Slashdot Mirror

Sure, set up a search engine with these guys.

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

As you can read in the Acceptable Use Policy 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.

From their legal page it still sounds like a pretty good data haven to me:

http://www.havenco.com/legal/aup.html

<snip>
Material that is unlawful in the jurisdiction of the server. For instance, if a customer's machine is hosted on Sealand by HavenCo, content which is illegal in Sealand may not be published or housed on that server. Sealand's laws prohibit child pornography. Sealand currently has no regulations regarding copyright, patents, libel, restrictions on political speech, non-disclosure agreements, cryptography, restrictions on maintaining customer records, tax or mandatory licensing, DMCA, music sharing services, or other issues; child pornography is the only content explicitly prohibited. At the present time, child pornography is not precisely defined; HavenCo is obeying rules similar to those of the United States, specifically a prohibition on any depiction of those under 18 in a sexual context.
</snip>

Like the article says, HavenCo on Sealand!

Excellent connections, no copyright laws.

No idea if they do enforce it, but with their current rates, they are not going to be offering a particularly attractive deal for spammers when their profit margins are already dropping as time rolls on...

Ho hum. read the Acceptable Use Policy for HavenCo before you start pointing fingers...

" Unacceptable use of the network includes, but is not limited to... ...Bulk or regular unsolicited communications through email or other Internet protocol. (commonly called "spam") Hosting web content which is knowingly advertised by spam is also prohibited. Mailing lists must comply with the MAPS Mailing List Management Guidelines; they must be opt-in, provide confirmation protection against accidental or malicious subscription, terms of use of address use must be fully disclosed, and unsubscription methods must be provided."

The more I read these stories about the abuse of the American (and now international) patent system(s), the more I believe things like HavenCo and Sealand have a good idea behind them. Until it gets really bad, I suppose you could simply move your site hosting from country to country, but for the love of god when will this end? As a little guy software developer with a site (shameless plug - NanoWeb, but it needs an update) I am beginning to fear that my after hours source of a little play money could get me into legal trouble for using techniques and technologies that have been used collectively on the net for years! We thought the "Microsoft Tax" was bad, how about making up for the 1.5% patent taxes?

Where do you find a large communication node in the middle of the ocean, smarty pants?

HavenCo, operating Six miles off the Eastern shore of Britain, smarty pants.

You're thinking of Sealand, which is actually an old gun turret built during WW2. The hosting company based in Sealand is HavenCo. They will host anything except for child porn.

The ACC format MUST be cracked already right? I don't actually know this, I'm just assuming. Aren't the music companies afraid that this will lead to nice high quality digitial copies? I mean, if I were havenco or some other entrepeneur (hint hint), I would be using apple as my source for good quality music, and then reselling! Of course, I honestly believe that this is still a dead end. In the long run, with people able to get music cheaply, $1.00 is way way WAY over priced. I think that about $0.10 is reasonable.

Sealand is actually based on an old anti-aircraft platform a few miles off the south-east coast of the UK. It's story is fascinating, and you can learn more at Sealandgov.com. They don't issue passports as far as I know, though there is the entirely virtual Republic of Lomar that does. A company called HavenCo is currently investing in Sealand, hoping to tap into a market for government jurisdiction-free hosting, co-location, etc.

http://www.havenco.com
http://www.sealandgov.com

Indeed I believe the server is located 3 miles off Felixstowe (UK) at HavenCo, metioned here several times before.

Gareth

Jeez. There's already plenty of places catering to this market...

Havenco (sealand)
ServerVault
Underground Secure Data Center Operations
as well as several others....

ahem.

THIS is a data haven.

If RIAA wins this suit, it could set a nasty precedent for someone to sue Havenco's backbone providers because of content some corp or govt deems objectionable.

Actually, if you look at the HavenCo website, in their AUP, it says:

Unacceptable publications include, but are not limited to:

1. Material that is unlawful in the jurisdiction of the server. For instance, if a customer's machine is hosted on Sealand by HavenCo, content which is illegal in Sealand may not be published or housed on that server. Sealand's laws prohibit child pornography. Sealand currently has no regulations regarding copyright, patents, libel, restrictions on political speech, non-disclosure agreements, cryptography, restrictions on maintaining customer records, tax or mandatory licensing, DMCA, music sharing services, or other issues; child pornography is the only content explicitly prohibited. At the present time, child pornography is not precisely defined; HavenCo is obeying rules similar to those of the United States, specifically a prohibition on any depiction of those under 18 in a sexual context.

So, they are NOT a "child pornography syndicate" as you say.

That's why you set up shop in a place like Sealand

Theseguys on Sealand should be able to tell you.

