Slashdot Log In
Data Haven To Open For Business - Today
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jun 04, 2000 08:03 PM
from the ready-or-not-they're-coming dept.
from the ready-or-not-they're-coming dept.
pq writes: "The real world catches up with Neal Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon' on Monday, June 5th, when a data haven opens on a WWII military fortress six miles off England's coast. Read the (nologin) NYT article here about the strange case of
HavenCo and the independent principality of Sealand: yes, they'll host DeCSS, Metallica songs, even pictures of Natalie, all for a price." (More below.)
And reader JazFresh writes: " ... I went to Monkeybagel.com to find out what was new, and the site owner said he's stopped work on Monkeybagel to work on this new site instead. From the Web page:
'HavenCo will soon be offering the world's most secure managed colocation facility based in the world's smallest sovereign territory, the Principality of Sealand. As the security of sensitive data over public networks grows in importance, businesses, governments and organizations worldwide are realizing the need for a suitable facility from which to host their financial transaction, B2B and e-mail servers as well as sensitive data backups. A large part of a server's physical security is dependent upon the political system of the country in which the server is located. We will be providing the business structure in the world's first free-market location.'"
These were just some of the many submissions about this company. The story of Sealand is almost too bizarre for comprehension; read this April 3rd Sunday Telegraph piece for an eyebrow-wrinkling summary. All I know is, I'd like one of these passports, too, please.
Update: 06/05 13:53 by michael : Thought I'd update this with some pictures and diagrams. Nifty.
Related Stories
[+]
Technology: Has HavenCo's Data Haven Shut Down? 287 comments
secmartin writes "HavenCo, the self-proclaimed data haven located on the micronation Sealand, appears to be offline. Their website is down, and there have been no announcements from either HavenCo or Sealand. HavenCo has been covered here before; it was mostly known for offering hosting of content that might be illegal in other countries. Does anyone have news about what happened to them?"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Re:Why don't... (Score:2)
cool - how can I get my own country (Score:2)
Perhaps why the UK isn't interested in taking sealand out, is that the datahaven is really going to be a MI6 secret operation??? hmmmm - now that would be an interesting twist.
Re:In The Beginning, Was The Command Line (Score:2)
Here is a little more Stephenson that applies to the topic at hand: Laying underwater cable. You need fat fiber going to that data haven don't you?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass
Its 56 pages long but well worth the read.
-BW
You are kidding me! (Score:2)
If only out of respect for the people whose works are going to be ripped off by this venture, they must be stopped.
more info on Sealand (Score:5)
http://www.fruitsofthes ea.demon.co.uk/sealand/factfile.html [demon.co.uk]
Sealand exists because it was "captured" in 1967, before the UK extended the range of its offshore authority. As a result, a British judge ruled that the UK govt. had no authority on the "island". The previous business deals which have involved the prinicipality (it's a principality due to an odd regulation stating that no one may be convicted of treason for aiding a prince in gaining his land, much like the Hutt River Province [vicnet.net.au] in Australia) have been a little shady, and the platform was once attacked by helicoptors sent by a business associate of "Prince" Roy.
Sealand exists in a bizarre position: I don't think the UK considers it independent, but they cannot legally do a damn thing about it.
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)
SEAL team my @$$. SBS would get first dibs. Look where they're located, for crissakes. Who do you suppose gets to play in the North Sea more -- NAVSPECWARDEVGRU or SBS and SAS?
Once upon a time, Team Six used to play with oil rigs out there, but the Brits are a lot handier when it comes to actual response time.
HavenCo's CTO Speaks (Score:5)
We're all very busy dealing with actually running
our business, as well as interacting with the
press, but I figured I'd respond to some of the
questions raised here, as I'm a frequent reader
of slashdot (check out my profile)
1) How do we know it's not a hoax?
Well, look at the people involved. Within the
cypherpunks, data networking, and security industries, we're all very well known.
2) Can't you just be destroyed by an Iraqi chemical attack, wayward 747, etc, or have your
links cut?
Defense against denial of service can never be
fully accomplished, but we try very hard. HavenCo
intends to have multiple sites (do you have a
small country which wants free high-speed networking for all your citizens, in trade for
autonomy over a few acres of remote land? Contact
us!) We have up to 5 locations lined up now.
