Security and Encryption
We take security seriously and if you have used other web-hosting services you may be slightly surprised at some of the lengths that we go to in order to maintain security. This page explains what steps we take, and why we bother.
Network Security
You may not be aware of just how easy it is to intercept and read information that you send over the internet. By default there is no encryption whatsoever of data on the internet. Anyone who has access to the computers between you and the server that you are connecting to can read everything that you send and everything that you receive. If you are simply browsing the web, and you aren't concerned about privacy, this is not a problem. If you are sending or receiving sensitive data such as credit card details or passwords for your accounts then this is definitely a problem. The solution here is to encrypt sensitive data before it is sent over the internet.
"But I don't have anything of value in my account!"
A common reason why people don't worry about the security of their account is because they believe that there is nothing of value in their account, therefore nobody would want to break in to it. Unfortunately there is something of value - the account itself. We offer shell accounts to our customers because of the power and flexibility they provide. It is this power that make shell accounts valuable to people wanting to cause trouble on the internet.
Our Policy
Our policy is to disallow access to any service that requires a shell account username and password to be sent unencrypted. This means that shell account users cannot use telnet, non-anonymous FTP, or unencrypted POP3 or IMAP. We provide alternatives to all of these protcols, secured using several different techniques:
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
As its name suggests, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) adds a secure layer to existing
internet protocols such as HTTP (the protocol used to browse the web), and
IMAP/POP3 (mailbox protocols). Most web browsers, including Internet Explorer
and Netscape support secure HTTP servers. You can spot secure
servers by their URL, which will start with https:// rather than
http://. Many mail clients support the secure version of the mail
protocols, IMAP and POP3. Unfortunately, very few programs support the secure
version of the File Transfer Protocol, FTP.
Secure Shell (SSH)
For various reasons, the most common method of securing the telnet protocol is to replace it with the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, rather than using telnet and SSL. The design of SSH allows it to be used as the transport mechanism for other protocols. For example, SSH comes with a file transfer program, Secure Copy (SCP). It can also be used as the transport as rsync, a program used to syncronise files in two different locations. This is an ideal way to update your website.