* To be clear, this company does not exist yet and this is therefore NOT any type of advertisement or business offer. I am looking for input on whether this idea is worth pursuing and if there is a market for this. This would be a legal business.
Hey all,
I had an idea for a business and I just wanted to know what everyone thought or if anyone had any input. I was thinking of creating a privacy-first hosting company. My goal is to help users securely host their own hidden services & to assist in circumventing government surveillance & censorship. For legal reasons, I would obviously be working very closely with a lawyer to prevent any legal issues from arising from this.
The essential parts of how this would be privacy-first are:
1. Anonymous sign-up
No personal / identifying information required
2. Anonymous payment options
XMR & other crypto options accepted
3. Off-shore servers
Hosted in Switzerland, which allows us to avoid USA and EU subpoena requests
4. Bare-metal servers
Servers being bare-metal instead of in a VPS to prevent the risks associated with virtualization
This is still in it's very initial stage of planning, so information may not be exactly correct and any criticism/ideas are welcome.
I like the concept. Few things for you to consider:
• Even if you're based in Switzerland governments can still apply pressure (remember how it went with ProtonMail?)
• With crypto payments you will need to have money laundering and KYC protections in place otherwise you could risk legal action, especially with anonymous hosting (which some jurisdictions view as aiding criminal activity)
• While they are great for privacy, bare-metal off-shore servers are more expensive and harder to scale then VPS solutions. If you are okay with this, great
You will need to differentiate. General hosting is great and all, but selling to everyone is not a great idea here. Focus more on catering to entities like whistleblowers, activists, and journalists like Briar does. Working with a lawyer to create a strong ToS is a great idea.
I love hearing about passion projects like this. Good luck!
• Even if you're based in Switzerland governments can still apply pressure (remember how it went with ProtonMail?)
• With crypto payments you will need to have money laundering and KYC protections in place otherwise you could risk legal action, especially with anonymous hosting (which some jurisdictions view as aiding criminal activity)
• While they are great for privacy, bare-metal off-shore servers are more expensive and harder to scale then VPS solutions. If you are okay with this, great
You will need to differentiate. General hosting is great and all, but selling to everyone is not a great idea here. Focus more on catering to entities like whistleblowers, activists, and journalists like Briar does. Working with a lawyer to create a strong ToS is a great idea.
I love hearing about passion projects like this. Good luck!
The host will ALWAYS crack and give details, even if they don't govt will hack and take what they want. They print money, hackers like money.
Becoming a web host is incredibly difficult since it's an insanely saturated and competitive market, which also means making an upfront investment with no guarantees of seeing a return. You also need an ISP and data center that allows you to do what you do. If they have a problem with certain types of content, then you have to enforce those rules, otherwise they'll just kick you out.
The issue with creating a "privacy-first" hosting business is that you will receive a lot of malicious users because of the protections that you offer. You need to actively monitor what's happening, preferably block port 25 for email and set certain unblock requirements, and set up defenses. If you want to do something like kyun.host, you need solid DDoS protection. Kyun has been DDoSed over and over again just because he pissed off one guy at one point in time and all servers in the data center were down. This was not a one-time thing, this happened several times by now. They also suffered from catastrophic data loss, iirc from people hosting too many crypto nodes.
If you still want to start the business, go for it, I'm rooting for you, but it's going to take an insane amount of work and don't expect to be making big bucks any time soon. Perseverance is half the battle in the hosting business.
The issue with creating a "privacy-first" hosting business is that you will receive a lot of malicious users because of the protections that you offer. You need to actively monitor what's happening, preferably block port 25 for email and set certain unblock requirements, and set up defenses. If you want to do something like kyun.host, you need solid DDoS protection. Kyun has been DDoSed over and over again just because he pissed off one guy at one point in time and all servers in the data center were down. This was not a one-time thing, this happened several times by now. They also suffered from catastrophic data loss, iirc from people hosting too many crypto nodes.
If you still want to start the business, go for it, I'm rooting for you, but it's going to take an insane amount of work and don't expect to be making big bucks any time soon. Perseverance is half the battle in the hosting business.
I have to comment on item 2. Please only allow payment by XMR since there is no other cryptocurrency that is as secure, anonymous, and private as XMR. Stay away from accepting payments via BTC.