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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?"
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.
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".
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Read the FAQ.
I'm a systems administrator at Netmar (I'm Will, for those of you who use us).
Specifically read the part about "What does bandwidth cost? / Is bandwidth really unlimited? / How can you offer unlimited bandwidth? "
I made the website (..you shoulda seen the old one). I put that in the FAQ SPECIFICALLY because of people who ask questions like this.
Lately we've had a guy using a lot of bandwidth, and our Sprint link has been up and down more times than I can count (i've received 135 pages today, from 3 monitoring systems, as of 9PM est). So we've ordered more bandwidth. We try to stay ahead of what people are using.
It's a fact, however, that BY FAR the most common cause of spikes in our bandwidth is illegal software. We don't tolerate it, because it hurts our business and because we can't afford to get sued by the MPAA RIAA Microsoft, etc.
I'm one of the guys that makes the decision about who stays and who goes based on TOS violations. It doesn't happen often. You have to be clearly bad. The whole satanic thing is cause the guy that owns the company is a strong christian dude (call and listen to our hold music 540 951 9404). But we don't censor people. At all. www.fredrock.org (my site) is there, and there's "swear words" on the front page.
Anyway, if you, or anyone, has questions, just email staff@netmar.com - we'll be checking it all weekend (we always do).
The difference between us and rackshack (ask www.web-xperts.com dude what he thought about them) is that they don't care. He said he asked a question about some problem he was having or other and they were like "that sux, good luck".
He asked us a question about qmail (plesk uses it) and my co-associate was like "never used it, lemme read about it" and spent the day learning how to use it, so he could help the guy.
We may not know everything, but we know a lot, and if you have something you need us to know, let us know =). We do personal service. We're friends with our customers. We work for you.
~Will
sig?
Actually we have about 50 machines at the moment. That spec is just meant as an example of what our Shared hosting server looks like. Out of curiousity what do you need more ram for in a machine that runs apache? ( Our main database server has 1 gig in it, it is also an ultra-sparc )
We are a small company, I will admit that. Bandwidth is by far what we pay the most for on a month to month basis. However, we want your website to prosper, not feel hindered by our limitations of 5 gigs a month or whatever. If you buy a leased line t3 to your facilities you pay for that t3 whether you are using 1% or 100% of its capacity. Why should we charge you for that? It's our problem, and something you cannot control.
A lot of complains here is see are about our Terms of Service, read them, see what they say. It essentially says that we will not host anything that is pornographic, lewd, or illegal in Durham, NC. ( Where the company was Incorporated ) I can't think of anytime in the last two years we have taken down anyones site because of "objectionable" material. The biggest problem by far we have is people who post up pirated software ( Most recent I know of was OfficeXP ). We do not host porn sites, the owners of the company strickly forbit it.
If you have any questions of comments please let us know, our email is staff@netmar.com. If you want to address it to me I'm Ethan. ( Yes, the same one referred to in the FAQ )
~Ethan
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