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Data Haven To Open For Business - Today 308

Posted by timothy 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.
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Data Haven To Open For Business - Tomorrow More

Data Haven To Open For Business - Tomorrow

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  • Too bad they have a .com domain just like everybody else. I would really like to see them get their own TLD.

    Come to think of it, that might not be a bad idea, haven-wise. Other TLDs are administered by governments or private companies, so sites could still be vulnerable. If there was a TLD for Sealand, that would be one less way to deny access.

  • Well, I don't know too much about commodity prices, but even if the US dollar were pretty stable, it's still under the control of the US government (mostly), meaning it's really stupid for another country to tie themselves to it. In fact, currencies don't really need to be tied to commodities anymore. The US dollar isn't. It's just backed by the US government's word that it's legal tender for all debts public and private. No gold, no banannas, nothing. Of course, the US does have some gold on hand, which justifies the currency. The problem is when other countries try to tie their currency to the dollar, they have to keep reserves of US dollars. Then when there currency starts to fail, they have to "sell" the US dollars to keep their currency fixed, and then they run out and have to let the currency float a lot all at once, causing great problems. They don't need to do that and should just base it on their word but allow it to float, with some US dollars or gold to back themselves up a little bit. Oh, and global currencies aren't a good idea (even the Euro is sort of pushing it, though I can see how it may be more useful than not), but that's another story.
  • I draw people's attention to another Slashdot article I read recently (sorry I can't remember the details) where a judge in the US ruled that he did have jurisdiction to hear charges against a site-maintainer, even though he maintained his site off-shore, since "he had uploaded information to the site from the US, and thus had published the information in the US".

    If other judges around the world reach the same conclusion, or are backed up by laws passed, then it may not matter how independant the servers are at Sealand - the lawyers would simply go after the site maintainers, whatever country they happen to be in, since they'd have to upload information to the Sealand servers from their own respective countries.

  • This about this, a small island with none of the "anti-hacker" laws. I could crack thier system, get the personal data and even reruite a few billion dollers into my bank account.

    You couldn't "reruite" shit. As far as I know, they aren't running a bank.

    Why the hell not, who's going to stop me, I doubt sealand going to track me and then send a sealand police force. No other goverment really has jerisdiction here either. This rocks for the crackers.

    I think you can be fairly certain that the companies buying space from HavenCo will pursue you if you try to harm them. I'm not sure of the relevant laws, but I don't think that simply because the server is located out of the jurisdiction of major countries you would be safe from prosecution.

    Also, this seems like kind of a good idea not taken far enough. If this island is profitable they'll just get invaded. Heck you don't need a nation to take one over. Their are plenty of billionares the could hire mercs, aritillery and missiles to take them over. This however is too good an idea not to be done.

    I don't think I even need to explain how stupid this idea is.

    P.S. $10 bucks says that when this happens NAPSTER will have thier own space nation.

    Yep. Hell, with Napster's enormous revenue stream, they'll probably have two or three "space nations".
  • No, their domain would be siezed since the .com's are controlled by US Courts/Government.
  • Cool story - I wonder if it is still possible to create more countries like this?

    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.

  • Spain and their "invincible armada" got their asses kicked by British ships that were smaller and more agile. They lost. Looking at territorial acquisitions in history the people with the biggest guns and the most troops usually win hands down until someone bigger and tougher comes along or until the natives get restless.
  • With a large percentage of the world's chip production in TW, do you seriously think the US would let something like that happen?

    The perception that the US is trying to give is that of neutrality. Behind the scenes, you can bet your ass that there are unseen forces at work.

    The communist regime is that of fear. Just because they say they can invade Taiwan, doesn't mean that they want to do it. They know full well that if they did do it, no-one would be on their side.
  • >Okay, so we can't SUE you to get you to take
    >down that site, but lets say we park all of our
    >warships around your island. Any of your planes
    >try to take off or land, we'll consider that
    >hostile. What? Okay, so when will you have the
    >site offline? In an hour? Great, pleasure doing
    >business with you."

    That would not look very good to the United Nations....and I don't think Britain would be very happy about all those warships right off the coast just to force one website to close. It would basically be a diplomatic nightmare.

    --Sam L-L
  • Wake up dude. The laws dont work, and for the most part, exist for the personal gain of the people who buy the laws (Read: Mafia, Multinational Corps, etc.). Further, there is no method (at least in the States) to change the laws that deter individualism, safety, and free enterprise. If this is not painfully obvious to you buy now, Im afraid you are probably being swindled.

