom, but it's unlimited bandwidth.
Look on xbiz for lists of them
Colocate a server somewhere.
Hint: You won't avoid bandwidth fees one way or the other. Bandwidth costs money.
You won't avoid them *especially* if you want to be left alone to do what you want to do.
Buy a server, colocate it somewhere, and set up what you want. Do your own mail, dns, everything.
Or... lease a cobalt raq somewhere, that might be a good start. Quick, easy, your own machine.
You could host the entire thing from a computer on your localnet, and connect it to the net through your regular ISP.
Need I mention Linux as a good possibilty ?
As much as you can afford. If you can plink down the chips to get your own lines and servers, then do so and pay out the nose for hella bandwidth.
I think he's indirectly asking slashdot to host his site. Can't you guys take a hunt? :)
Try Netmar
It's $10 a month for 100 megs, no bandwidth limits (within reason). No porn allowed, but other than that, they aren't trying to censor you.
Other than that, I'd recommend co-loc or a T1. The only real way to get totally free from any restrictions is to get a real T1 from a first tier provider.
No, I don't work for Netmar
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
oops, hunt == hint
I should read what I write before posting
It sounds like you're looking for a great new car, regardless of price, that has no or fixed fuel costs no matter how much you drive it. You're not going to find one. You can't have a web site without some kind of bandwidth limitation, be it physical or financial.
Bandwidth is the primary cost of every web host on the Internet. The backbone providers allow a specific amount of bandwidth for a specific price, and resellers carve up that bandwidth for sale to you (or to other resellers) at smaller prices for smaller amounts of data transfer.
As you might imagine, it's usually a good idea to avoid any provider who promises "Unlimited Bandwidth". They're lying. Anyone who says that really means, "Unlimited Bandwidth, Unless You Use More Than We Think You Should".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Join a Linux User's Group. Get to know the people there who run ISP's. Pay for pizza and beer activities. You may find the friends you make have an affinity for creating community website opportunities.
Next thing you know, you have a box on a T3 line. Try to get the thing slashdotted. That's pretty much the goal in life as I've seen it.
phpwebhosting.com is easily the cheapest full service bandwidth I've found. For $12/month, they give you everything you could want - shell access, *unlimited* bandwidth, mySQL, perl, python, php, sweet log analysis, email, mailing lists, etc. Since it's only one (small) bill a month, and you talk directly to their tech people for support, I'd say it's pretty autonomous... short of having you own box on the net, of course.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
For less than $60/mo (in my case), I have 640 DSL, a P90 Linux firewall, and a webserver in my DMZ. I get 8 (5) static IP addresses, priority packets, several e-mail addresses, no metering or content filtering. My ISP is purely Linux based and promotes this type of independence because its less for them to manage when I can manage it myself.
-H
"There *IS* no patch for stupidity" -www.sqlsecurity.com
I mean this might sound stupid, but we are running a marginally popular web site on a DSL connection. :)
I don't know what kind of traffic you are talking about here, but I'm serving some 10-15Gb a month from my Earthlink DSL on a PII-300 running FreeBSD.
Can I take a slashdot effect with this setup? No. Will I ever be slashdotted? Not likely
So before answering the question of hosting, you have to (realistically) estimate what kind of traffic you are facing.
I passed the Turing test.
HavenCo
J
That's simply not true. Many providers can provide you a fixed-rate setup, where you have a maximum transfer rate that you can sustain constantly and pay nothing more. While the "X gigs of transfer" is popular among many web hosters, most colocation providers offer based on sustained average usage. IE, there is a base price for 1 Mbps/sec, and if you only average that, you pay the base. Then there is a surcharge based on your average for the month being >1Mbps/sec.
It could also be pointed out that colo isn't for the "average joe". Not everyone wants the hassle of running their own box.
Check out netmar.com. I heard about them on Slashdot about 3 months ago when the latest Star Wars trailer came out. The owner created a mirror on his server and told everyone they could download, but asked that they consider throwing some business his way.
I have a client that needed a website and the price was right so I went for it. They have been a great company so far. The high points of what they offer are 1) Unlimited bandwidth. 2) They will install anything you want. Perl modules, Tomcat, PHP, etc. They already have Postgresql and Mysql on the systems. 3) Linux based. 4) $8/month -- I shit you not. 5) I haven't received a single piece of spam from them -- period.
That was a Freudian Clit. I mean Slit. Oh, never mind.
Before signing up with any ISP or host or whatever, make sure they're clean and not on any spam blacklists. Dejagoogle for the company name in net.admin.net-abuse.(email|sightings).
I love these guys sometimes my page loads a bit slow but I can deal with it for the price.
www.linuxmotor.com
Unlimited Space
Unlimited Bandwidth
$50-200 / YEAR!
If you own a macintosh, just sign up for iTools. You get 20mb free space with few restrictions.
vi ~/.emacs
If you really were willing to spend the money, you could locate your own 'facility' in a country with lesser restrictions on content and maybe less of a strain on bandwidth (if such a thing exists). There are some interesting (read as bandwidth consuming rom site) examples of this in China and France and a few other countries that have minimal advertising and no subscription type service. The obvious disadvantages would be not having hands on access to it without moving there (and probably some amount of data security depending on who's watching it for you), but certainly a high level of autonomy could be achieved.
.. As unlimited bandwidth. If any host says that to you, they are lying. Just see what happens when you actually stress that bandwidth out - it will either slow to a crawl and/or die, or the host will cut you off and/or slap additional fees on you.
Cheers,
Backov
In the law there is no overlap between theft and copyright infringement whatsoever.
escape.com, based in New York City, was started by 2600-affiliated hackers in the early nineties. I've been using them since 1994, and I've really "pushed it" as far as content on my site, activities of users on my own server, and bandwidth use. They even weren't too pissed when I snuck into the owner's ~directory. Despite that, their security is excellent, they are cheap, they have a shitload of bandwidth and they dont have limits, and they don't care what you do.
One time, this guy used my server to break into a govt website. The owner of escape.com called me telling me the FBI wanted my info and threatened him with a court order, but he didn't give it to them. He just told me to knock it off.
Very cool guys, and they are professional, not just a bunch of 2600 hacker chumps.
Whether you're in NYC or not, they can take care of you: 1-800-985-HOST
I used to be very optimistic about the role of the internet in combatting censorship. I was naive and silly. The internet resists goverment censorship, because it's difficult to enforce laws and regulations against such a decentralized entity. But as long as the key networks are owned by a few media monopolies, you will play by their rules, or your plug will be pulled.
I used to run a web server on my static IP @Home connection, until they went under. Now it's DHCP so no DNS possible.
:-( J/K
No more warez!
Colocate. Yes I'm sure that would help all of us, especially the person who asked the fucking question. You could be a little more descriptive you fucking inconsiderate asshole. I'm sorry if not everyone is as smart as you poindexter. You know what? Take your fucking smarts and shove them us your ass cause when I come after you not the smartest brain in the world will be able to protect your ass.
And, ah, fuck you. You are not even worth thinking of a good insult for.
Phpwebhosting offers "unmetered" bandwidth transfer. They have a few restrictions on what they'll tolerate (frowning on porn, warez, large file archives, etc.), but outside of that, they don't seem to mind bandwidth surges as long as they're not sustained.
(I'm not a customer of theirs, but may probably become one in the future; the above is my reading of their terms of service)
iSKUNK!
As you might imagine, it's usually a good idea to avoid any provider who promises "Unlimited Bandwidth"
Unlimited bandwidth, but everyone else on the service trying to get the same unlimited bandwidth acts as a pretty effective throttle.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
No provider of services is going to take on any customer they see as a potential liability. This is why almost any provider you see is going to have restrictions on use of their services, especially thanks to the DMCA.
The few providers that have a completely "hands off" approach to their customers tend to have customers who traditionally deal in spam, pr0n, copyright violations, or some combination thereof. Those are sites you likely wouldn't want to be associated with, and those kind of providers also tend to get blackholed and/or sued on occasion.
Co-location is also an option others have mentioned, but the same basic rules will likely apply (no spam/pr0n/warez, pay by the byte) with any solid provider. It's also not for the beginner, and definitely not for anyone who's not incredibly serious about their site.
PHPwebhosting.com has a 5gb/month transfer limit.
Chocolate
Adult freehosts are in business to promote specific pay sites, not to provide free hosting for you to use any way you want (duh!!). They will pull non-porn pages, or porn pages that promote non-approved sponsors.
odd, that wasn't there last time i read the faq.. i go over that limit every month though and have no problems
How much autonomy can a regular person get on the Internet?
