HavenCo In Trouble?

Evil Al writes "News.com is reporting on the talk given by Ryan Lackey, former CTO of HavenCo, at DefCon. Lackey claims that the company is teetering on the edge due to internal upheaval and lack of customers. Oh, and 9/11, of course."

Re:It was only a matter of time...

[Karamchand]

..something illegal to begin with, and HavenCo won't host you.

As you can read in the Acceptable Use Policy [havenco.com] on HavenCo's website they will host everything not forbidden by Sealand's law - that is just child pornography.

So you could host copyrighted and pirated videos, plans on how to make the newest mobile nuclear bomb and things like that.

Re:Hrmm

[Anonymous Coward]

The popular cracks site, cracks.am is hosted on HavenCo.

acceptable use policy

[Carbon Unit 549]

Their acceptable use policy defeats the purpose of the haven?!

HavenCo said on Monday that its acceptable use policy "stands as originally written. However it is the case that principality law forbids any act...which is against international law, linked with terrorism, or contrary to international custom and practice. These restrictions are in keeping with those found in any country."

That bold bit pretty much covers everything.

All about the price

[mcgroarty]

I wanted to host there, but a low-end box on a trickling 64kbit line was $500/month!

They really need to offer lower rates to fill those racks up a bit more, save the novelty premiums for those last slots.

Re:i think...

[Zeinfeld]

...it's the more the fact the company only had a whopping six customers.

According to Lackey the problem was that HavenCo failled to realize the pure vision of the founders. He pretty much sounds like one of those unreconstructed 1960s communists that claim that the reason the USSR failled is because it was not communist enough.

The fact that they only had 6 customers would explain why the UK authorities appear to have shown so little interest. The platform is inside UK teritorial waters - period. The UK government does not recognize 'Prince Roy' and in this case it is the opinion of the executive and not the judiciary that is relevant. Extreeme ideologues like Lackey can believe what they want, the scheme was doomed from the start because they were not immune to UK law.

The US citizens were certainly not immune from US law. The US has in recent years exported a large number of its laws. For that matter so has the UK.

Under UK law the platform as a man made object is therefore a ship. Ships do not have territorial claims. A ship that does not carry the flag of a recognized nationality is subject to the law of any country that cares to exercise jurisdiction.

There are plenty of real countries where the authorities will turn a bloind eye to any enterprise - at a price. Nigeria for example where the government tollerates the advance fee fraud spammers who have them on the payroll.

The HavenCo employees all went to and from the platfom through Heathrow airport. They could have been arrested by the UK authorities any time they wanted to. Lackey was working in the UK without a work permit.

Re:Hrmm

[darkkewulf]

and what kind of sites were considered to be havenco material?

From another article [wired.com] (old):

For "security reasons," HavenCo will mention the name of only one client: Tibet Online, the Net presence of the exiled government, which is eager to escape the clutches of China.

Re:i think...

[azzy]

It was however outside of UK territorial waters at the time it was claimed. And as such was not under UK law. The UK extender their territorial waters around it when it was claimed. The legal/political position is a little unclear, however a UK judge has previously declared he had no authority over it as it wasn't part of the UK.

Re:i think...

[filledwithloathing]

The platform is inside UK teritorial waters - period. The UK government does not recognize 'Prince Roy' and in this case it is the opinion of the executive and not the judiciary that is relevant.

Actually when Sealand was "founded", UK Territorial waters only extended 3 miles. You cannot claim territory by extending your Territorial Waters under International Law. Since the UK courts have ruled that they have no jurisdiction in Sealand it would seem that Sealand was and is a country.

The UK could not extend it's Territorial Waters 100 miles and then claim the beaches of Normandy.

SCBA, not SCUBA

[Anonymous Coward]

When they first came on the scene, they claimed to not need a fire suppression system due to the fact that their entire facility had been flooded with nitrogen, thus requiring technicians to wear scuba gear to install new equipment.

SCBA, since they're not underwater. As to the claim re nitrogen- from a practical standpoint, sealing rooms is virtually impossible, and gasses like to disperse. From a safety standpoint, less than 14%(I think?) oxygen is considered an environment that is classified as Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health(or whatever the OSHA term is).