    I for one, am glad to see at least someone is trying to do something about this. It's about time the market started working for the good of the public and not the good of corrupt thieves such as the MPAA and Christian Coalition.


  • Of course we would filter out spam. or forward it to the RTBH.

    I was thinking more about the laws concerning spam. For example, It is illegal to instigate spam in many US states. (PA just passed a law making it illegal to spread virii, read outlook) If someone gets a legit account in _international waters_ and uses it to spam (or violate some copyright) then is that covered by the import/export laws? or is it covered by the laws of the country concerned? What happens if it is not a recognized country? Does that give them I-can-do-anything-I-want power?

    I was hoping for a more intellegent response than Simply put, your point is irrelevant. I guess I should have made more of an argument in my first post.
  • So the work will be avaible to the rest of the world via the GPLed liscence and that dosn't change. Who in their right mind will go and try and sell a product for a cost when anyone can just go ahead and do it for free anywhere else. Also what happens if I decide to pirate someone's code that they stole from me and host in in Sealand? I guess you could do this ad infinitum and it might work. Also considering the reputaton this place will get who is going to buy software that automatically conjures up images of some scraggly pirate with a three cornered hat an eye patch a peg leg a hook and perhaps a bottle of rum and a couple of pirate wenches under each arm; that kind of picture will almost certainly get associated with this place.
  • No big company worth their salt would host at a sketchy place like this. Storing data there would be like waving a giant flag that says "I'm guilty of something... come investigate!" And even if they did, they'd certainly never admit to it if push came to shove. They'd pull their data, run like hell, and hope Prince Roy keeps his mouth shut.
    ~luge

  • principality-sealand.net is owned by the German company that was responsible for the short-lived invasion of Sealand (and also, as it happens, the kidnapping of the Prince of Sealand's son). Don't trust them; their business until now has mainly consisted of flogging fake Sealand passports to desparate Hong Kong families before the return of HK to China.


  • The brilliant thing about Sealand's location is that it's still within British territorial waters. It should be safe from hostile gunships and aircraft to the extent that if anything were approaching Sealand, they could notify the British defense forces to alert them about the 'foreign invasion' of England. Sealand is still susceptible to a smaller-scale terrorist hit, though.



    Seth
  • It's also worth pointing out that they are not connected by fiber lines. Here is a quote from the NYTimes article:
    They are hoping that the installation, connected to the Internet by high-speed microwave and satellite links, will become a refuge from governments increasingly trying to tame and regulate the Internet.
    SoLo
  • 11 l3-psk-t3-l.netaxs.net (207.106.3.201) 64.130 ms 51.568 ms 43.537 ms
    12 l3-consh-t3-l.netaxs.net (207.106.3.193) 105.847 ms 79.604 ms 52.046 ms
    13 ns1.havenco.com (207.106.32.14) 47.845 ms 40.472 ms 90.635 ms

    netaxs.net is the ISP ostensibly founded by Havenco "advisor" Avi Freedman. Looks like they don't have that high-speed cable out to the ol' bunker yet. Netaxs's web site seems a little outdated, however: The latest system announcements are from November 1998.

    I think something smells fishy, too.

  • They are not a fraud. They really do have a
    claim to independence, however flimsy it may be.
    Still, they are only a bit more real than the
    Kingdom of Talossa whose official ethnic food
    is Taco Bell.
  • ITBWTCL has been available online for awhile. Great read, but I was surprised to see it being hawked for 10 bucks a pop at $BOOKSTORE.

    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. html

    Its 56 pages long but well worth the read.
    -BW
  • This idea is little more than a few people's idea to avoid having to follow laws or respect intellectual property rights. While many may not agree with the current laws, it is not right to abandon them simply for one's own personal gain.

    If only out of respect for the people whose works are going to be ripped off by this venture, they must be stopped.

  • > Okay, so we can't SUE you to get you to take
    > down that site, but lets say we park all of our > warships around your island.