Plus, we can always set up our secure facilities
inside other people's colo sites.
We promise to not allow machines to be *compromised*, as far as confidentiality or
integrity -- if someone tries to tamper with
a service, be it a paid-off staff member, a raiding Church of Scientology commando group, or
whatever, the server's contents will be destroyed.
More info on how this will be done shall be presented at a conference this summer, and in
a white paper, by myself. How to do it is relatively well known in the crypto/tamper-resistance community, but no one
has deployed it yet.
3) Your AUP bans obscenity/etc.?
There has been a bit of internal confusion over
that.
Basically, we are planning to have sites in many
countries. Content illegal in the country in
which we have the server cannot be hosted at
the site.
For instance: Sealand. Kiddie porn is explicitly
banned, but other than that, I don't know if anything is banned. In the UK, all UK-illegal
content will be banned. In the US, same thing.
Which is why we'll be putting facilities in
*many* countries, with diverse laws.
The only things which *we* as HavenCo specifically
ban from our facilities globally are spam, network
attacks, and the like. Many of our founders have
participated in spammer hunts in the past, and
it would be hypocritical for us to offer a safe
haven for spammers.
4) These fake sites...
Principality-sealand.net and telebase.es/sealand
are run by criminals who attempted to take Sealand
by force
5) Aren't you just being paranoid?
Um, we're not *just* being paranoid, but by being
overly paranoid ourselves, our customers can
relax. Seems like a fair trade.
Re:cool - how can I get my own country (Score:2)
"How to Start Your Own Country"
by Erwin S. Strauss
Breakout Productions; ISBN: 1893626156
Tells a number of stories of newly founded countries, including Sealand. Entertaining reading.
Sealand should have own TLD (Score:3)
The fact that the US does not recognise Sealand shouldn't be a problem, after all I believe Cuba and Taiwan have their own domains...
For all those doubters out there, Sealand does exist - stories about it have been in the UK press for ages. I personally would not trust my data, website or anything else to anything out there though, since it seems a lot of shady and dubious dealings go around in its name, not to mention your data may not be very secure with the threat of coup d'etat, kidnappings, invasion etc.
"Leaders of Fake Country Tried to Buy Arms" (Score:3)
At least you'll be assured your data is gaurded, I suppose
---
Mao Tse-Dung, white courtesy telephone, please... (Score:2)
"Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' "
The physical location is going to exist at the sufferance of the British government. Anybody who says differently doesn't know how the Brits practice realpolitik. They're like the Israelis that way -- if something really troublesome is in that data haven, the place might just disappear.
The only way to forestall any possibility of hassles with governments is to make manifestly clear that there are copious off-site backups in undisclosed locations -- but doesn't that violates the sanctity of a data haven in the first place?
Re:Are they pulling our leg? (Score:2)
Wrong ; you might want to read more than three sentences from websites you review before you post. The FruitsOfTheSea site is linked in sealandgov.com in the front page. It was the first official Sealand website and they say they keep it for "historical purposes".
I don't find it surprising that their servers aren't located in Sealand since they're supposed to have just brought three generators powerfull enough to handle the load of some(?) computers. As for the pictures being fake or legit and the island being big enough to host a server farm, I really don't know. It seems to be hard to get to Sealand these days. Former terrorist attacks and the high controversy of their current project obviously didn't make the royal family feel like developping the local economy with mass tourism
Delivery of One-Time Pads on CD-R's to Sealand? (Score:2)
Let's just suppose Havenco would succeed due to two factors: the big players would not be that interested in smashing a free speech group, and enthusiastic small business would choose to use this service to fund it.
Backup on territory defined to protect your data would be a nice selling point. However you still need to move your data over encrypted channel. In a perfect world you would not even trust the hardware owners, so send it precrypted. What would be cooler way to send the data over than a channel crypted with one-time pads (or encryption derived therefrom)?
Too bad it would cost, er, way too much to send the cd-r's over there... would it? I assume they have to shop for food on the mainland, don't they?