You can get pretty much any autonomy you need, but you might have to go to multiple places to get it. If you're not breaking laws, serving porn, sending spam, or hosting sites which are referenced in spam, then you can go just about anywhere. If you want to serve porn, send spam, or host sites which are referenced in spam, then you're going to have a much harder time finding a location, but it is possible. If you want to break the law, well, you already said you don't...
As for bandwidth, you pretty much have three choices: cap your maximum bandwidth, cap your monthly transfer, or be willing to pay additional fees.
Want no bandwidth limit, no fees, no hassles on "community standards"? Just upload your page to Freenet. And it's anonymous so you won't even have to answer to the law. Sure it's a painfully slow to access most pages, but what do you want for free?
You need to pay for the bandwidth one way or another. There are three basic ways:
;-)
1. Buy a circuit and pay for the bandwidth yourself (DSL, T1, etc).
2. Rent part of a circuit and (possibly) computer, and pay someone else to host. Most services cap bandwidth or charge directly for bandwidth. You can either go hosted or colocation (their computer or yours).
3. Go on a hosted service that is advertising supported. Everyone I'm aware of caps bandwidth.
The decision should be based on how much you have to spend and how much bandwidth you really need.
As you can see from the above options, there's no free ride - bandwidth costs *someone* and usually those costs are passed down to you.
Of course, I shouldn't preach.... I share a T1 speed SDSL with folks in my building and only pay $20/month
Though mentioned several times before, I feel that no one mentioned the most important aspect of colocation: redundant connections. T1/T3 lines probably won't fail, but there's still the chance, and if they do, you're screwed for however long it takes the phone company to fix the problem (and if you've ever tried to get a Baby Bell to fix something, you'll know why this will be a problem).
A redundant connection will keep your site up and running even if the primary connection fails. Ideally, the redundant connection should be able to handle 50% of peak capacity and should be leased from a different provider than the primary line (so that an entire company outage won't shut down both lines).
Now, you CAN get redundant lines into your house, but it won't be cheap and you'll end up paying for a redundant connection that you may never use. Colocators already have redundant connections set up, which means you won't have to worry about any of this. You may have to pay a dollar amount per Gibibyte of throughput over a certain amount, but this is unavoidable when using anyone else as a host. Just be sure to agree on a deal that will provide you enough base bandwidth so that you won't wind up paying thousands of dollars in excess bandwidth fees.
With the right colocator and the right agreement, you'll end up getting the right amount of allotted bandwidth and you won't have to bother yourself with all the things that make hosting your site from home troublesome.
build a little server, buy the network administrator eight or nine beers, stick your machine in the server room, and go to down. (the beer trick works especially well if you happen to BE the network administrator.)
i haven't paid for server bandwidth in probably seven or eight years (i.e., "ever"); the downside is that you may have to move it around a lot, as you might change jobs, your company might fold, that sort of thing.
DSL works nicely for low-impact serving, too.
Just steal a few servers from your local government's traffic light control center and set up shop. Of course, your vistors may be annoyed by the cycling go, caution, stop, go, caution, stop bandwidth.
I have a web server connected through 1mbps sync DSL. the DSL costs me $80/mo. the ISP is $26/mo. and that includes 8 static IPs. I run DNS on my 2 computers so I have that covered, so for $100/mo. I have basically full control over anything I want to put on the web. The initial setup was very cheap (router came with my DSL, cisco 678) and I just use standard desktop machines running linux as servers, I've got a UPS that gives me 30 minutes of power outage coverage. I have very little downtime, basically if the power goes out for more than 30 minutes is the only time I reboot the web server.
What does colocate mean?I've seen the word in a lot of posts here but I don't know what it is.
Its not unlimited, its unmetered. This means you only get 5 Gig, but you can use as much per second as you want. When using my shell I've downloaded DivX movies at 2 MBPs. You get 125 MB, plus more if you give them a reason why you need it, and the bandwith limits aren't hard-coded. If you run over 5 gigs your site isn't shut off, the admin just sends you an email and decides whether or not to charge you for it.
Just host it yourself off of a local DSL line.
I've been hosting myself and a few other sites off of my old P200MMX (debian) on a 640/256 line for a few years at less than $50/month. I could go as high as 7Mb/1Mb for $250/mo, but I really don't need that.
Speedwise, it's great. Things start slowing down only when the server gets overloaded (hey, it's a 200...) and I've yet to have any serious problems with bandwidth. The dsl modem dies rarely, and takes five seconds to reset.
Don't believe me? http://www.dirgotronix.net/ (shameless plug) runs plenty fast!
From 1 Mb to 1000 Mb, if you find a lower price, we'll beat it by 5%. It's that simple.
but someone who might would be the person/people
who run the site goatse.cx. They've had their site running
long enough without too many problems. They must have a friendly
provider (proof: the site is still there).
I don't think they guy wants a web page with other people's porn banners on them. And he said that cost isn't really an issue...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
i average about 8gb a month, sometimes more, and have had my account for 13 months, and never recieved an email, maybe they checked my site and know im not doing anything illegal.
Adult hosts are used to getting calls about anything from trademark infringement to libel. They know the rules and when to call BS on a C&D letter.
I work for one myself (obligatory NationalNet link) but you can find your own if you need at many review sites. Good luck!
Hammer of Truth
yep, Teuscher's chocolate is the answer... a broadband of flavor!
You're ISP will dry up once that Powel kid manages to deregulate DSL...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
How is that redundant? I havn't seen anyone else mention it.
Sealand may be overkill though, and there is a pretty strict bandwidth limit.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
you might be able to find a good dsl provider that will allow you to do whatever you want. no monthly bandwidth limits, but, obviously, not the best solution for a very high traffic site.
speakeasy dsl allows this in new york. you can host your own site using it, and the only limits are the physical limits of the dsl line.
Ph33r him, for he is insightful.
Do you know if HavenCo is the same place Kazaa is moving to?
Thanks!
Also, there is no getting around the legal problem. The DMCA is written such that anyone that provides bits to you is an ISP, and they can be provided notice of your copyright violations. Once they receive that notice, they must either remove the content (i.e., by getting you to do it via threats, or by cutting off your service), or they are held legally responsible. Since you probably pay them thousands of dollars a year at most, and willfull copyright violation is $25,000 per occurance, your ISP will not back you, and will pull the plug, because it's not worth the risk.
/. would disagree with (preventing spamming, for example), but many of them there might be some controversy (prohibiting un-PC speech). Again, you're not going to be able to avoid these unless you become a backbone provider. Which is probably a bit over your budget ;).
Theoretically, I suppose, you could be a backbone provider and not have anyone upstream. But unless you're planning on buying Sprint or something, you will have to deal with the fact that there is someone upstream who can pull the plug on you solely because your content has been complained about by a copyright owner.
Also, realistically, every provider has some terms of service. Some of them no one on
and we all know it is the trolls who are more important...
/. " posts give ME no info... and, most of you shitscrapers are reactionary piglets anyway.)
fuck it all, i'd not even bother with this fucking website if it weren't for the close encounters of the TROLL kind...
(the news is old once it hits here, i've read it hours ago... and "ask
so, in conclusion, go fuck yourselves.
College students have it made -- most universities today provide you with all you need to run a server of your own making. (At a public university you may still run into some legal issues.)
When I'm home, though, cable works fine for running a small independent host.
I use DynDNS's freeDynamic DNS serviceto have my dynamic IP be resolved via myhost.dyndns.org. I then have a DNS record alias the this dyndns hostname (eg, "www.mydomain.com. IN CNAME myhost.dyndns.org. ;EXTREF"), so I can effectively have www.mydomain.com resolve to mydymanic
IP.
He did get one thing right, though--if you want as little to-do over content as possible, take a look at where some of the more "extreme" adult sites get their bandwidth. I'm sure a little research could pull up several potential service providers who probably won't object to your content since they host rape fetish porn and such.
Of course, this is assuming you want to be free of censorship but aren't going to be violating copyrights. The DMCA is unfortunately a powerful enough club that even hosts in Taiwan can be forced to concede to it.
Aside from breaking copyrights, child porn is the only other deal-killer I can think of if you choose a provider who already sells bandwidth to extreme fetish porn sites. Although, from what I hear there are a number of "borderline" child porn websites that get hosted in Russia for a long time without getting pulled, but I won't get into that issue.
Also, if I were looking for a non-censorious service firm willing to host controversial content, I'd look up whoever hosts Xenu, the anti-scientology website--those guys get harassed *a lot*.
