Eric_Stanek
Active Pivian
Code:
Title: PIVX Web Servers (Apr-Jun 2021)
Name: WebServers2021Q2
Term: 3 Cycles
Cycle Amnt: 150 PIV
Total Amnt: 450 PIV
Author: Eric Stanek
Receiver: Eric Stanek
Address: DRYZauxqJYctP4jcHtMsPF1r9PctgB1riG
Created: 2021-03-28
Status: Active
Vote Hash: 94e6ed5b72c535d60cf2618a6b9ee4813c9e9c593ddb8c29ee147bb4663708d1Background:
Since the re-brand from Darknet to PIVX, I have personally covered the cost for the web servers, and domain registrations. It has not been organized well, and the costs were much greater than necessary, since it was often easier to just spin up another server for simplicity. I believe at the peak, it was costing over $600 USD per month.
During all that time, I did not submit a proposal to cover the costs, either because the proposal system didn't typically have enough funds, or because I would have to ask an unfair amount due to things being disorganized, or both.
Lots of Domains:
Twice already this year, we have seen Scammers attempt to steal funds from users with fake PIVX.org sites. One was called PIVX.network and the other was PIVXwallet.org (I think). We still don't own those, as the policy at the Domain Registrar is to just refuse to allow renewal and let them expire. That can take years. However, we were able to get those scam sites taken offline quickly (In less than 12 hrs) because we own so many similar domains, including of course PIVX.org and have owned them for 4+ years. For comparison, there is a scam site for Dash called Dash-Wallet DOT com (Please don't go there.) that has been online stealing funds for 4+ years! If we were to let these PIVX related domains expire, that we never intend to use, we can expect that the scam sites will become common. I consider paying for these extra domains to be 'cheap insurance' to protect our users and our brand. We have over 30+ domains registered because of this. (Doesn't take long when you grab the .com/org/io/network/etc TLDs for each domain you can think of.)
The PIVX DAO:
Another reason I didn't submit a proposal until now, is because there always seemed to be something far more important to spend time on. That kinda still is the case, but I am now wondering what the regulators may think about critical infrastructure not being paid for by the DAO. As such, I decided the prudent thing to do, is to start asking the DAO to pay for it. It is a small amount and doing this also helps get it organized such that perhaps it can be handed off to the PIVX Foundation at some future point. That will also help us greatly when making Copyright claims and processing DMCA Takedown notices.
Current Status:
We now have the web servers organized well. (It took many days for @Kyeno to make this happen - they were such a mess from lack of attention for years.) Without giving away too much information and breaking OpSec, I can state we now have the main PIVX.org website, the Forum and NextCloud instances, as well as many other PIVX Community related sites, well organized on 3 different servers, at a reputable VPS provider, with backups, all hidden behind CloudFlare. Accounts for the PIVX domains and the VPS servers are accessible by 3 trusted PIVians, located in various time zones and continents.
Server Specs:
Each server has different numbers of sites and services, balancing the server load and web service priorities, but have the same specifications; 8 GB RAM, 160 GB Disk, and 4 CPUs.
Costs:
All prices are in USD.
The 3 VPS instances are $60 per month, plus $10 per month for backups.
The prices for the domains vary, but average at $10 per year each.
I am including the 50 PIV cost for submitting this proposal as well.
So, we have:
3 x ($60 + $10) = $210 per month for the VPS instances.
30 x $10 = $300 per year, or $25 per month, for the domains.
The total is then $235 per month for the Domain and Web Server infrastructure.
The current price for PIVX is $1.74, so that works out to 135 PIV per month.
Making the math simple, by only adding 15 PIV per month to pay for the 50 PIV proposal submission fee, we get:
135 + 15 = 150 PIV per month, for 3 months.
Notes:
I expect the price of PIVX to increase significantly over the next few months. If I am correct, at the end of this proposal, I will report out what credit will be applied to the new proposal that replaces this one. If the price does drop, I will absorb the difference. In the future, when the price of PIVX increases significantly, it will make much more sense to have a longer proposal length as the submission fee will become a much bigger percentage of the requested amount. It may make sense then to also include other infrastructure/overhead costs that are deemed appropriate.
Reporting:
Other than reporting out at the end of this proposal for any credit that will be applied to the next one, I will not be reporting out any further details.
Voting:
To Vote Yes:
mnbudgetvote many 94e6ed5b72c535d60cf2618a6b9ee4813c9e9c593ddb8c29ee147bb4663708d1 yes
To Vote No:
mnbudgetvote many 94e6ed5b72c535d60cf2618a6b9ee4813c9e9c593ddb8c29ee147bb4663708d1 no
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