Law & jurisdiction
Can my VPS be seized?
Physical seizure of hosting hardware is rare and requires a criminal warrant executed at the datacentre by local authorities. It is far more common for an authority to order the provider to image a specific instance. Full-disk encryption with a passphrase the provider never holds is the only meaningful protection against either.
Seizure of an entire rack affects every customer on it, which is why datacentres resist it and courts rarely order it. Targeted imaging of one instance is the realistic scenario, and it requires local judicial authorisation in every jurisdiction we operate in.
If this is in your threat model, three things follow: use the Bastion line with LUKS2, keep encrypted backups in a second jurisdiction, and rehearse the restore. An untested backup is not a backup.
See also: LUKS
7 answers in Law & jurisdiction
- Is offshore hosting legal? Yes. Renting a server in another country is an ordinary commercial transaction, and no jurisdiction we operate in prohibits it. Offshore hosting chang…
- Does the DMCA apply to offshore hosting? The DMCA is United States copyright statute. Its notice-and-takedown procedure and safe harbour apply to service providers situated in the United Stat…
- What happens if you receive a subpoena or court order? We assess whether it is valid legal process from a court with jurisdiction over OnionVPS. If it is, we comply with exactly what is ordered and nothing…
- What is an MLAT and why does it matter for hosting? A mutual legal assistance treaty is the formal channel through which one country asks another to gather evidence on its behalf. It matters because a f…
- What content is not allowed on your servers? Child sexual abuse material, which we report to the appropriate authority. Malware command-and-control, ransomware infrastructure and exploit kits. Ph…
- How do you handle abuse complaints? Complaints are triaged by evidence, not by volume. Automated copyright notices to non-US locations are forwarded to you for information and no action …