So, unless you're looking to violate copyrights or to post child pornography, there should be plenty of potential choices you could look into based on the type of content already hosted or already being given bandwidth.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
2) @Home, ATTBI, etc... don't want you running servers. They aren't too strict, but if they see you sucking up much bandwidth, it's perfectly legal for them to ask you to shut down your server or be disconnected. This pretty much rules this solution out due to the "don't have to answer to anyone" requirement.
I'm currently running a server from home using a cable modem. The cable company filters out port 80 but you can just have you domain name supplier forward your domain to an IP:Port. That way you basically have T1 speed at home.
I cannot believe this question made the front page... I think I have lost all faith in /. :(
... buy a backbone. Last I checked they only cost around $625 million.
Miko O'Sullivan
The trick is just finding a good company. As many other folks have said, you really can't be independent online. The trick is to be as independent as possible.
Personaly, we use http://www.virtuaserve.net to host our site. They've been really great.
_________
http://www.emayhem.org
___ alwaysBETA.com - Hey, you've got nothing better to do.
Also, there is no getting around the legal problem
Yeah there is. Not every country has laws as fucked as those of the US (remember, johanson's code was legal in Norway) -- if an american accesses my website, it's no more under the DMCA than if they were offended at a sign in my garden they could only see with a spy satellite.
Is it just me, or does this thread seem to have transformed /. into one giant classified ads section.
"My company will host for only..."
I'm only paranoid because everyone is against me...
Try Dedicated-Host.net, they have good prices ($25/mo for 500MB/20GB) and offer extra bandwidth if you need it for a reasonable price. They also don't have any restrictions on what types of content you host on your website as long as it's not illegal of course!
The funny thing is bandwidth restrictions would mean nothing if ISP's enabled multicast.
==BE WARNED===
These types of outfits are usually cogentco outfits. They tend to list a ton of "carriers" with cogent hidden in the midst. Of course, to get access to anything other then cogent, you usually find you have to pay SIGNIFICANTLY higher rates.
They need to at least be upfront with cogent's ability to develop good peering relationships. When they first started out, they were way over there head. I hope to god it gets good because their bandwidth costs are the best there are, but the jury is still out.
Good signs for a web host:
Upfront pricing in public
Clearly indicate who they actually announce routes through and route traffic through % wise when asked and what facility they locate or sub-locate in.
Bad signs:
sales teams exist to a) rip you off. b) Waste your time and c) call again and again. Better beleive those sales guys have a pricesheet, ask for it or don't waste your time. Especially if you are doing a rack plus, they will call you at the end of every month with a special deal that only lasts a few days. I'm so sick of sales teams I could puke. Hire someone to deal with the rats.
From the Netmar web site: "Our Linux server is a 1500 megahertz Pentium 4 processor, equipped with 128 megabytes of RAM to handle computation-heavy facets of your site."
I don't think it is possible to buy less memory than that. Do I mis-read that? They have ONE computer?
The reason many companies have no limits on bandwidth is that they are very, very small, and don't have much bandwidth for their entire company. They expect to host mom's family fotos website.
It depends on where you live and where your host is based. The local juristictions of your country and that of your server are the limit of your independence. No matter how much you spend.
I don't think it is true that every provider will recognize these laws. Shirley there are some colo facilities in Eastern Europe, Africa, or the Pacific rim who would be exempt from enforcing these laws. I don't think every one of the ISPs in every country are downstream from a multinational ISP.
Once they receive that notice, they must either remove the content (i.e., by getting you to do it via threats, or by cutting off your service), or they are held legally responsible.
Unless the end-user provides a counter-notice.
I'm perfectly willing to accept liability for my website.
Depending on what options you have in your area...
Set up your own servers, and get a broadband ISP with an account that has no restrictions. I pay $200 a month for a 1.54m/768k dsl account with 16 static ip addy's and NO restrictions. I can resell the bandwidth if I want to and its permitted, the TOS even says so. The law is my only restriction.
Then you run your own servers. You put whatever you want on them, and you can use all the bandwidth you need, up to the physical limits your service allows. I'd imagine that any company will offer comparable services. Where people get caught and start whining is they believe the $39 a month rate they pay for the same bandwidth should offer unrestricted services for that price.
Now, if you can find a host, you'll probably be better off in the long run, at least for the amount of money you'll be spending. More than likely, you'll get either a total bytes transfered limit, or a bandwidth cap rate. Any service that offers unlimited on both always has a disclaimer in there somewhere.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Several years ago I wanted to run a small web database app for parents of kids at my daughter's school. The only relevant server-side technologies I knew were ASP and MS Access. I was pretty much stuck with Win98 on my home computer because we had tons of kid games that wouldn't run under NT, and we couldn't afford a second computer anyway.
So what I did was use Personal Web Server, a free mini-version of IIS that does about everything IIS does. To get to my machine from the web I hosted a domain on a cheap host (HostSave, $7.95/mo) and did redirects to my home IP address. Although I wasn't paying for a static IP, it tended to stay the same for months at a time. Whenever it changed I simply fixed the links. The small number of users (parents from my daughter's school) were mostly hitting my site one at a time, and my DSL line was fast enough to give them decent response. Bandwidth was not an issue, but I bet it isn't for most people. This solution worked just fine, was dirt cheap and was perfect for a non-Unix person.
I was surprised Microsoft abandoned Personal Web Server. To run a server now under XP you have to upgrade to Professional. They have drawn in so many kids with Visual Basic, providing an easy and accessible way to play webmaster seems like a great idea. I guess it's part of casting the home Internet user as a consumer rather than a peer.
Many universities don't do anything to stop people from running websites off their computers. And at least at my school you have to use ALOT of outbound bandwidth(over several gigs a day) before they will catch on to the fact that you are running a server. And when they do catch on, all they do is send you a threatening e-mail, at which time, you find another kid to host your website.
Get your shovels and pick-axes, we're digging in to sprintlink!
Don't buy from resellers - go right to the top - to the backbone - UU.net, ATT or whatever. Resellers are more skittish about content. One middleman provider was having financial difficulties and thought our site would be bad press, so they nuked it with no word about it.
The top level people care a bit less about such things because they're so damned huge and because they can afford lawyers who will look at the laws and make fair and sound judgements. They'll put it to their legal department who will call the police or an expert in the feild and come to a fair conclusion.
I don't mean to misguide you into beleiving that you won't have to deal with shit, even from the big companies. But shit is just shit. The private prejudice of the employees of these companies means very little in the end. Once you deal with it, it'll be over and your site will stay up.
Mind you, any site with illegal content will not last. But questionable but defendable content has a good chance of surviving on the backbone.
Good luck!
AC23
Weren't the majority of the nuclear test in Nevada subterranean? So why does the plate depict an atmospheric detonation?
Or maybe I'm just confued about what these types of explosions look like.
I've seen some web sites (graphics and web design community) that were basically slashdotted (in the design community) and received thousand dollar+ bills even with non-bargain hosts.
This part of the DMCA is about the only part that's intelligently written (IMHO). It says that somebody who thinks you violated a copyright must send a letter to your service provider certifiying that they believe you have violated a copyright.
The provider, to avoid taking on the liability for contributory copyright infringement, must remove your site unless you certify that you have not violated their copyright. Now that's the thing though, you have to be willing to take the chance in a court of law that you did not violate their copyright. If you aren't, then an ISP will, wisely, remove your offending content.
Now, I say not ENTIRELY true, because I'm sure that a number of providers will be more than happy to shut down your site completely regardless of what you say because it's not worth the hassle to them. That is a risk you take when you walk near the legal grey areas (and boy haven't those grey areas increased in size lately). I mean running any site today that allows for some sort of public user posting runs the risk of them violating copyright on your site. Then you get to have the choice of eliminating their posts or taking a moral stand. Moral stands are expensive...
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
You also have to keep in mind that no matter how much money you're willing to put up, the more contraversial your content is, the harder it is to find someone that will provide you with an uplink to the net. In an age when companies are attacking the ISPs directly, the ISPs themselves are begining to take the content of customer servers more seriously. Even Google is being attacked simply because they have indexed pages that scare certain organizations.
We are well past the days of FreeAlways; the net has become to mainstream, commercial, and political to be the true utopia of free information that it was originally intended to be.
I found out about these guys through a site that is hosted by them. It's termed "p2p" hosting, but it's more like a co-op, where somebody that has bandwidth and a server(s) allows them to be used. The policy is for non-commerical sites only though.
Check it out, it might be what you need.
bashbrotha
Sorry for the plug, but my web design/hosting company, LoebNet.com would be perfect for any solution. I do not use bandwidth limits, and my hosting plans are very reasonable. I also personally help to maintain and troubleshoot my clients' websites.