Re:A network haven without a network? (Score:2)
There still needs to be some other endpoint though. For microwave this has to be more or less line of sight, which severly limits their choices (it would have to be in Great Britain, and nearby). Which means that GB could still exert a lot of pressure against the island.
As for the satellite link, this is more flexible. The other base station could be almost anywhere. However, who owns the satellite? Couldn't the country of the satellite owner exert some pressure there? Or do the Sealanders plan to launch their own satellite? Btw, as they are an independant country I wonder whether they got allocated their geosynchronous orbital positions?
Re:It Won't Happen (Score:2)
It would be considerably more difficult to seize the data in Sealand, where you'd need to mount a full-scale military invasion, than to seize the data in the US or the UK, where all the government needs is a search warrant.
Cheers,
-j.
Re:pictures (Score:2)
Specific criticisms (Score:2)
Millions of people routinely "disrespect" intellectual property rights now, without the aid of data havens and with no negative consequences. Why would anyone want to drop a couple grand a month for this service just to host pirated music for the gratification of leeches, especially when they could connect to Napster instead and accomplish the same goal. You apparently have no knowledge or understanding of the background of data havens.
While many may not agree with the current laws, it is not right to abandon them simply for one's own personal gain.
Why not? If you disagree with a law, why should you follow it? And where does personal gain come into the equation of whether or not to follow laws? Let's say you live under a regime which declares the group to which you belong undesirable, and decides to kill you. Would you go along with that edict simply because it's "the law" and the government can't be wrong? Or would you "abandon" that law and try to save your life? And doesn't trying to save your own life lead to "personal gain"? I could go on forever about why your thinking is wrong, but I will restrain myself.
If only out of respect for the people whose works are going to be ripped off by this venture, they must be stopped.
While we're at it, let's shut down Napster, the internet, and all BBSs. Better shut down the phone system, too, or at least outlaw modems. Then we should collect all tape recorders, VCRs, camcorders, put 'em in a pile, and burn 'em. Then to be damn sure the property rights of artists are respected, let's outlaw the ability to transcribe music. Wouldn't want anybody copying down a melody someone else wrote. And for that matter, let's rid the world of writing instruments, so pirates can't copy books. Once again, I could go on like this forever, but you should get the point. Your thinking, if I can call it that, is enormously flawed.
Swiss bank (Score:2)
Re:HavenCo's CTO Speaks (Score:2)
Re:Vaporware? (Score:5)
We actually have all the equipment needed to get
operational *onsite* right now.
Please remember that Sealand has been occupied
continuously since 24 December, 1966 by the
Royal Family, and they've done quite a bit of
work over the years to make sure the place is
quite suitable.
Operational IP to Sealand exists, but we're not
publishing until we get the second link up. We
will be using a network of caches to maximize
throughput.
We can always use more money, both in investment
and customer revenues, but that's primarily to
increase capacity to serve more customers.
You mentioned the oil industry -- sure, to do things the official way through the offshore oil
industry would cost >$50m if you were starting with an abandoned platform. However, if you're
using a facility almost purpose-built for
secure coloation, with a great deal of infrastructure already in place, which has been
maintained by dedicated professionals for years,
it's a lot cheaper. Plus, we're using commodity
equipment, open source software, and vendor
partnerships to lower the cost on the Internet/server side.
You don't need to trust us; you can just wait
a week or two and see for yourself.
Prior "art": Rainbow Warrior; Distributed Alliance (Score:2)
Any kind of accident is always possible with a single location. A distributed nation effort would have a better reliability, but it would be extremely difficult to form due to personal and ideological conflicts. A distributed alliance of micro-nations might be worth a thought, however.
Re:"Leaders of Fake Country Tried to Buy Arms" (Score:3)
---------------------------------
All they need is a McDonalds. (Score:3)
Re:Recognition of Sealand? Military protection? (Score:2)
Mostly because to get to it, they'd have to pass through British territorial waters, something I doubt our beloved government would tollerate. Actually, Sealand has relatively few potential military threats. The UK is one of the safest nations in the world. It has a disproprtionately well equipped military for the size of population, compared to just about any other country in the world. If we treat every nation as hostile to the UK, there are only two that actually pose a real threat -- the USA and Russia. Although others (e.g., China, Iraq, etc.) have armies more than large enough to overrun the UK, only the two I mentioned actually have to capability to get sufficient numbers physically to the UK to cause a problem. The UK would defend Sealand far more readily (as part of the defense of it's own territorial waters) than it would let a foreign nation attack Sealand.