    Damn. Didn't know the RIAA & MPAA even had warships yet! :)

  • more info on Sealand (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:12PM (#1025893)
    http://www.principality-sealand.net/en 00.htm [principality-sealand.net]
    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.
  • It's already happening. Telecommunications networks are becomming more and more oriented towards the public like the phone networks are now. There comes a time where things are equal for all to use. Take the example of public sidewalks in cities. I can walk almost anywhere I want if there is a sidewalk I can walk while in posession of a big neon sign that says Fuck Bill Clinton, fuck America, and fuck religion if I prefer. Also if you have enough cash you could get a satellite launched and have it work via a wireless or shortwave network to prevent the evil government from doing bad things to you. Have it launched into geostationary orbit directly above Sealand and have an embedded webserver with maybe flashable rom or something to give updates to the comm protocol. That would make it almost bulletproof. As far as I know there isn't really any technology to demolish a satellite in orbit of the earth or we would have used it by now against other countries of the world.

  • And I don't think that blowing up a helpless island would be good for the image of any country.

    On the other hand, look at the Kosovo mess. Interfering in internal affairs, and blowing up large parts of a near-helpless country seems to be perfectly justifiable. The media circus surrounding it was almost exclusively positive.

  • I wonder how long it takes for the spammers to bounch spam off sealand.

    But, will they be liable if the last bounce is sealand?
  • The British Navy created them as floating islands and then sunk the pontoons causing them to sink 25ft to the bottom of the channel in that area.

  • Based on that NYT article, it seems to me that a single conventional warhead will put an end to this so-called data haven.

    That doesn't seem to be secure to me.

  • 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)

    by rdl ( 4744 ) <ryan AT venona DOT com> on Sunday June 04, 2000 @09:24PM (#1025909) Homepage
    Hi. I'm Ryan Lackey, CTO of HavenCo.

    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.
  • Read the definitive (being the only one i know) guide to starting you're own country. Creatively titled:

    "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)

    by maroberts ( 15852 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @09:33PM (#1025912) Homepage Journal
    As a separate nation, Sealand is in a good position to qualify for its own top level domain in the same way that many other nations, both small and large, have. The owner of Sealand should contact Network Solutions and then he would have no more problems about forged sites, since his government could control a '.se' national domain or something similar if that has already gone.

    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)

    by dirt ( 1129 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @10:03PM (#1025924)
    I saw this article [netscape.com] a few days ago; apparently they tried to by arms from Russia, "apparently destined for Africa and including MIG fighter[s] and Antonov planes, helicopters, heavy artillery units and tanks." Terrifying perhaps? The article pretty much disses Sealand as a real nation, but I guess only time will tell.

    At least you'll be assured your data is gaurded, I suppose

    ---

  • "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?

  • But the FruitsOfTheSea site and the Sealandgov.com sites, which both claim to be official, don't link to each other at all.

    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 :=))

  • 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?

  • I believe that their Internet connectivity was done through satellite or microwaves or something, which obviously means that there is no physical connection.

    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?

  • Further, would terrorists locate their sites there? And outfits like Cult of the Dead Cow, who might benefit from migrating to a data haven? Would you trust your sensitive data to a location that the government (in this case, the UK government) might seize at any moment?

    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.

  • this has some, if they are real or not is your guess. Certianly no mansion:)http://www.principality-sealand.net/en501 .html
  • This idea is little more than a few people's idea to avoid having to follow laws or respect intellectual property rights.

    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.
  • Hey, it's the Swiss bank of data...
  • Wasn't there just an article a while back about some volcanic island springing up in the Pacific? I wonder if some chunk of land in international waters could be purchased for /total/ privacy/security. Maybe a node in the arctic or antarctic?

  • Re:Vaporware? (Score:5)

    by rdl ( 4744 ) <ryan AT venona DOT com> on Sunday June 04, 2000 @10:32PM (#1025945) Homepage
    (FWIW, I'm CTO of HavenCo, and responsible for the buildout of the datacenter on Sealand)

    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.
  • Some French spies blew up the Greenpeace flagship. Nowadays Greenpeace has something of a fleet and France took (IMHO) a publicity hit. I wonder whether they'd pull something like that again.

    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.

  • Actully, this guy isn't informative. The article states that fake officials tried to buy the arms, operating under the name of Sealand. It didn't diss Sealand. Sealand didn't do anything wrong.

    ---------------------------------

  • All they need is a McDonalds. (Score:3)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum&gmail,com> on Sunday June 04, 2000 @06:36PM (#1025960) Homepage Journal
    At that point, they become invincible.
  • 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.

    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)

    by webslacker ( 15723 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @06:39PM (#1025963)
    The native inhabitants of Sealand are the Seamen.