So let me get this straight:

-- Some idiot commandeers a chunk of abandoned concrete and rust in the North Sea and proclaims himself head of his own country.

-- This idiot lives there, apart from his ill wife for several years. The latter wisely retired to the mainland where little niceties like "medical care" are available. Idiot begins to think that life in his "country" may not be all it's cracked up to be.

-- Idiot's fuckpuppy, whom we'll call Idiot the Younger, meets some chowderhead last-semester college dropouts. Idiot the Younger, an admitted "computer philistine", gets a wild hair up his ass about making lotsa bucks on "that thar new Internet thang."

-- Idiot the Younger gets the idea that they can host servers in Idiot the Elder's "country" that is a run-down WWII fortress in the middle of the North Sea. These servers are allegedly censor-proof, subpoena-proof, earthquake-proof, act-of-God-proof, yada yada yada. HavenCo is born.

-- These clowns charge you $1,500 a month(yes, a month) plus their grossly-inflated hardware costs for a blazing 256Kbps of bandwidth (yes, ***K***bps)

Folks, this is a scam of the highest order. First off, by their own admission, they won't host anything that jeopardizes their Internet connectivity. In other words, no OpenNap servers, no warez, etc. And what if the choice is their connectivity or your data? Well, by their own admission, they'll tape your drives to a thermite canister, pull the pin, and chuck it over the side. So much for the claim of being able to host "anything."

Even assuming their very shaky national sovereignty claims true, (IANAL) data hosted in Sealand is by no means immune to subpoena as they claim. If I'm a plaintiff's attorney (IANAL) and I want data that's on Sealand, I subpoena it. Sure, the courts don't have jurisdiction over Sealand, but they certainly have jurisdiction over Mr. Defendant (IANAL). And when Mr. Defendant parrots the "it's in Sealand" line, the courts will not hesitate to issue a Writ of Bodily Possession. In other words, until Mr. Defendant decides to cough up his Sealand wares, he sits in the bucket. Getting cornholed by Bubba Noneck on a daily basis has a way of making previously unavailable data appear like magic. Bottom line, this line of argument didn't work for the Catholic Church and their "secret" archives and it won't work for anyone trying to stash stuff on Sealand.

Idiots Sr. and Jr. stand ready to defend Sealand "with rifle and shotgun." That doesn't do you much good when your opposition is armed with nuclear weapons. Make no mistake about it, if China, Iraq, or the RIAA decided they didn't like what was on Sealand, they would have no compunction about hiring some ex-UDTers to sink Roughs Tower in a New York second. Hell, if the US decided they didn't like Sealand, a single Tomahawk missile and it's history. Short of these measures, getting their upstream to firewall them off would be a simple task and have the same effect as a Tomahawk, hence their unwillingness to host anything that would jeopardize their Internet access.

I value privacy and freedom of expression as much as anyone. I just want to point out that paying $1,500 a month to have your website on a slow DSL line in the middle of the North Sea isn't quite the magic bullet that Idiots Sr. or Jr. would like you believe it to be. Of course, IANAL and YMMV.

So let me get this straight:

-- Some idiot commandeers a chunk of abandoned concrete and rust in the North Sea and proclaims himself head of his own country.

-- This idiot lives there, apart from his ill wife for several years. The latter wisely retired to the mainland where little niceties like "medical care" are available. Idiot begins to think that life in his "country" may not be all it's cracked up to be.

-- Idiot's fuckpuppy, whom we'll call Idiot the Younger, meets some chowderhead last-semester college dropouts. Idiot the Younger, an admitted "computer philistine", gets a wild hair up his ass about making lotsa bucks on "that thar new Internet thang."

-- Idiot the Younger gets the idea that they can host servers in Idiot the Elder's "country" that is a run-down WWII fortress in the middle of the North Sea. These servers are allegedly censor-proof, subpoena-proof, earthquake-proof, act-of-God-proof, yada yada yada. HavenCo is born.

-- These clowns charge you $1,500 a month(yes, a month) plus their grossly-inflated hardware costs for a blazing 256Kbps of bandwidth (yes, ***K***bps)

Folks, this is a scam of the highest order. First off, by their own admission, they won't host anything that jeopardizes their Internet connectivity. In other words, no OpenNap servers, no warez, etc. And what if the choice is their connectivity or your data? Well, by their own admission, they'll tape your drives to a thermite canister, pull the pin, and chuck it over the side. So much for the claim of being able to host "anything."