Even more info on Sealand (Score:4)
They have very peculiar demographics and an even stranger culture. Their population reproduces very quickly, but this is to balance out the devastating effects of their cultural tradition. You see, once every few weeks the many of the Seamen go swimming across the Fallopian Channel in a massive exodus, lured by native myths about making it to a "promised land." Only one of the Seamen ever makes it across the Fallopian Channel alive, and the rest all drown.
The Seamen reproduce quickly, and this cycle of death continues again.
FCXX, e-gold, and the "begats" of Ryan Lackey.... (Score:2)
>along with Vince Cate. Some of the folks who sponsor the FC
> symposia include Zero Knowledge, E-Gold, and Hushmail.
Yes, well...
As the, um, actual founder of same, I should note Ryan actually "interned" at FC98 [the one with the solar eclipse over the volcano's ashcloud
Also, I should note that Ryan also did the "protocols" presentation at my Philodox Symposium on Internet Bearer Transaction Settlement the following year, and, as a result of that, got himself a job slinging code for Ian Grigg and the e-gold folks for most of the following year in Anguilla.
Unfortunately, his job for e-gold was to do an implementation of Wagner Blinding, which, sad to say, he didn't actually do, and which he followed by getting himself deliberately kicked off Anguilla as persona non grata so that he didn't have to come back and finish.
[BTW, Ben Laurie, of Apache SSL fame, actually *did* just finish Wagner blinding for Lucre, and, it appears, he's going to talk about it at the Edinburgh Financial Cryptography Engineering Conference (run code or go home, and all that), which will be held in, um, Edinburgh, on June 23rd and 24th.
Now, I like Ryan a lot, both personally, and in a prodigal, "infant terrible", kind of way, and, unlike a lot of people who probably have reason to say such things, I think he's going to make something happen this time with Havenco. I was, frankly, floored when I heard about it, and I laughed for hours afterward at the sheer audicity of the idea, so it's definitely a good one, on that score alone.
I also like Sameer, who has a proven track record in starting crypto- and privacy- companies, c2.net, for instance, and certainly has the credentials worthy of the above quoted praise.
Nonetheless, I do think that the idea of "privacy-" or "data-havens", per se, and "regulatory arbitrage", in particular, is, mostly, a waste of time. Okay. To be charitable, a stopgap measure at best.
Just like they did in Switzerland, and, even, Anguilla, FinCEN et. al. will legislate "privacy" away, and just because they *can*, to use the ribald expression, leaving us nothing but *cryptography* on the internet, preferrably financial cryptography
Still, Ryan and Sameer are out there, hanging it out, while lots of people just talk about it, and, Sameer, of course, is famous for *doing* things other people just talk about.
And, I should note, finally, that we have all *kinds* of money being raised spent on things of what some people consider to be technology of dubious efficacy. So-called "certification authorities", for instance, which, like all hierarchical schemes on a geodesic internetwork, "trust management" or otherwise, are simply a waste of time. Hell, we even have watermarking companies getting funded when the only thing you can tell from such a thing is who you "stole" the item *from* -- not who "stole" it. I even hear tell of so-called "bearer transaction" companies getting money these days
So, in it's own spirit of "because they can", go forth, Havenco, and, heh, replicate.
I still chuckle when I think about Ryan & Co, out there in a horizontal-rain force-blabla Beaufort-scale North Sea gale, making the world safe for the four horsemen of the infocalypse...
Cheers,
Robert Hettinga
Founder,
DCSB, The International Conference on Financial Cryptography (FCXX), IFCA (*I* say so), Philodox, IBUC, EFCE (kind of), yadda, yadda, yadda...
Recognition of Sealand? Military protection? (Score:4)
Additionally, how do we know other nations cannot interfere with Sealand? Even a tiny nation like Iraq could take over the island with a few gunboats and some chemical gases.
Furthermore, Sealand, although independent, is still at the mercy of external controls. The fiber lines can be cut, network traffic can be intercepted, etc...