Webhosters take $10 a month just for hosting a site, so to keep costs minimum and freedom maximum, I bought two pentium 1 comps and hooked em up to cable connections. Now I'm serving 7 domains the biggest of which is hazara.org. Since I'm not serving software the cable bandiwdth seems ok. One problem that can hinder some services is that ISPs dont allow reverse dns lookups, unless you buy the much more expensive business connections. The setup takes time but in the long run its cheaper and no space/service limits and the costs are just the cost of the domains and connection. After setting up the only pain is maintaining the connection.
You've hit on one of my pet peeves: I hate it when rules are specified like this. Saying the limits are "within reason" is too vague to be enforced fairly and consistently. I'm not picking on you personally, I'm picking on rules that could be specified clearly but aren't (for example, "traffic is unmetered" or "You pay according to the size of your website, not how many people visit it".
Either there are no bandwidth limits (which is highly unlikely and what some providers tell you just before they go under because someone took them up on their offer) or there are limits (which, if unstated, means the admins create the rules on-the-fly so you're not getting the same deal as some other customer who's signed up for the same package). If I were basing a business on hosting, I'd need to budget, so I'd want to have a firm figure how much I'll have to spend for hosting. Not everything in business can be budgeted, but bandwidth use is not one of those things.
No matter who the questioner ends up going with, I suggest getting commitments in writing and knowing what the limits of the service are as much as can be specified (this certainly includes bandwidth use). Like so many other people say: bandwidth isn't free to you or your provider. Keep that in mind if someone tries to tell you they'll sell you something that sounds like unlimited bandwidth.
Digital Citizen
Ever heard of 'unmetered' colocation? some ISP's offer that service, including mine (who I'll avoid mentioning) at up to 10Mbit off a dedicated 200Mbit trunk.
I'm sure other instances of this service can be found.
If you're hearing rhetoric about Linux, open source, or Mac and everyone's bashing Microsoft, you've found Slashdot.
You could always host your own server on a phone-line connection. You leave it on and connected to some no-name dial-up service and use something like deerfield to broadcast your ip. Then go register a domain. Not the prettiest way of doing it, but revolutions were never pretty
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Whoever modded me 'Flamebait' is dumber than Dan Marino. Anyway, sorry for munging the link, here's the correct one (even clickable this time!)
n gpage.pdf
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/pdf/pitchi
Would you look at that, Slashdot thinks I'm a page widener. Fuck it, might as well turn troll full-time if this is how I'll be treated anyway.
If you want total and complete freedom in hosting your web site, you'll need to get a hosting provider outside of the country you're likely to piss people off in. I have a friend that runs both a couple of pr0n sites and a gambling site (ironically, he's a rather square dude), and he lives and works in Costa Rica. That costs mucho dinero, especially considering that outside of the US and EU, good bandwidth is hard to get. The next best solution is to be your own ISP: Arrange to have a T-1, T-3, or OC-3 connection of your own with a Tier1 provider like Sprint or Qwest, and as long as you pay that $1k USD per month they don't particularly give a shit what you do with it. But then, you'll have the expense and time of setting up your own DNS servers in addition to web services.
The hosting provider I go with is Esosoft, and although they don't offer alot of bells and whistles, they do support PHP, Perl & C CGI, Frontpage 2K extensions, Miva (which is what my site). They use a virtual server system running on Linux (although they say unix, it's Apache). Not only do I run my site (yep, 2nd plug), but some organizations I used to belong to used them for several years, and we get away with lots of shit, including posting porn. I'm none to shy either, but I also excercise practical restraint: although I don't have the luxury of anonymity, I choose my battles and stick to my guns, and have found that most people are full of shit when it comes time to actually file a suit against you or your hosting provider.
Well as long you managed to find an ISP that offers something of a stable IP address, that meaning not changing all the time...hook up with linux and run your own??? or if you want what is consumer friendly, get windows 2000 pro, usually most ISPs don't mind that, seeing as I work for one myself....and voila, problem solved, just make sure you keep traffic to a somewhat minimum:)
Moderation Totals: Troll=1, Redundant=1, Interesting=1, Total=3
That's the current moderation total for the above post. Now I haven't seen anything about using iTools yet so it would appear to me that it wasn't redundant, but I'll let that slide. The one that bugs me is the Troll. How is the above a troll? He is simply informing the person that if he has a mac, then he has a wonderful set of web tools availible to him. Admittedly, it's not the best option, but it works. He could at least use it till he finds a better alternative. So how does it qualify as a troll? Personaly I think we have some rather biased moderators here (more so than your average slashdotter) If you're going to be a biased jerk-off, don't moderate.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
You need to buy your own high speed line to your house from a large provider. By highspeed I mean T1 or better and by large I mean like AT&T, Genuity or UUNet. If you buy a line like this you will be able to get it unmetered, meaning you can use 100% of it's capacity 100% of the time and noone will complain (metered version are also available). Also generally there are very few things that are prohibited, mostly only things that are illegal. Further, your provider isn't going to monitor you and will only shut down your line if someone with enough clout complains. Finally, you'll have an actualy, legal contract with them gaurenteeing uptime and such, and perhaps a clause that they have to contact you with any problems. The larger a line you buy, the more clout you tend to carry.
The downside? Cost. For a full T1 you can probably expect to pay between $1000-$1500/month between local loop and bandwidth, and that's just 1.544mbps. You want some serious bandwidth like fractional DS-3 and you can get real expensive, real fast.
The only real thing that having a line like this gets you over doing co-lo at a good facility is that you'll have direct control over the hardware and generally speaking the telcos are more wary of cutting off a big bandwidth line (due to contracts and the like) in the event of a problem, thay'll usually just pass things to yout NOC (in this case you) or people call that in the first place.
I've read dozens of "acceptable use" clauses from different web-hosts. I've never seen any unreasonable restrictions. If you can't live within the common boundaries you are likely, either a spammer, or a pervert. If that is the case, I wish you no good luck.
http://www.featureprice.com
I use their service, but have no other ties to them. I have never had a problem with them and they have an option for unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space. The bandwidth is throttled after a certain point but keeps going.
-M
Satanists don't even really believe in a supernatual being named "Satan". Only kooky fucking christians believe in that fairytale bullshit.
Netmar must suck if they censor Satanists.
I think this is probably the best. Where I live, you can get a 256Kbps SDSL line for about US$150 a month, static IP and unlimited bandwidth. The startup cost is about the same. Get a public DNS service (see http://www.granitecanyon.com/) to host your domain and you're in business.
1. Find a country where laws don't care about distribution of information, and which has a reasonable amount of connectivity. Perhaps some of the countries in eastyern europe have decent connections.
2. Find a co-location facility there.
3. Have a machine installed and sort out domain registration etc.
4. Stick up whatever dodgy content it is that you are dealing with to have such requirements in the first place.
5. If it's pr0n then wit for the money to roll in. Otherwise find a day job.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
As for bandwidth fees, I'm sorry, but you are just not going to be able to avoid them. Even if you get your own T1, you will still be paying for it. My recommendation is to look around for really cheap colocation (what I'm doing), set it up and administer it remotely. Then YOU have total control over the server and your only limitations are bandwidth and the law.
Nathan's blog
Get your DNS and mail service from one provider and web hosting from two others. Many providers will squirm at not getting everything, but tough.
.com anywhere. Even if the country is WIPO friendly, you'll still get more delay in anyone acting against your site.
If you keep your mail seperate from your website, you should avoid mail interruptions if a web hosting provider pulls your site.
By keeping your DNS seperate, you can control which IP requests for your site get sent to. Make sure you DNS zone file records expire frequently so that a change in IP is propogated quickly. If your provider will let you manage the DNS, even better.
Setup a scheme to keep your site backed up. Running the site in two locations, plus maintaining a backup would be ideal.
Here's how it would work: If one provider pulls your site, you change your DNS to the backup provider and secure a new backup provider. Unless your being persecuted by someone with serious clue, you can shuttle your site around indefinitely with only brief interruptions.
Of course, as someone else has suggested, consider off-shore hosting. You can have a
One last thing: Anyone who wants your site down bad enough, may be able to simply get the domain pulled if you use a domestic registrar. Consider going off-shore with that as well.
So, my advice is this: Split up services; Maintain backups; Consider off-shore hosting; And consider off-shore registration. In general terms, don't keep your eggs all in one basket and hide the baskets.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
At my work (not an ISP or any sort of Internet provisioning company - we aren't even that big) we have a DS3, full, unmetered, $12k a month.
;P
Not bad considering each T1 was costing us $1250/month. (28 T1s = $28k, one DS3 is less than 50% of the cost.)
At least I can host controversial content.
My reality check bounced.