    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.
  • >This fella is one of the Financial Cryptography folks in Anguilla,
    >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 :-)], and that happened mostly because he did something especially cool on cypherpunks, (can't remember what, maybe it was fully-indexed cypherpunks list archives?) and I comped him a conference badge and a room in Willies' Inn, (such as it was) for his trouble.

    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 :-), which, some people note, is the way it should be, anyway.

    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)

    by Montressor ( 34631 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:19PM (#1025972)
    Is Sealand recognized by the United States? If a nation is not recognized as independent by other nations, it can't do much good.
    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)
  • "...an oil-rig type structure in the sea". Pretty much. It's a "Maunsell fort", which is one of these [freeserve.co.uk]. I'd be surprised if a mighty fleet were required to take it. There's more about sea forts here [virgin.net], and about unrecognised little island states [francenet.fr], if you're interested.
  • You still need to connect to the Internet right?

    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)

    by Tei'ehm Teuw ( 191740 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:22PM (#1025982)
    From the HavenCo FAQ [havenco.com]

    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)

    by the_other_one ( 178565 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @06:41PM (#1025984) Homepage

    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)

    by havenco ( 196751 ) on Monday June 05, 2000 @04:45AM (#1025986)
    Hello folks, I'm Sameer Parekh, Chairman at HavenCo. I hope you'll all read Ryan Lackey's (our CTO) post which should have cleared up a number of your questions regarding the technical feasibility of the datahaven. I'd like to clear up a few other concerns that were posted here.

    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.

  • We can also store data that is too dangerous to store anywhere else, like Barbara Streissand MP-3s. :)
  • Quote:

    "I can tell you, in no uncertain terms, that the United States does not recognize the Principality of Sealand,"
    - Walter Deering, Miami special agent-in-charge of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

    See also: Source of quote [lvrj.com]

  • so a country doesn't recognise another one.. big deal. it's not the first one, nor will it be the last. It's not like it matters. The US always has to complain when things don't go the way they like it.

    //rdj
  • Based on my reading (IANAL, but a friend of mine is and he specialises in this type of thing :) - while it is a part of Malaysia and (sorta) under Malaysian laws, it's also its own separate environment, duty free and so on. It's one of the best places to set up in.

    If you read in some detail, you may note that if you pay RM20,000 per year (about US$5,000) then you don't have to do anything more, no matter how much you might earn. Think about it :)

    Anyhow, like I said, if you're wanting to set up a real off-shore operation, check out Labuan. It's a real place with real laws but enough extensions that you can operate "offshore" from practically everywhere. Sealand seems more suited for political content, risky kind of stuff - not businesses.
  • I understand some people have a very strong opinion on this issue, as do I. But, I don't feel that the US should intervene in this situation.

    If China were to use force against Taiwan, then the United States most certainly should intervene. We have made promises to the government and people of Taiwan that we would defend them, should the need arise, and it would be highly inappropriate, and probably catastrophic to our own foreign policy, if we were to look the other way in the face of such aggression.

    However, short of something that dramatic the relationship between Taiwan and China is something for them to peacefully sort out themselves, and the United States should definitely remain neutral and stay out of the way while both sides negotiate their respective futures.

  • In the UK, all UK-illegal content will be banned.

    Does this include all useful crypto (according to the RIP bill) ? I can already buy reliable non-pr0n hosting on the UK mainland, but I'd still like somewhere that didn't have the RIP problem. If you aren't going to help with that, then why don't I just host in Switzerland or Andorra ?

  • The "Sealand Dollar" is part of the Government of
    Sealand, not HavenCo. I've seen pictures of coins
    issued by the Government some time ago, but they
    were mainly for numismatic value (same deal with
    the postage stamps)

    HavenCo does accounting in US Dollars, but have
    expenses in USD, UKP, and Euro. Having to hedge
    for minor and major transactions is *really* annoying.

    Our prices/contracts/etc. are in USD. I believe
    pricing has been posted in various articles;
    $1500/month for a high-end dedicated server with
    crypto coprocessor and full-tamper-resistance,
    owned by the customer (and purchased up front),
    including some bandwidth, or $300/month for our
    "virtual server" product, in which you get a
    virtual UNIX machine dedicated to your own use. We also do high-end custom configurations when
    required; large RAIDs, redundant machines connected by a SAN, etc. I realize many customers
    have a standard vendor, like IBM, Sun, or HP,
    that they use for their midrange/high-end servers
    in colo around the world, and we can certainly
    work with people on that.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:28PM (#1026014)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The best thing that Sealand offers is a proof point against the current corp perspective that things can go their way--the MPAA's reach can in fact extend to lyrics.ch, the FBI to germany and the philippines, DVDCCA to germany, and so forth. But will there always be some country unwilling to cooperate with most other govs and corps? Yes, seen here.