And what about political pressure? Say the US government doesn't like it. It can pressure Sealand to enact controls by threatening to block US business access to the haven ( a significant portion of their market ) by passing a law (which would be quite constitutional, I think)
structure in the sea (Score:2)
What happens if people blockade your ISPs? (Score:2)
It's trivial to blockade even if you have more than a handful of ISPs. They can censor you indefinitely that way.
Your site is already easy to blockade in 3 dimensions - ships, airplanes (I'd say submarines, but I hear the sea there is shallow).
You'd better have the media and public supporting you... Not sure if the toothless 5 nation dominated United Nations will do anything to help you.
No ISP is an island
Cheerio,
Link.
No a CoLo (Score:5)
Maintaining the physical security of the Sealand fortress and HavenCo facility is of utmost importance to our success. Our business, personal reputations and financial bottom line, and that of all our customers, could be compromised in the event that a careless or malicious entity were to ship equipment to us that was altered to include a bomb or eavesdropping device. We don't like these precautions any more than you do, but this is the reality that we face in an increasily hostile world.
Although I agree thay phsical security as well as systems integrity is paramount in todays electronic environment. Taking measures this stiff is along the lines of James Bond films. These folks won't even let you bring in your own hardware. So is it a true COLO? From perusing the related HavenCo pages it appears that along with secure services, they also have quite a lockdown on content provided as well as a strong hold on how the hosted sites are run. I could see needing a facility like this to house some business critical warehousing, but that would be about it. I think the leasing arrangements and the spylike security will also come with a huge pricetag. If you spend all thismoney and house your site there, you still can't see or visit the facilities. Seems a bit paranoid to me.
News Item (Score:3)
The Principality of Sealand was destroyed today in a tragic special effects accident. During the filming of Das Boobs, a German remake of the shortlived Operation Petticoat series, several torpedos intended for a fake cardboard convoy missed their target. The torpedos ran up on a beach and deconstructed all infrastructure in the tiny principality
A spokes person from the MPAA said oops!
Clearing up a few things (Score:4)
o The Principality of Sealand's actual web site is www.sealandgov.com. Any other site which claims to be the web site for the government of Sealand is making a false claim. The web site at www.fruitsofthesea.demon.co.uk was the official site until the recent HavenCo launch, at which point we moved the official site for the government of Sealand to www.sealandgov.com
o Prince Roy is an upstanding individual and has not been involved in the shady schemes using the name of Sealand. A number of shady individuals have been forging Sealand passports and selling them. Recently a number of these shady individuals, who had been acting without the consent of the government of Sealand, have been arrested in Spain for falsifying documents. Sealand does not sell passports.
o Our AUP isn't very clear. =( The AUP states that content illegal in the jurisdiction of the "server" is prohibited. Our AUP was written with the future plan of building datacenters in multiple jurisdictions in mind. If you, as a HavenCo customer, host your content at the HavenCo sealand datacenter, the only content regulation which applies to your content as it relates to our AUP is the Sealand prohibition on child pornography. Sealand has no regulations prohibiting any content other than child pornography.
Thank you. I hope that clears up the questions raised here. We are all very busy dealing with the press barrage, so I apologize if there are questions that remain unanswered.
--
Sameer Parekh
Chairman
Havenco, Ltd.
dangerous data :) (Score:2)
Um, well... (Score:3)
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Seems to me... (Score:3)
However, it's the ultimate protection against lawsuits against the ISP for hosting supposedly offensive materials. Individuals will not suddenly be free of liability for their actions. They'll still be subject to the laws where they reside. BUT, they won't have to worry about some spineless ISP dropping their content without notice simply because they got a threatening letter from a corporate lawyer.
This seems to be particularly appropriate just off the coast of Great Britain...
- StaticLimit
A 19th century solution to a 21st century problem (Score:3)
The way to free information is not run beyond the reaches of law, but to distribute it so that for each site that closes, another two spring up
A quick question, the law may not be able to touch them, but they can cut the connection to the rest of the world can they not?