You can get a lot done on EZpublishing at the $14.95 per month account level.
Support is strictly via E-mail, but it's quite good. They assume you know what you're doing, but if you report some obscure problem, it gets fixed.
So to get this straight you have to shop around for someone with TOS that you feel you can live with and then you have to pay the band width that you use. Money makes the internet run so you'll have to live with it. As for who owns the computer that serves up your pages you can own your own or have it hosted and that costs you either way, you pays your money and takes your choice.
The TOS is the sticking point here since the physical ownership of the machine is irrelevant, what about data havens like Sealand.gov . Here they have what some regard as a relaxed TOS but doesn't their up stream provider hold their TOS over them sword of Damocles style? And ultimately my ISP serves up pages to me that are outside its Terms of Service and it never seems to bother them. This up stream provider shit has to end somewhere.
We had the if money is no object stuff earlier but ultimately can't you buy a backbone and get round that.
associated link havenco.com
__
"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will fight, to my death, for your right to say it." --Voltaire
Damn... that's EXACTLY what I was thinking! LOL
Unlimited bandwidth, email accounts, disk space, and a free MySQL DB. $10/month, last I checked. This seems to me to be damn close to the perfect servers. Good bandwidth too, I always get a good response from my site.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
Better yet, get friendly with a user group on a college campus. You'll have a constant connection with additional students, they'll probably be able to host over the summer, and if you donate a box, software, etc, it will be far cheaper than any of the normal ways of getting bandwidth.
The downside, of course, is that most Universities with good internet connections have a fairly comprehensive "Appropriate use" policy, and have no problems enforcing it. Host porn, copyrighted stuff, or content that the administration doesn't like (ie Wiccan info at a Baptist college) and down goes your connection.
Go with Mainland Internet. We do colocations, and as long as it's not pr0n and not illegal, we don't care what's on the server.
I am member of a club which is a fully fledged ISP including its own independent IP address space, high bandwidth, backup connections, enough room for co-located servers, and even commercial customers which help to finance our toys. We do not just offer dial-in via modems or ISDN but also plan to provide DSL (not an easy task in Germany). Interesting projects like voice over IP are also supported. All this works thanks to volunteers. They payoff is that we have a great freedom and services that are not to be found everywhere like static IP addresses (if necessary, in connection with CIPE tunnels), incredibly cheap co-location, and the option of sharing. What's more, we meet each other every week in our own cellar and enjoy some beer :-)
www.dnsmadeeasy.com handles my domain name. I've since upgraded my PC but for just a hobby site, my original set up will work fine for you. I needed to upgrade simply for more disk space and because I'm not just running a web-site. I also do some indie game development and occassionally test my MMORPG servers on it.
If it's just a hobby site there's no need to spend a large amount of money. It took a year to get a 1 million page view month. I currently do around 800-900 unique IPs a day on my 256K line. Until you get to at least that level, there's no need to even consider putting down a large amount of money for your site. I've considered upping my bandwidth but at this point it isn't needed.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
www.burlee.com
They have a very cheap UNLIMITED bandwidth plan. Just don't abuse it. No banners, real environments, everything you need except JSP support. UNIX/LINUX or Windows. I use it and it is very good with pretty good and very fast support.
Just look up the hosts for some of the most extremely unpopular and controversal sites out there, like www.godhatesfags.com or www.freespirits.org . You can bet your life people have been trying very hard to shut these sites down, but they're still up. So whatever ISP hosts them must not only believe firmly in free speech matters, but also have the legal horsepower to fight the prudes.
This is kind of what uServ is intended for, provided your own bandwidth (+ that of your friends) is sufficient for the kind of traffic you're expecting.
Weblsum.net is a hosting service for geeks, by geeks. $10/mo. running on UNIX from the great state of... Virginia. Hosting service with all the fixin's. Mojo likes it.
PS. Don't forget to post the IP when it is up!
This is the way it works. The more bandwidth you get, the less it costs on a per mb/sec basis. Otherwise, there'd be no real incentive (other than latency) to get a large circut over a ton of smaller ones.
What we usually do when a customer is using (or about to use) more bandwidth than they're contracted for, is to give them three options:
- Update your contract for more bandwidth
- Keep the contract where it is, and we bill you for the overage
- We put a bandwidth cap on your connection to keep it at or below what you're paying for
As you can see, there are options. Which one you choose depends on whether your site is making money, and how much.Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
hahaha That's funny. Your site is probably the worst I've seen in ages. All that crap just to look shitty. Get a clue!
If you want more or less absolute freedom within the confines of the law, build your own hosting company.
This may seem crazy at first, but think about it. If you do well, and you get enough customers to get fairly high (say, peer in Tier 3), then you can do basically whatever you want (again, within the law). Also, it will be virtually free, and you might even make money of the deal. Plus, you'll have techies that can maintain your site and add new stuff and leave you in charge of running the company and design content for your site.
Actually, even if you host from your home, I bet that you'll find that your ISP will cut your service if someone complains.
Check out the Terms of Service. Most big ISPs cover their asses by saying they;ll boot you for objectionable content, just like any hoster.
evanchik.net
Right now FreeNet is slow mainly because there aren't that many people on it. Read some of the documentation at the site. More people = a better cache and better responsiveness. Now, given its current state, I'd say the relative (very high) anonymity of it makes it drollingly appealing. So START A NODE, people!
A FreeNet with millions running nodes globally is our goal, according to my wishes and yours, as well as both our economic means.
The cardinal rule of finding a web hoster is to make sure that you can CALL THEM ON THE PHONE.
If you can only get in touch via email, you will find yourself up the creek when something goes wrong.
Many of your cheaper hosters don't offer phone support, and it is indicative of an unprofessional operation. It means they either don't speak English, are a very small shop without adequate resources, or know that their service stinks and just don't want to be bothered by the large numbers of irate customers.
You may pay a little extra to know you can speak to an actual human being, but even if you never need the phone call, its availability is the first good indicator that someone is on the up and up.
Also, calling them is a great time to make sure your site won't be objectionable for them to host.
evanchik.net
Another very real thing he will have doing a co-lo, like he said, are the bandwidth costs... they can (on an adult site for instance, like a friend soon learned) exceed 5 figures... using the bandwidth 2 T1's would require. These are at last November's hosting prices. Very good reason NOT to co-lo unless someone is willing to allow it unmetered (rare) or with a high cap b4 pay-per-byte time.
WebMaster:
BinFeeds
XXX Thumbnailed Image Newsgroups but
I always see ads for Rackspace.com, and looking at their site, they just announced 100% uptime for 12 months. Apparently they let you purchase (and/or rent?) a rack-mounted box with which you can do whatever. I'm not sure about bandwidth limits/DNS/etc.
Has anyone had any experience with these guys? I was thinking of getting a dedicated server box for myself sometime but I haven't had the time/money to do so.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
It seems like the most hassle free way of doing it would be to start an ISP. Take on a small number of dial up accounts just to look legit and help out with the bills. Then put your web sites up under fake user names. If someone complains about content...you lock out a fake user, remove the material in question, and shoot off an e-mail to the person that complained that it has been taken care of. Then you create a new fake user and do it all over again. Warrants and subpoenas? Why yes officer, I'll do everything I can to help you find this bad person!
usurper_ii
Thank God I live in this quiet, little, piss-ant, redneck, po-dunk...white trash, kick ass retirement town
Ron Paul
I agree with everything you said except the prolly won't fail part. In my experience, they fail quite often--as often as the NT PDC at my last company!
You just need to shop harder for your hosting. There are plenty of good deals out there. You can get "burstable" bandwidth deals, averaged bandwidth deals, whatever. It's still cheaper than a co-lo or a leased line (T1/T3). You don't pay for what you don't use, you pay a surcharge when you do, and you don't keep your users waiting.
Frankly, I think you have delusions of grandeur. If you can really generate that kind of traffic, you can find a way to capitalize on it- directly or indirectly- that the cost shouldn't be a problem. We should all be so lucky.
Epifora.com hosts some controversial sites & their TOS says they exercise NO control over the contents of your site.
Assume that I'm willing to pay a lot as far as hardware or initial setup costs go.
Why not buy the internet? Maybe it wouldn't work to pay as few bills to as few people as possible, but other than that it's good
- Buy your own servers... preferably SUN. First, you have TOTAL CONTROL... second... they are not so virus prone as microsoft etc..., third... more open source... don't have BSA breathing down your neck
- Do NOT go with companies like RACKSPACE. MAIN reasons are as follows... first, you would prefer to admin your own server. By relying on OTHERS to admin you, you rely on OTHERS to make you secure. Great until you get hacked... then it's *hope they fix me soon*. Second... control control control control control
- Pick your COLO carefully. If you can't afford being your own tier... you need to colo. OBVIOUSLY you have to pick your colo carefully. Prefer to stay away from east/west coast because of bandwidth clog. Personally, we've found the southern US (texas, etc) to be pretty good at not being clogged with bandwidth and having international channels open.