I'd be far more inclined to believe they have a fire suppression system and SCBA emergency stations(as is required by law in many cases).

Re:i think...

[Anonymous Coward]

have you read their history? They have been treated as a sovereign government for over 30 years.

It has been challenged MANY times and has won.

Other countries have even sent diplomats to Sealand to make dealings.

The UK has no more of a claim of rights to Sealand than Sealand has a right to claim rights to anything else.

Re:Havenco an interesting case...

[deblassc]

this is total BS according to Lackey.

havenco did not have a "sealed oxegen free room" it had 5 lan racks with about 15 servers on there.... thats it.

apparently they spent more money on getting a flakey wireless link up then they did on servers.

also in the talks he said that sealand has like 2 people residing there now.... and he said that a armed takeover would take about 10 minutes..... so anyone have a chopper I can borrow?

Re:New place for libertopia?

[nat5an]

At last count, I believe Indonesia had 11,000 islands, some 7000 of which are uninhabited. I remember reading recently that they just "discovered" 1000 more islands that they didn't know were part of their country. My advice -- go to south east Asia and find an undiscovered island.

Re:i think...

[arkane1234]

He pretty much sounds like one of those unreconstructed 1960s communists that claim that the reason the USSR failled is because it was not communist enough.

I hate to sound like a stickler but I'm going to, anyway.
The original socialist movement away from mother Russia's old Czar ruling was stealthfully turned into a form of totalitarian "dictatorship" shortly after the revolution. So, in actuality, the "communists" you speak of weren't truely speaking of communism as it was currently in mother russia, they were talking about what the true intent was in the beginning.

It was a glimmer of hope for the Russians until that revolution turned out how it did.

Re:Business and lunatics

[jbert]

"bint"

Noun. Colloquial, mildly offensive term for "woman", esp. attractive womain. See "trim", "bird", etc.

"moistened"

Adjective. Made wet, or "wetted".

"moistened bint": humourously (sp?) constructed phrase referring to the "Lady of the Lake", a character in Arthurian legend who is the source of the sword Excalibur, used by King Arthur. The sword symbolises Arthur's right of rule and so, in effect, the power of government ultimately resides with the wet woman in question.

Re:DefCon slides

[rdl]

http://www.metacolo.com/papers/dc11-havenco/

Re:i think...

[filledwithloathing]

Actually the Brittish briefly tried to retake Sealand but thought better of it when Sealand shot back.

By late 1968, the British navy had become aware of the new situation off the coast of England. They were interested in terminating the state of affairs brought about by an error committed by the most senior military authorities without causing too much uproar.

Units of the navy entered the territorial waters claimed by Roy of Sealand. As he was aware of his sovereignty, Roy of Sealand threatened the navy by undertaking defensive activity. Shots were fired from Sealand in warning. Since Roy of Sealand was still an English citizen, he was thus accused of extensive crimes in Britain and was summoned to an English court. The result of this lawsuit in Chelmsford, Essex was a spectacular success for Sealand's claim to sovereignty. In its judgment of 25 November 1968, the court declared that it was not competent in Roy of Sealand's case as it could not exert any jurisdiction outside of British national territory. This is the first de facto recognition of the Principality of Sealand. English law had ruled that Sealand was not part of the United Kingdom, nor did any other nation claim it, hence Prince Roy's declaration of a new Sovereign State was de facto upheld.

The UK's legal system has consistently treated Sealand as a sovereign nation.

"If Sealand irritates anyone sufficiently, they're toast."

...so is Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, etc., etc., etc.

Re:i think...

[Scyber]

And international law specifically states that when you increase your territorial waters you cannot gain any "land" claimed by other countries.

Re:New place for libertopia?

[bjtuna]

The Antarctic Treaty of 1959/1961 neither recognizes nor disputes the claims made by those 7 (or any other) nation. The United States and Russia both reserve the right to make territorial claims. See the CIA World Factbook [cia.gov] for more info.

Short story is, you'd catch a lot of shit from about 30 countries if you tried setting up an independent nation on Antarctica.