Re:No a CoLo (Score:3)
Non-profit organizations? (Score:3)
HavenCo is donating free colocation space to Non-Governmental Organizations of our choosing. In general, the types of organizations that we will want to provide hosting for are those that promote
Among other groups, Freenet [sourceforge.net] have expressed interest in getting a large Freenet node hosted there (of course, that's very preliminary, and was just posted to freenet-chat a couple hours ago). Between Freenet and HavenCo, this is an exciting time for free speech and the Internet.
Go after the meat (Score:3)
A properly secured data haven could obscure how much and what one had there, but it seems it would be almost impossible to completely hide the list of clients and at least the extent of their holdings -- especially if they charge by the Mb.
- Michael Cohn
Piss off the usual suspects (Score:3)
Well, there you have it. They are going to host web sites that intentionaly piss off France, and only France.:-) The Brits will conveniently find some excuse to extend their defenses to the Sealanders who have ancestral links back to the old homeland. But there is still the Germans to consider as one of Zeldman's Failed Ads [zeldman.com] attests to.
Re:more info on Sealand (Score:5)
http://www.principality-sealand.net/en00.htm, is actually run by a group of people who sell fake Sealand passports. It is not a site endorsed by Prince Roy or Princess Joan
The following article from The Guardian explains the issue:
Storm Warning [guardianunlimited.co.uk]
Re:Recognition of Sealand? Military protection? (Score:4)
Re:"Diplomacy" (Score:3)
Re:You are kidding me! (Score:3)
They can make up (or change) laws. Any goverment can. But you seem to assume they have no laws allready.
According to some random web site google spat up [demon.co.uk] they follow British Common Law and British Law of Contract. Which I beleve would make the GPL as valid there as in the UK.
Of corse they could change their minds, but so could any country. Even a democratic one. Ask anyone whose assets were frozen by the US goverment. Or whose bisness was nationalised in South America. You just have to ask yourself, do you trust Prince Roy?
Vaporware? (Score:3)
Running a data center in an abandoned fortress in the North Sea is going to be a difficult, expensive proposition. It's worse than a shipboard operation; you can bring a ship into port for overhaul. Just getting high reliability marine-grade power and air conditioning equipment onto their island will be a job. And the WWII-era concrete probably needs major work by now. Loading and unloading big stuff from small boats is a bitch. Keeping good people onsite for repairs will be very tough, so they'll probably need a helipad and some helicopters to get workers on and off. That's another construction job and a big operating cost.
It's not impossible. If you're in a position to write a check with eight figures to Bechtel or Fluor, who build oil platforms, no problem. They're trying to raise $3 million, and that's nowhere near enough.
Seems like an obvious target (Score:3)
For one of those great IBM Linux on System/390 setups. You have a situation where you want a combination of:
Re:Take another look at the AUP... (Score:3)
As has been said elsewhere, it's really only the Brits who can militarily challenge Sealand. All others would be violating the UK's territorial waters, and no matter how they feel about Sealand, the Brits probably couldn't afford to let such encroachment go through...
Not Kinakuta (Score:5)
Kinakuta was internationally recognized "de jure"
Kinakuta had its own domain "kk"
Kinakuta was rather wealthy to begin with, and did not need to raise capital.
Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net is a more pertinent "data haven" reference.
Check out the Island of Labuan (Score:3)
Not a place to store p0rn/warez/etc but if you want that, stick to loony land like Sealand. Labuan is for serious operations
A network haven without a network? (Score:3)
Something like 90% of the world's Internet traffic goes though USA backbone sites. To get from Poland to France (on the net), you go though a USA site. The percentage of SSL traffic (the "important" stuff) is even higher. Even offshore business accounts often host on USA soil, because that's where the network is.
So, while the USA certainly doesn't have any magic control over the world economy, you cannot dispute the fact that most of the network traffic this thread is interested in goes through sites owned and operated by USA companies.
Now, consider that Sealand is a data haven. Without network connectivity, they are about as useful as a jet fighter without fuel. If the entire USA collectively decides to cut off Sealand, then they've lost most of the market they care about.
Is that going to happen any time soon? No. Too many laws against it, and too much popular opinion behind the laws. It would take a radical change in our culture and political climate. By the time the needed changes could be put into effect, the backbone situation will likely have changed.