[sf-lug] VPS question: accessible by root user on physical host?

[Jason Turner]

Hello LUGgers,

Currently, I run my personal domain services off a shared hosting 
provider.  For *years* now, their email facilities have been less than 
stellar, but just good enough for me to stick with them.  Recently, I 
was discussing ways to improve the service(mostly through better spam 
filtering) with a domain compatriot, "Pinky", and mentioned that perhaps 
Google Apps For Your Domain wasn't soo bad(we've both always been uneasy 
about others mining and profiting from our personal data).  Now, I 
admit, that was laziness talking.  Googs makes it soo *easy* for your to 
share/give them all your marbles/data.

Well, Pinky surprised even me with her virulent reaction to that 
suggestion... suffice it to say that option is off the table.  Forever.  
I didn't have the heart to tell her that I have my doubts about data 
privacy and the ethics of our current shared host.  And then the thought 
of setting up service on a VPS occurred to me[again -- the thought comes 
and goes].  And I wonder, how much more "private" is such a service?  
Say, like the one(s) hosted by Linode.com?  Linux/XEN setup. 

Finally, the subject question, would my VPS be accessible by any user 
not explicitly setup in my environment? 

And for those of you thinking that if we're that concerned about someone 
hearing our plans to Take Over the World, we better be using encryption 
and digital sigs...  well, one small step at a time folks. 

See [some of] you Sunday!

--
jt