    As to whether the Royal Family of sealand is smoking crack and selling passports is another story, but fortunately not relevant to the point ;)

  • Seems to me... (Score:3)

    by StaticLimit ( 26017 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:30PM (#1026027) Homepage
    ...that the NYT article may have it right that the "paper trail", and interaction with the world's finacial markets would make it difficult for criminals to get away with crime more easily by using this service.

    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
  • Good to see you didn't waste your time reading their Acceptable Use Policy...

    Yes, the only things that they explicitly state that you can't do are a) spam and b) "Attempts to subvert, disrupt, damage, or misuse data, data traffic, network users, or equipment."

    Then, in the very next paragraph;

    Unacceptable publications include, but are not limited to:

    • Material that is ruled unlawful in the jurisdiction of the originating server (Such as child pornography or other obscene material.

    Sounds like they'll kick you out if you're serving porn and your server came from Saudi Arabia, or if you're posting warez and come from the USA. Though, even if they don't observe the laws of the server-originating country, there's always the might-makes-right argument...

    "Okay, so we can't SUE you to get you to take down that site, but lets say we park all of our warships around your island. Any of your planes try to take off or land, we'll consider that hostile. What? Okay, so when will you have the site offline? In an hour? Great, pleasure doing business with you."

  • A 19th century solution to a 21st century problem (Score:3)

    by lukel ( 142033 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:31PM (#1026036)
    The way to protect data is not to put in in a fortress but to hide it where it cannot be found

    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?

  • I'll be interested to see what they mean by that. If they're going to be hosting sites fro free-speach reasons, that's one thing. To traffic in stolen property makes them pirates. We'll see how long that holds up... The Napster/metallica stuff might put them on a poor footing, foreign-relations wise. Imagine if they are declared to be a "rogue state."

  • According to How to start your own country, he spent over $ 1.5 million in legal fees to clarify the legal position of his country vis-a-vis the UK. Hardly a "pathetic wanker", then, at least in the financial realm.

    He apparently made that money in pirate radio stations operated on ships, so he had a lot of solid background in this before starting.

    Personally, I feel real admiration for the guy - he had the guts to do what many people dream of.

    D

    ----

  • Re:No a CoLo (Score:3)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:38PM (#1026062) Homepage
    Wonder who will be providing internet connectivity. No doubt their "damn the torpedoes" stance will come to nothing when their external connectivity is simply shut off -- because other governments DO have jurisdiction over that!
  • According to How to start your own country, the main reference I know of on Sealand, the UK government felt strongly enough about the dangers inherent in Sealand clones to blow up the remaining platforms.

    D

    ----

  • I was largely skeptical of the Sealand datahaven until I read that Ryan Lackey [venona.com] was the CTO.

    This fella is one of the Financial Cryptography [fc00.ai] folks in Anguilla, along with Vince Cate [offshore.ai]. Some of the folks who sponsor the FC symposia include Zero Knowledge [zeroknowledge.com], E-Gold [e-gold.com], and Hushmail [hushmail.com].

    I don't know about you guys, but when one of that trust-web is involved in something to do with liberty/cypherpunk/finance, I lend it more credence.

  • Non-profit organizations? (Score:3)

    by nconway ( 86640 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:44PM (#1026071)
    Sealand could be a very important step in providing a place for groups with controversial material to host a site without fear of the government taking it down. From the HavenCo site:

    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

    • free speech
    • promote human rights
    • give a voice to minority and oppressed groups that otherwise may not be heard

    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.

  • According to their "Diplomacy" section [principality-sealand.net]:
    The principality of SEALAND has been in existence as an undisputed sovereign state with a liberal democratic constitutional system for more than 30 years. The government never intended to assume an official role within the framework of the community of nations. This is why the principality does not intend to win other states over for official (de jure) recognition of the principality. This would be tantamount to renouncing or limiting sovereign rights.
    EU countries have already raised objections against the possibility of SEALAND becoming a European tax haven in the event of de jure recognition!