- Your comment about *do anything I want*... well gee, if your going to do *bad* things, like pr0n, or war3z, or hax0ring... then you should probably NOT be on US servers... in that case, go off continent... cause any main haul here will eventually ban your ass. But if your legit (as you SHOULD be)... than you have no problems hosting anywhere. Try to go with the highest tier you can.
- of course of course of course... OWN YOUR OWN DOMAIN. And if at ALL possible... own your own IP block (in old speak... Class C or better). By owning your own IP block, you can easily move from machine to machine and dictate your own configuration. Moveing is easy and painless.
- GOOD COLO... the bigger the colo, the less time they have for you if a problem occurs. However, terribly small ones are also prone to inefficiency. You want a good sized, but not too big, colo with GREAT redundancy. AND YOU WANT TOTAL CONTROL OF YOUR CONNECTIONS!!!
- Bottom line... you GET what you PAY for. You can't be a good host for no money. Good rack space and bandwidth (assuing your buying your own server) should cost you a MINIMUM of around $500 a month. Paying less than that, and your probably ending up with a shitty deal.
- Obviously, any COLO situation can get you shut down if your doing *bad* things. But... that's true period unless your 4th or 5th tier. The more tiers you are removed, the harder you are to track down... but that implies that your doing something you shouldn't be doing... so don't! - because you want to be the highest tier possible - for the best possible bandwidth
Bye bye now!Notice how all open source peer-to-peer networks are mediocre? Freenet, Gnutella, you name it. Until a real implementation of Freenet, in ANSI standard C, is available, Freenet is not an option.
A new interesting peer-to-peer project is BitTorrent, presented at CodeCon and with source freely available. As their website suggests, BT is aimed at corporations rather than warez kiddies or music freaks. Basically, your server is used to manage the P2P connections and also to provide actual content. BitTorrent is the answer to high-bandwidth connections, cheaply.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
a friend has a site doing 20gb a month, they wont let him renew :( site doesnt have any ads, it's getting harder and harder to have a good site on the internet and not have sky high bills.
I built my own server and run it out of my basement. Probably cost you around 600 bucks for the hardware (depending on what you want.... raid, dual cpu, etc...). Sign up with a cable or dsl provider and go from there. My IP only changes if I reset my cable modem so I just use that IP, if you have an IP that changes daily (like my buddies dsl) then go with a service like dns2go for a few dollars. I have roughly a 40 MB/sec upload which should be fine untill the site becomes larger, by then you might be making money off it and can purchase better equipment (T1, T3, tn.....)
http://www.penguinhosting.net (this is my company... just so you know) provides DNS as well as webhosting. We offer unlimited traffic and storage, unlimited e-mail accounts, mysql, postgresql, php and just about anything else you could need. Check it out...
I am TuXXX the pornographic, sexy linux penguin.
Before the Internet became ubiquitous, people
logged onto another computer via BBS. They posted
messages, sent email, and did everything you do
NOW with the Internet, but with their own computers. It took a little
. It took a little longer to "echo" messages, but
there wasn't ANY Internet police to interfere.
If YOU don't like the Internet, set up your own.
BBS systems ROCK!
So you're so happy with them that you're NOT going to give 'em some good word of mouth?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
if that means anything any more
I made big community server myself. It begun as a small page on my friends server on 128kbps connection (for free of course). And with cca 30 active users, it begun to suck. So, we moved to my other's friend - 2mbps line...and it still sucked...but now, the weak point was hardware...so, one of my users gave me new server...and there, it was for few months. Then, I had some argument with that guy, so I moved it somewhere else...this time, it was for 50% of ad space. It was ok there, but there were some security holes on server, so I looked forward for some solution. I configured my that mashine I recieved and then the worst part started...how to get fast connection for free? I asked some educational facilities...and they said no ads, no domain, no xyz and then maybe...so I said just "no". I asked my ISP...and with help from one of my friends, I managed to persuade them it is good idea to host my server. It tooked few months and I NEVER want to do something like this again. But now, it sits in a nice clean building with 100mbps cable going into it :)
This is the hard way...the easy way is: earn some money and pay for the line yourself...
Also, there is no getting around the legal problem. The DMCA is written such that
What was this clueless drivel modded up? The DMCA affects only websites hosted in the USA. Even a US resident can rent space on a webserver located anywhere.
If you really, dead f*cking serious here folks, want to get an INDEPENDENT line;
:) ) , you would be home free from anybody f*cking with you.
:)
go find your self a gigapop and pay the per foot fee to run lines to a router which you will pay VERY dearly for; buy rights to an old office building someplace in town, run yourself a line between the Gigapop and the office building, host your data at the office building (assloads cheaper, trust me on this, I do not even think that Gigapops LET you have server machines there, other then load balances and such), and then set up a peering arrangement with the other backbones.
It will run you in the grands per month minimum (hell lucky if you break under a million) but hell, unless the law manages to get EVERY damn last backbone provider to cut your ass off (which pretty much never happens) and you have your server located in a country with 'suitable' legislation (though quite frankly with the price of satellites constantly dropping . . . . heh, any day now, right? Sure the latency sucks, but hey, the legal situation would be fun to play around with.
Please note that Gigapops technically refer to the new I2 POPs, but that Internet backbones tend to come together at them any ways.
Basically what you want is a direct relationship with a Tier 1 provider, which is VERY hard to get and VERY expensive, especially since you would not have a backbone of your own to deal with, but I am sure that if you offer them enough money, and especially if you do it a bit 'underhandedly' with one of the smaller tier 1 providers outside of the US.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
wants something for nothing and not concerned with legality.
only partially kidding. this is the same type of attitude taken when people discuss mp3's and artists' rights over their content.
the simple fact is you can never be completely indepentant. even if you get your own t1/t3/etc you're still receiving that connection from a provider who is, in the US and a lot of other countries, bound by certain laws and must comply with court orders.
and if you're hosting with someone, don't you think they deserve to charge you for your utilization of their pipe? or should an ISP go bankrupt to support your mp3/warez site?
The hosting provider I go with is Esosoft [esosoft.net], and although they don't offer alot of bells and whistles, they do support PHP, Perl & C CGI, Frontpage 2K extensions
I won't buy anything from a company that has "Best experienced with Microsoft Internet Explorer" on its home page.
No, the DMCA doesn't presume guilt. While the accusing party may be presuming guilt, the courts make no similar assumption. All that the procedures set out by the DMCA do is provide a way for copyright owners to bring anonymous posters of pirated materials out into the open. Basically, if you post something and it was legitimate, you simply assert that it is legitimate to your accuser and then it's up to the accuser to take you to court.
The only presumption really made here is that if the materials are legitimate, you'll make the effort to certify to that they are in response to the accuser.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Independence = Freedom = Power = Money
And while on that subject...
Money = Time = sqrt(Evil)
Girls = Time x Money = Money^2
Girls = (sqrt(Evil))^2
Girls = Evil
~A'Ëq'i4d)^'$ÊSÈòB
Where are you from? I live in SD.
This is not Flame-Bait. I noticed several people singing the praises of rackshack.net for dedicated hosting solutions. However, when I review their price plans I can't find one for IIS or even Linux with chilliASP? Do they offer this?
Ya Sure! You Betcha!, The_THOMAS
This sounds very good.
A useful point has been made, however. The explanation above needs to be put on your web site, so it doesn't sound like you have only one computer.
Some co-los also do it based on transfer rate if you like. Instead of giving you 500GB/ month they give you 1mbps. They just throw a rate limit on your port.
What you have to remember is that the higher up the scale you go in terms of lines, the more they care about you and less they'll fuck with you. If you have $50.month DSL they could give a crap what you think and will terminate you at the drop of a hat. However if you are spending $2500/month on a couple of T-1s they are going to be nicer and more cautious, as you account for a significant amount of cash. If you sepnd $15,000-$20,000 on a DS-3 each month, they'll make sure not to piss you off as that is a significant amount of money.
Also you must remember that T1s and up are bussiness lines. Even to your home, it is assumed to be for bussiness use. You have an actual, real, legally binding contract that promises things from them to you. Also, being that this is a large amount of money, the terms of the contract are negoatiable to a degree. IF they have a clause you don't like you may be able to get it removed. The bigger the line, the more true this is. At the university where I work, we are basically dictating the terms of our lines to the providers, and they are then going to bid on providing us that.
