I too use DO. I even use them for my Tor node and my tails mirror. I used to use them for my whonix mirror as well, but whonix now fund all their own mirror structure so they don't need volunteers any more. But, and this is a big but, despite the fact that they have data centres all over the place, they are a US company. Furthermore, there is a certain lack of clarity about their funding. It is not at all obvious how they can have grown as rapidly as they have or how they can afford to finance the network bandwidth they use on the income they get from VM rental. As an early adopter I was "grandfathered" in to their new commercial contract. That contract is supposed to limit network usage (check the DO site for details). Bandwidth costs money. As a grandfathered user I get unlimited bandwidth. My Tor mode regularly chews through 6 to 7 TB of data a month - and I actually limit that node. What is less well known, but gets discussed on the Tor mailing lists, is that /none/ of the supposedly capped contracts are actually bandwidth capped at the moment. So you can get a VM for $5 which has unlimited network access. That is not a commercially viable arrangement and it strongly suggests that funding is coming from somewhere unknown.
Now Tor operators tend to be a suspicious, sometimes paranoid, bunch, but given that DO now has a substantial proportion of the Tor network on its ASs that suspicion may, just may, be justified. I still use DO because I get huge bandwidth for bugger all money (15 dollars a month, compared to the 12 quid I (happily) pay Bytemark for my mail/webserver). But I would not, and do not, use DO for anything I care about in personal terms (such as mail, or XMPP messaging).
So, if you want to use a server for a VPN, I'd personally recommend against DO. I am currently playing with a server in Sofia owned by ITDLC. They are a European supplier with servers in Bulgaria, the Ukraine, the Czech republic and the Netherlands. All looks good so far. The server I have is pretty fast, appears to be stable and most importantly is outside both the UK and US control. It cost me just over 3 quid for the month. Most importantly from my (admittedly somewhat paranoid viewpoint) the VM allows me to choose my own kernel to go with the OS of my choice. DO don't do that. You get to "choose" one of their kernels underneath your installed OS. Apart from my dislike of that model This can, and does, lead to the absurd position where you cannot actually install Openvpn because the tun kernel module won't load because of inconsistencies between the kernel you think you have and the one DO has actually loaded.
Of course, all of this is probably moot because all VMs are subject to total surveillance by the owner/operator if they so choose. But, and this depends on your threat model, I feel a little happier with a VM that at least looks and feels "secure" to me. DO doesn't give me that warm feeling. (Bytemark do. In fact I feel very warm about them. But they don't give enough bandwidth at the price point I can pay to let me do all I want to do.)
Mick
(Please excuse top posting. On my phone, not at my desk. And yes, I know that K9 avoids that.......)On 17 Nov 2016 10:06, Laurie Brown wrote: > > On 16/11/16 20:17, Mick wrote: > > Bev > > > > Rent yourself a VM somewhere outside the UK (but not in the US). Set > > up openvpn on that box. Ubuntu handles that perfectly well. The VPN > > will hide all activity from your ISP so they can't log it. Better > > yet, for anonymity, use Tor. In fact you could combine the two so > > that your ISP can't even see that you are using Tor. > > > > Happy to help if necessary. > > Agreed. > > I can highly recommend Digital Ocean, who have data centres all over the > place. The Dutch one typically give me speeds of over 400meg. > > Their base server is $5 a month and is perfectly adequate for the task. > It takes about 1 minute to set up an Ubuntu VM (with SSD disks) and not > too long to install OpenVPN. > > If you do decide to go for DO, then use my referral link and you'll get > $10 in credit immediately (2 free months!). To be open, if you do use my > link, after you've spend $25, they credit my account with $25 as well. > You can cancel at any time. With 2 free months you have nothing to lose > by giving it a go. > > https://m.do.co/c/7cd7395ed31b > > Just to be clear, I have been using DO for a very long time, and I would > recommend them even without any incentive. > > Cheers, Laurie. > > PS. Their API is very Ansible-friendly. > -- > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Laurie Brown > laurie@brownowl.com > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > main@lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!