    De facto, SEALAND is recognised by many countries even without special agreement. One indicator to this fact is extensive correspondence between SEALAND and other states on a government level. The interest other states show in SEALAND is, however, based on purely commercial grounds due to the extraordinary credit worthiness of its citizens a majority of whom is organised in the SEALAND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS FOUNDATION (SIBF).

    The government of the Principality of Sealand supports the activities of the SIBF members inter alia by issuing diplomatic passports. The beneficiaries of these diplomatic passports should not be considered as diplomats in the usual sense but they should rather be considered honourable representatives of a small state the primary task of whom is to boost the esteem of the government on a high level. These passports are not yet considered to be travelling documents.
    ... they sound like more of a business club than a country. With their own clubhouse and membership cards. But not really a nation, per se.

  • Go after the meat (Score:3)

    by laborit ( 90558 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:46PM (#1026085) Homepage
    The article suggests that a secure data haven could be used to keep goods outside the jurisdiction of one's country, thus preventing e-mails or other information from being subpoenaed. I have to wonder how much security this really offers. Others have brought up the prospect of nations declaring war on Sealand (or simply cutting them off, telecom-wise), but wouldn't it be simpler for them to declare war on the owner of the data? There's already the British law requiring computer owners to turn over decryption passwords on request; how far is this from making it a crime not to turn over all one's data, regardless of physical location?
    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
  • Data havens will happen, but not at Sealand. There is far too much shady history tainting Sealand, and, other than a few amateur porn sites and "l33t d00dz" warez sites, no real investor will even think of storing secure data there.

    Further, would terrorists locate their sites there? And outfits like Cult of the Dead Cow, who might benefit from migrating to a data haven? Would you trust your sensitive data to a location that the government (in this case, the UK government) might seize at any moment?

    When real money builds a data haven in waters that are truly outside the jurisdiction of any nation (or in space, one day?), then we will look back at this Sealand escapade and laugh, and admire (yet again) the vision of Neal Stephenson.

    As a last aside, what types of organizations _would_ legitimately benefit from the resources of a data haven? Do we _want_ thugs, punks, and criminals to be protected?

  • Piss off the usual suspects (Score:3)

    by craw ( 6958 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:51PM (#1026087) Homepage
    From the FAQ: We believe strongly in unfettered individual freedom, particularly in the area of electronic communications that the G8 and specifically France have recently come out against in their 13 May closed-door meetings.

    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)

    by Jonathan ( 5011 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @03:51PM (#1026089) Homepage
    Please note that the first address you give,

    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]

  • This about this, a small island with none of the "anti-hacker" laws. I could crack thier system, get the personal data and even reruite a few billion dollers into my bank account.

    Why the hell not, who's going to stop me, I doubt sealand going to track me and then send a sealand police force. No other goverment really has jerisdiction here either. This rocks for the crackers.

    Also, this seems like kind of a good idea not taken far enough. If this island is profitable they'll just get invaded. Heck you don't need a nation to take one over. Their are plenty of billionares the could hire mercs, aritillery and missiles to take them over. This however is too good an idea not to be done.

    If I had the money or brains to do it I'd make my nation completely virtual. What about servers you say? Space!!!!! Sent up satilites and make them servers. I know we can't do this yet, but NASA did just make a satilite that we could ping. In five years well see nations with servers in space. No other nation can claim they own them. And envations a little tricky. Seeing as how you can't physicaly steal a statilite. Only wrestel control.

    P.S. $10 bucks says that when this happens NAPSTER will have thier own space nation.

  • I'm torn...

    Normally, I'd think this is just an unethical way of getting around laws, and for that reason should be squashed somehow. Normally, that is...

    I can't count the number of times I've told people who complain about various freedoms allowed here, "If you don't like the freedoms and laws afforded by our Constitution, feel free to go to another country or hell, make your own damn country." Well, they've done just that. More power to them if it works, and I wonder which aggressive nation will be the first to attempt to take them over.
    -Jer
  • It's worth pointing out here that the US does not formally recognize Taiwan as a nation, yet other than perhaps the Chinese, few would argue that it's not.

