A statement from the editors
PressExile is a small operator of offshore hosting for people whose published work is inconvenient to someone in power. We operate the hosting layer; you operate the publication. We chose Iceland and Switzerland because their courts ask careful questions before they compel a host to act, and we settle every order in cryptocurrency — because a payment record should not be a dossier.
No KYC at any step of the order. No DMCA forwarding — foreign takedown notices have no procedural standing in the operating jurisdictions. No fiat trail — the operator never holds a card, never sees a bank wire. See where we operate →
01 / Manifesto
Why we host what we host, and what we will not host. The principles page is the editorial spine of the operation: a manifesto, an explanation of the threat model we work to, and a disclosure of the legal entity that signs the lease on the cabinet. Read it before you buy a service from us.
02 / Law
We operate from Iceland and Switzerland, and only from those two countries. Both jurisdictions have a press tradition that predates the cloud and a court culture that asks careful questions before it compels a host to act. The briefing pages cover the law, the carriers, and what we will and will not do when we receive a notice.
03 / Field notes
Field notes from the operation: dispatches on the law as it shifts, guidance for journalists publishing under threat, and our reading of the rulings we think you should know about. The journal is written for the same audience that subscribes to the hosting service — a practitioner, not a procurement officer.
Reykjavik
A parliamentary resolution written to make the country a haven for publishers; no blanket obligation on a host to log who you are.
Zurich
A federal court must be persuaded before a host is compelled to act; a foreign takedown notice on its own carries no standing.
The hosting layer comes in four tiers of virtual private server, plus dedicated machines and an email service. The list below is the entry ladder; the longer description of each is on its own page.
$8/mo
ISL · CHE
Configure VPS-1 →$16/mo
ISL · CHE
Configure VPS-2 →$32/mo
ISL · CHE
Configure VPS-4 →$64/mo
ISL · CHE
Configure VPS-8 →A single-topic operational guide to standing up a GlobaLeaks whistleblowing platform on a small offshore VPS — the real system requirements, the jurisdiction choice, the official install path, the…
A single-topic operational guide to standing up a persistent OnionShare receive-mode dropbox on a small offshore VPS — the real onionshare-cli flags, the persistent onion key, the light tier and…
A reading of the forensic surface of email — what the mailhost operator sees mechanically, what the operator does not, what TLS-in-transit and PGP narrow down — with notes on Swiss and Icelandic…