Additonally, they don't thend to care what you do with lines like that. Consumer grade lines they don't want servers, VPNs, etc on because the low price is based on the assumption that you won't be using all your bandwidth all teh time. ditto for most hosting companies outlawing porn (it uses tons of bandwidth). However when you buy an unmetered T1 line, they mean it. You can use 100% of your bandwidth 24/7 and noone will bitch. IT's built into the cost. Generally they just say "don't do anything illegal" (in more words) and that's it.
Finally, as you get bigger lines and become a bigger operation, the problems jsut get refered to you, not to your provider. Noone ever calls our providers at work and if they did, they'd just get refered back to our NOC. They have us deal with it since the onyl way they could deal with it is to pull the pulg, which would violate contract and piss us off. Now granted, we are on the extreme end having several OC-12s that demultiplex to a bunch of OC-3s for voice (local and long distance), internet and data to off site locations, however the general principle is still true: The more money you give the phone company and the bigger you get, the less they'll mess with you.
I know quite a number of high-school friends who set up sites about stuff they make, like programs, music etc...
Most of them just get 10 hits every 5 months. It would be pretty pointless if you spent all that money on hosting your site, and no one came to benefit from it.
With a combination of what the people's want and strategic advertising you may be able to get some readers. Somewhere it's not just a technical challenge, but also a marketing challenge.
And today there is just way too much competition anyway. Unless you have something really exceptional to offer I doubt you will get any hits.
Be also aware that the web has become more and more intricate to deal with. With Spam rules, linking rules and all other silly things that have slowly built up into the past, the web has become a hostile place. It's a big pity you can't just sit offline working on some program or craft, and then post it and tell everyone about it! Most people tell you to get lost without even knowing what they're talking about.
Providers sell service to providers who sell service to providers who sell service. Go the colo route and you go up a notch, but the colo company is subject to pressure from the community and may impose rules. Want your own T3? Again, you're paying a provider who can be pressured and can apply rules.
I hope cost is really no object, because the best thing I can think of is for you to buy AOL. Not an AOL account, but the whole company. Many dream of blocking traffic from AOL but they don't dare because of all the legit users that use it. When you own AOL you'll be able to pretty much do what you want.
Watch the unlimited bandwidth thing. PHP do not let you have files for download. If you do, they are limited to something like 2k/second. HTTP and similar page "hits" are fast, but forget about even small rarely used file downloads!
I have a leased line into my home. It isn't high bandwidth, and it isn't cheap; but no-one controls what I publish (or what I mirror) except me.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Patche says, "You will attract more flies with honey than vinegar... but who wants flies?
how about starting your own network with your neighbors via wireless or whatever cables will hold your bandwidth. first its just you and your good friends, then their families see how happy you are putting this together so they get on the bandwagon. after that coworkers and (cross your fingers) maybe your company thinks you have something good. if you can make the network large enough, it becomes "the 'internet'!" its all a matter of scale. think big
[ http://www.ctyme.com/hosting/index.htm ]
:)
"We specialize in free speech hosting. Although we don't host anything illegal, we are more likely to host controversial sites that other companies who are less committed to free expression."
It's owned by the admin of the eff, and as you can see on his site [ http://www.perkel.com/ ], I think he's pretty serious about his commitment to free speech...
It depends on what you had in mind, though... If you need more, i.e. an own server park or something, I wouldn't know where to go - I guess you should try to find out where his site is hosted, where he gets his bandwidth.
You might also just back up regulary, only take monthly contracts, short dns ttl's, and move around fast, just uploading and unpacking your stuff every time...
Anyway, this topic interests me, as I'm looking into hosting a more 'extreme' content site (as in 'personal opinion'), and I am kinda reluctant in choosing a US host for this. Somehow they seem manage to broadcast that they uphold free speech, but as soon as there's a complaint, they back off immediately. And Europe, well... That's a rip-off, when it comes to hosting.
Those that host porn charge more, I guess... Considering the legal and bandwidth-problems possibly connected with this...
And since when is Satanism illegal anywhere in the United States?
You need to get a job working somewhere that isn't run by a superstitous fucking nutcase.
so he could keep a $10/month customer happy?
ha ha ha ha
fucking dipshits.
Dumass.
You will find it increasingly difficult to ever send mail out of Cogent IP space. A lot of mail administrators I know have given up and are blocking all Cogent IP addresses.
Besides the point that freenet just barely works at this moment:
Freenet it is meant to only serve static content. If you want some website with some database behind it, like for a forum slashdot, Freenet is not an option. There are ways to run forum like software on top of freenet, but this is an other category than hosting anonymously.
The other product mentioned here, bittorrent is only going to be scabale for fixed files download.
www.penguinhosting.com Offers unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, for very reasonable prices. PHP and Perl and mySQL are included.
www.abac.com offers 500mb, unlimited bandwidth for $10/mo. Just Perl.
Check out getting a dry copper line from your phone co. For those who don't know, a dry line is a phone line with no dial tone. It's used mainly for data links. With a Dry line you can set up a Synchronous DSL. Depending on how far from a substation you can get somewhere between 1 Mbps and 8 Mbps up & down. You get a static IP. You can set up your own server. You have no traffic limits. You are, for the most part, your own ISP.
It's much cheaper than a T1 or ISDN line.
that guy isn't a $10/month customer, he has 5 (FIVE) dedicated serves with us. It was in our best interest to keep him happy.
Regards,
Will
sig?
there are dedicated server services out there which will price you by the line -- say a burstable 1Mbps line... you can tell them to install whatever os or distro you like...
www.poweredfusion.com
I host with them, and they have no content restrictions and unlimited bandwidth for very reasonable prices (10-18 dollars a month).
Good luck!
Are you talking about bandwidth or data volume?
Yeah, but that's the presumption in all of law. I mean keep in mind, the reponse letter to the DMCA isn't going to cost you a substantial amount. It's only if you have to fight something out in court that it'll cost you and that's an entirely separta step.
Although I do tend to favor the system where the loser pays the legal fees. Eliminates a lot of these issues in law.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I have, fortunately, never had to deal with the procedure, but I believe your ISP is under no obligation to take down your site once you certify. If you go into court, the judge may choose to injoin the distribution of the content but that can be executed through you and enforced by any number of legal sanctions. There's no reason for the ISP to get involved really.
Basically this sets it up so that the ISP shouldn't have to shut anything down (except during that time between certification letters). Whether they do or not is really a matter of ISP policy, and I guarantee that any ISP is going to protect their right to do that in your hosting agreement.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
n/t
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
Just go to custom.fullsystem.com and you can design the package any way you want, end even set your own price (within reason). This company has been in business a little over 3 years, their support is amaizing, and the uptime is unbelievable. Every single time I thought my site was down, they helped me track down the problem within minutes, and it turned out to by my DSL provider (damn monopolies). When I asked about signing up a bunch more sites with them at a discount, they gave me this link and said "choose what you want."
why would you call them dipshits for having good service? sounds to me like you need to evaluate what a dipshit is. walk into the bathroom, i assume there's a mirror in there. have a lovely day...
Please, please, please check out the support availability of the host outfit first if you are going for co-locate.
My company re-located their two main webservers as the little company that used to do it couldn't offer 24x7 engineer support.
We eventually went for a big outfit (I can't name them) who had massive new shiny server warehouse, standby generators. Excellent - right up until the point we needed to get an engineer to hard-boot the server (Windows, don't ask). Couldn't get one. They are also supposed to IMMEDIATELY tell us if the server stops responding - nope, they have done that once in the whole time, despite numerous occasions (windows again !!!) when they needed to tell us. To cap it all, they screwed up their DNS for 5 days - that cost us a lot in customer patience.
We're still with them, but carry out our own monitoring and if it wasn't for the downtime we'd incur right now, we'd be out in a heartbeat somewhere else. Our next technology jump (windows to Solaris) will no doubt be the opportunity.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
Late last year, I decided that I wanted the ability to execute .ASP scripts within .htm
files. You can do that, but only by tweaking
IIS so that every .htm file is interpreted as
an ASP file. That would represent a huge change
and would slow down a shared server.
So I decided it was time to re-establish colocation service. In the past, I have had my own servers colocated at Above.net (now MFN), and later at Maxim.net (later merged into another firm).
I bought a 1U Compaq server at the Webvan auction ($1,830, including tax).