  • Re:"Diplomacy" (Score:3)

    by Jonathan ( 5011 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @04:00PM (#1026104) Homepage
    It isn't "their" diplomacy site at all -- you are quoting from a scam. Read this [guardianunlimited.co.uk]

  • hrmm (Score:2)

    by duph ( 27605 )
    Unacceptable publications include, but are not limited to:
    Material that is ruled unlawful in the jurisdiction of the originating server (Such as child pornography or other obscene material.

    wouldnt this mean that you couldnt host mp3s, decss etc..?

  • Re:You are kidding me! (Score:3)

    by stripes ( 3681 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @04:01PM (#1026108) Homepage Journal
    Because they can make up laws as they go, I would assume this would also cover any data housed on the island.

    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?

  • Here is an idea I just pulled outta my ass... Please don't moderate me down until you hear it...

    The concept and requirement of a datahaven is the ability to store information, free from the tampering of others (including government), in a secure (both physically and virtually, as well as politically) environment.

    The problem always arises that there is some way to either cut off or destroy access (by either destroying the links, or the location of the servers) to the haven.

    So why not make the haven "alive"?

    Imagine a virus, which replicates itself - and detects attempts to "find" it - so that it can relocate to another "server" (I use the term loosely, as it could be a desktop - I am looking at it from the virus' POV). It would also carry a payload "packet", which would be encrpyted, but relatively small. Many of these packets would make up the information - kinda like a distributed filesystem, but one that is always on the move, autonomously - think of it as gnutella meets melissa, but without the dumb user needed (you get the idea - I am not advocating the use of 'doze - but such a "virus" would do good to have various strains for each OS - and the virus should be packetized amongst itself, so that it can be "reborn"/repaired, as it needed).

    The virus would do nothing malicious (except consume a bit of each system's resources) - however, I can't see that stopping someone making a rogue version, but maybe there is a way around this, too.

    Such a data haven could not be stopped - not without bringing down the entire internet, and wiping every "infected" system - which isn't practical in the slightest. Maybe data redunancy and CRC could be used as a form of compression - providing the packet size is small enough (maybe only a few hundred bytes)? I am thinking the virus acts like a mini disk drive, only holding a small amount of info. Like ants building the hive (or whatever it's called when relating to ants), each ant may only carry a single pebble, but if you could pass a query back through the ant line (via the scent trail), you could collect back all of those specks to form a pile of dirt.

    Does this idea seem as crazy as it sounds - or is it feasible?

  • This is what we need (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As a libertarian, I feel encouraged to see something like this happen. Unfortunately, in the end, we *will* have a one world government, and Sealand will only exist in our dreams. People are prone to change, but not changing their selfish ways. With each new law, more restrictions are set in place. Sealand might exist for quite a while. They need to move quietly though, and not quickly. Hopefully they won't do anything that will get any major country pissed. A truly libertarian society *can* and *will* outdo any other, including the U.S. or Hong Kong (Not really a country) even in the free-state they are in. The U.S. (of which I belong) should follow example and see the benefit of implementing ideals similar to the ones that Sealand has. It'd work out better in the end.

  • Vaporware? (Score:3)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @04:07PM (#1026113) Homepage
    They may have sovereignity, but they're apparently still raising money. "The world's most secure co-location facility" may be a ways off.

    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.

  • Here are some links I collected in the course of reading more about this subject and reading the Slashdot thread at a low threshold.

    Some History:In the late sixties Roy Bates and his family occupied one of the forts and declared himself a soverign nation. This was upheld in British Court and the long bizarre history began. The tiny nation was attacked and captured by a German businessman and friends for several weeks until Roy could put a crew together to retake it by rappeling from helicopters. (There were no known fatalities from these actions.) Here are some fun links to learn more:

  • Haha! The joke's on me. And Roy and Joan, apparently.

  • Furthermore, Sealand, although independent, is still at the mercy of external controls. The fiber lines can be cut, network traffic can be intercepted, etc...

    Not to worry. All they need is to host a few big companies (e.g. certification authorities like they're hoping), and you can be sure that they'll raise a din to their respective governments if someone tries to cut Sealand off.
  • I remember looking into HAM radio operation and reading about amateur satellites put up by the various HAM organizations. Since such organizations may not be limited to dealing only with NASA anymore, wouldn't it be possible to put up a decent number of amateur satellites with store-and-forward abilities?
    While this certainly wouldn't allow for information the size of MP3's, I did see large amounts of e-mail like messages being sent this way.
    The equipment was small enough that the Naval officer using it had enough room to transport it around with him in the limited confines of his shared submarine stateroom.
    Hmmm... landing large storage devices on the moon for storing information and transmitting it at predetermined periods to mobile transceiving stations across the face of the Earth...

