you shouldn't rely on your hosting provider to secure/shred your data, do it yourself.

encfs is really easy to setup and use, everybody should be using it, especially on VPS's:

    $ sudo apt-get install encfs

or:

    $ sudo yum -y install fuse-encfs

then:

    $ sudo encfs ~/.encrypted /home/private

the /home/private folder is where you place your files (web sites, etc.). ~/.encrypted is where the encrypted version is stored. when prompted hit 'p' for the default paranoid mode, enter a password and you're done. read more about it on the homepage[0]

When you are done with a server and need to secure delete, use shred -- which is installed on both RHEL and Debian based distributions:

    $ sudo shred -fz ~/.encrypted 
    $ sudo shred -fz /home/private

[0] http://www.arg0.net/encfs

https://defuse.ca/audits/encfs.htm https://defuse.ca/audits/ecryptfs.htm

Probably better to use ecryptfs or dm-crypt.

encfs is not completely transparent, so don't just blindly do this, you need to check that your data/workflow does not interact badly.

Two examples: (Depending on the settings you choose) hard links might not work at all, and renaming can be very very slow. Both of these are common in certain applications.

Wouldn't an encrypted volume be essentially random data to anyone who doesn't have the key? So all you'd need to do is scrub any traces of the key itself.

Sure, but if't it's sensitive data, the extra couple minutes is probably worthwhile.