The benefits of colocation are that the colo firm takes responsibility for making sure you have power (usually with UPS battery and generator backup), and they usually sell you bandwidth (though some colo facilities require that you contract for bandwidth directly with the provider, and the colo facility runs the wire from your box to your bandwidth provider's equipment at the facility. Another benefit, is that you can generally add bandwidth, or add more servers, very quickly (you can always add more servers at your own location, space permitting, but adding bandwidth may be more troublesome if you rely on a T1 or DSL line with inherent limits of 1.5 or 1.1 mbps).
When you sign a contract for colocation services, you pay for a specific level of bandwidth -- currently I am paying $200 per month to host a 1U server at Hurricane Electric (he.net) with 95% usage not to exceed 128Kbps of bandwidth. I am actually plugged in to a 10mbps ethernet connection, and I can spike my bandwidth (I often see spikes to as much as 640K in my traffic reports), but I pay no surcharge unless my server is using more than 128Kbps more than 5% of the time. (Currently I run from 75K to 100Kbps at the 95% average.)
Freedom is pretty broad, but of course each colocation facility has its own restrictions and each bandwidth provider also has its own restrictions -- spamming is always prohibited by all backbone providers (since the demise of AGIS), and or course nobody wants your server to be doing damaging things (like launching DNS attacks, distributing viruses, threatening the president's life, etc.). But most colo facilities will allow things like porn (though I'm sure there are companies that will draw the line short of what the First Amendment allows). Probably the most troublesome area would be "file sharing," if you operate a service that allows (or encourages) people to illegally download copyrighted works (free copies of Microsoft Office, click here!).
No matter what promises you may get, don't expect any colocation facility to stick with you if there is a substantial threat of litigation. You may be in the right, but the colo facility or bandwidth provider doesn't want to get sucked into a Napster-style lawsuit, nor branded as supporters of child-pornographers.
In addition, my experience is that you rarely get what you pay for, when buying colocation services. At Above.net, I paid a premium because they promised fast response time -- for example, someone could run out and cycle the power within 15 minutes. After a few months, however, Above.net was overwhelmed (too many promises, not enough staff to fulfill) and I often had to wait 40 minutes and talk to 3 different people, before finding someone who could just walk out and check if the power was on to my server! The final straw was when I began experiencing multiple outages each day, and Above.net simply denied that there were any outages. It took more than a month before they conceded that my mountain of proof was adequate, and then they simply agreed to let me terminate my contract early -- no credits or adjustments in my favor. I was mostly pleased with the service at Maxim.net (until they merged and announced a huge rate spike, which was justified by new service levels but wasn't worthwhile for me). I've been very pleased with the service at Hurricane Electric so far.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
Regards,
Cengiz Akinli
Netmar, Inc.
slashdot@akinli.org
P.S. His name is spelled E-T-H-A-N.
Whoa, you need to read the documentation, buddy. The "implementation sucks" argument's been used before, and there's rebuttal on the site. It requires sifting through technical docs, though.
See, you take it from a traditional, file-sharing p2p perspective -- don't lump it in with other programs. That's the problem. You say: "People don't want to store information they did not request." That's the whole point in FreeNet, otherwise something would be near-to/totally centralized, wouldn't it? If not, then it surely isn't anonymous to the degree it is (which is where the security layers, the so-called sucky implementation, comes in). If that's not your purpose (if you "have nothing to hide"), then forget about it! Don't criticize it for starting to do something, the goals (goals via, for example, anonymity and a plan of storage) of which you don't agree with.
Look, I hear griping for a "real" implementation. Well, freenet and some gnutella clients (e.g., gnucleus) are open-source. You fix it if you don't like it. But, don't beat on the system when IT is not the bottleneck of acceptance, which is really what this is about.
BitTorrent, on the surface, is just a commercial distro plan that the mpaa wants to use (though heavily mod'd, I'm sure. Oh, that's why you call it "actual content," eh? But what if you didn't request that pr0n movie, but your computer/box is used to distribute the content?
P2P does not mean only one thing. It is not embodied in either gnutella, freenet, or other projects; they work differently. They're called mediocre, but where's the specific criticism? I mean, working as it does, excluding the leeches and the anti-leech methods (as it existed years ago), the gnutella system accomplished things. It is "an option" for me and millions. Options can be many things. Some people don't care if you don't like it. If it's not spyware, and if it gets a job done, then what's the problem?
There are positive, identifiable problems with freenet, and it's also a baby of a project -- just because people run it doesn't mean anything to or about it. But it's running, and it's ideas of storage and implementation have yet to be seriously debated and critiqued.
Let the ISP manage the datacenter, you have complete control of the machine. Do whatever you want with the server. No matter what anyone tells you, there is no such thing as free unlimited bandwith. You have to pay for bandwidth.
I've had amazing experiences with RackSpace. They are the best in the business as far as I can tell.
Anecdote: I had a server that crashed every other day for a week. I called the 1-800 number on RackSpace's home page. A guy answers the phone on the second ring, I explain my problem and he says "Sounds like memory. If you hold, I'll go replace your RAM." and he did.
This can occasionally happen with neighborhood geek ISPs, but this is a huge outfit with massive bandwidth, redundancy, spare parts, etc. They manage this level of service consistantly and on a large scale.
If you need a dedicated server, definitely check them out.
May I suggest that you specify "liquid propane" at least once in the FAQ. It is best to define as many acronyms as possible to save me a trip to Acronym Finder. Very interesting nonetheless, and impressive redundancy. Do you know how long you can store gasoline before it goes stale? Have you considered Sun/wind/water power supplements? How about manually cranked generators attached to stationary bikes?
If you do find yourself hosting objectionable but non-sexual legal content, how do you respond? Block access to the specific page, delete the offending resource, cancel the account?
How do you respond to accounts that have links to content not approved by Netmar? You make valid points about conserving bandwidth by avoiding porn and contraband media. Taking the bandwidth issue out of this discussion, this is still an important issue for an "independant" web site. Would there be an issue if Netmar were to host an Indymedia type site, which hosted an article criticizing menbers of a Baptist group who allegedly mutialted an accused satanist; If the article contained explicit photographs of the remains; if the photo was hosted by another site? Do you prefer grape jelly or strawberry jam? How long is the regestration for the "free domain name registration?" Another important question for an independant site... what happens to that free domain if the account is terminated, for whatever reason? Would finding a less restictive alternative host mean sacrificing community name recognition?
Not yet seriously considering a year's commitment, this does seem to be a fairly worthy resource you offer. Instead of emailing staff@netmar.com, posting here offers a chance to answer these questions for posterity - of course until you get a chance to update the FAQ page. I can't wait until I am one of your customers, because I could really use some friends. Maybe we could go see a movie or something.
-castlan
Very interesting. Could you post more information? What is involved in the monthly tab of $913 million?
That would be sweet if Microsoft picked up Argentina. Perhaps a passport and dual-citizenship could be additional perks of working for Microsoft. Shrink-wrap licensing agreements could be legally binding and copyright violation could be a capital offense! Running Redhat could be an act of treason!
What about TCO, including hidden costs? Maintaining a military, currency and presiding over legal disputes could put a significant drain on even Microsoft's operating expenses. Does Argentina have sufficient connectivity, or would immense infrastructre need to be built as well? Perhaps then the soverign nation would have to build their own ISP, all the way to the backbone. If it were to be Microsoft, what OS would they choose to host their services?
BTW, Argentina is part of America... the South part. Perhaps the EU and the US would have to team up, maybe with the UN for some nice, draconian international standards against Microsoft. But then, that might incite Microsoft to declare war. The possibilities are fascinating.
Yeah, I don't think I would like to buy a nation such as Argentina for Internet connectivity purposes. Way too much administrative overhead, not to mention baggage. Could you imagine the "corporate culture"? Perhaps there would calmer waters off the coast of the UK.
http://csoft.net/
"I'm on my way to the freedom land..."
great thread - I have spent far too many hours looking into this. I wanted to set up a small commercial site for myself (i already have a day job), shouldn't be a big deal, but I wanted to put a 3mb flash file on it. That could get dangerous when it comes to bandwidth. I have my own fairly hefty server at home (just cause I always have), and at first thought I would just pump it out via my cable modem. My cable vendor sniffs ports though, and charges close to 200 for a commercial acct. DSL in my town isnt much better. I would like to be able to deduct my expenses, thus the commercial part, but not at 200 per month. For the static IP part, I basicaly never turn my linksys off, so I never lose the IP (i run ftp so I know when it changes). If so using dhs.org was recommended to me, but I havent had to try it yet. I was going to use a host called www.your-site.com, anyone hear of them? The info on here about using a port other than 80 was great, would like to know more about that, cause I would still rather do this from home. Otherwise, I want a site that's cheap, cheap, cheap. I dont mind doing it all myself. Thanks all!
Linda