    Digital Wokan
    I wanted to spend 8 years defending the US constitution.

  • For one of those great IBM Linux on System/390 setups. You have a situation where you want a combination of:

    1. Absolute reliability. The whole point of a data haven is that the data is safe, so reliability is paramount. A mainframe offers spectacular reliability.
    2. Security. Getting hacked would be even worse than equipment failure. The compartmentalization of a mainframe would be really useful.
    3. Maintainability. You can't exactly fit a huge support staff onto Sealand, so the ease of maintainability of a single system seems better than a big cluster.

  • Actually, according to the official Sealand Government website [sealandgov.com], they were attacked in 1978 by some Dutch men employed by a German businessman. Prince Roy's son Michael was kidnapped. Soon after, the island was retaken and some of the original attackers were held as POWs (although soon released under the terms of the Geneva Convention). It is also said that this same German businessman started all the fake Sealand passports in cirulation, which outnumber the authentic ones by 500 to one.
    -legolas

    i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...

  • I wonder which aggressive nation will be the first to attempt to take them over.

    The 2nd article [smh.com.au] claims a group of germans tried (actually took the island, and then were later forced off it by Prince Roy, and some of his (I assume army) friends). More details in the article.

    One could also assume the UK made an effort (I assume a rather half hearted, or accidental one) in 1968 as "two Trinity House officials complained that they had come under fire when approaching Roughs Tower." That was probbably about as much as the USA used as an excuse to get into Vietnam (two rifle holes in a Battleship -- if I remember correctly).

    The first incident is more intresting as a Germen offical of some sort negoiated with Sealand to get one of their citizens back. Or maybe the second one was, as that is the one the Judge dismissed after accepting the claim that Sealand is not part of the UK.

  • Re:Take another look at the AUP... (Score:3)

    by gilroy ( 155262 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @04:53PM (#1026146) Homepage Journal
    Okay, so we can't SUE you to get you to take down that site, but lets say we park all of our warships around your island. Any of your planes try to take off or land, we'll consider that hostile. What? Okay, so when will you have the site offline?
    Oh, wait, another call is coming through. It's from who? The Royal Navy? Ah, I see... about all these warships in your national territory, it's really just a billing dispute...

    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)

    by Slothrup ( 73029 ) <curt@hageHORSEnl ... minus herbivore> on Sunday June 04, 2000 @04:53PM (#1026147)
    Differences between Sealand and "Kinakuta":

    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.

  • Assume MegaCorp thinks this facility is causing them $x million dollars in copyright violation. Assume MegaCorp tries the legal system, and is told "We are an island unto ourselves".

    Question: At what point does it become economic feasible to bribe an employee of HavenCo in order to set off a bomb inside the server facilities?

    I suspect the cross-over point is low enough so the world won't be changing too much.

  • they'll probably need a helipad and some helicopters to get workers on and off

    If you look at the 80s publicity shot [demon.co.uk] it looks like they have had a helipad for some time now.

  • ...unless the principality of sealand has found itself quite close to conshohocken, pennsylvania, usa.

    [root@hydra /root]# traceroute www.havenco.com
    <snip>
    10 pennsauken.netaxs.com (192.157.69.47) 52.800 ms 62.689 ms 69.065 ms
    11 l3-psk-t3-l.netaxs.net (207.106.3.201) 64.130 ms 51.568 ms 43.537 ms
    12 l3-consh-t3-l.netaxs.net (207.106.3.193) 105.847 ms 79.604 ms 52.046 ms
    13 ns1.havenco.com (207.106.32.14) 47.845 ms 40.472 ms 90.635 ms

  • Check out the Island of Labuan (Score:3)

    by grantdh ( 72401 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @05:17PM (#1026170) Homepage Journal
    Check out Labuan [global-money.com] - it's a duty-free, offshore banking haven with great Internet connections (Fibre, Satellite, etc). Many companies around the world are planning to set up their data havens/off shore tax-free e-commerce systems/etc here.

    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)

    by DragonHawk ( 21256 ) on Sunday June 04, 2000 @05:35PM (#1026179) Homepage Journal
    Are you trying to say that there are not enough businesses in the entire world outside of the U.S. to keep a 'nation' about the size of a sports stadium in business?

    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.

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