Even assuming their very shaky national sovereignty claims true, (IANAL) data hosted in Sealand is by no means immune to subpoena as they claim. If I'm a plaintiff's attorney (IANAL) and I want data that's on Sealand, I subpoena it. Sure, the courts don't have jurisdiction over Sealand, but they certainly have jurisdiction over Mr. Defendant (IANAL). And when Mr. Defendant parrots the "it's in Sealand" line, the courts will not hesitate to issue a Writ of Bodily Possession. In other words, until Mr. Defendant decides to cough up his Sealand wares, he sits in the bucket. Getting cornholed by Bubba Noneck on a daily basis has a way of making previously unavailable data appear like magic. Bottom line, this line of argument didn't work for the Catholic Church and their "secret" archives and it won't work for anyone trying to stash stuff on Sealand.

Idiots Sr. and Jr. stand ready to defend Sealand "with rifle and shotgun." That doesn't do you much good when your opposition is armed with nuclear weapons. Make no mistake about it, if China, Iraq, or the RIAA decided they didn't like what was on Sealand, they would have no compunction about hiring some ex-UDTers to sink Roughs Tower in a New York second. Hell, if the US decided they didn't like Sealand, a single Tomahawk missile and it's history. Short of these measures, getting their upstream to firewall them off would be a simple task and have the same effect as a Tomahawk, hence their unwillingness to host anything that would jeopardize their Internet access.

I value privacy and freedom of expression as much as anyone. I just want to point out that paying $1,500 a month to have your website on a slow DSL line in the middle of the North Sea isn't quite the magic bullet that Idiots Sr. or Jr. would like you believe it to be. Of course, IANAL and YMMV.

snip...
Your choice of OS includes FreeBSD 4.x-STABLE, Debian GNU/Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and RedHat Linux. Windows 2000 and NT 4.0 can be accomodated, although we generally encourage UNIX for reliability, security, and remote management. We also encourage customers to use open source software whenever possible, as security patches, support, and overall quality are often the highest, although we also recognize that for most customers, the best choice is whatever system their staff is most familiar maintaining.

Here are some more pictures of this place, including some shots of the inside and of the server racks.

Here are some more pictures of this place, including some shots of the inside and of the server racks.

Escape U.S. law and go the way of the online casino: to the Caribbean Ocean! I seriously believe this would be a viable option. Especially if a number of webcasters teamed up to build a server farm on some island already having an established infrastructure and a good net connection. Not everyone might be able to move their operations to Sealand, but there are plenty of other little islands out there! ----------------

How long before somebody will set up a similar service someplace outside the claws of the RIAA.... like outside the US? Wouldn't it just be a matter of moving their servers to an off-shore location? Like in Sealand?

http://www.havenco.com/products_and_services/rates . tml

Why doesn't Film88 locate their servers with HavenCo? To quote from their acceptable use agreement: "Sealand currently has no regulations regarding copyright"... It doesn't look like they'd just roll over to the MPAA.

My only guess is that they must charge too much for the service.

Maybe some day company will get the idea to move out there, at least their server(s)anyways.

If you look at their rate sheet, they seem to offer 10 Mbps (for $10,000/month). That's actually fairly comparable to what you'd pay for a 10 Mbps fraction T3, isn't it?

So to get this straight you have to shop around for someone with TOS that you feel you can live with and then you have to pay the band width that you use. Money makes the internet run so you'll have to live with it. As for who owns the computer that serves up your pages you can own your own or have it hosted and that costs you either way, you pays your money and takes your choice.

The TOS is the sticking point here since the physical ownership of the machine is irrelevant, what about data havens like Sealand.gov . Here they have what some regard as a relaxed TOS but doesn't their up stream provider hold their TOS over them sword of Damocles style? And ultimately my ISP serves up pages to me that are outside its Terms of Service and it never seems to bother them. This up stream provider shit has to end somewhere.

We had the if money is no object stuff earlier but ultimately can't you buy a backbone and get round that.

associated link havenco.com

__

HavenCo

J

on that line, you should check out HavenCo, located in the principality of Sealand
from the HavenCo site:
"The Principality of Sealand is a former World War II anti-aircraft military fortress in the North Sea. Only authorized persons directly involved in the HavenCo project are permitted to land on the island. The Sealand Government is ideal for web business, as there are no direct reporting or registration requirements."

I'm fairly surprised this has not been mentioned already: Relocate to a country not under the juristiction of the RIAA? Why not move to the U.K, Netherlands, Sweden or other areas of Europe.

Even locating the server to somewhere like Havenco's facility might be a viable option for a broadcaster desparately trying to save his/her station.

(Disclaimer: I'm cofounder and cto of HavenCo, an offshore colo and supporting services company on Sealand)

This is one of the main reasons people put email servers offshore now, even if they're operating onshore. This got started with HavenCo's gaming clients, but we now have general-purpose mail server customers who just want to company with their existing onshore document retention policies without the risk of someone subpoenaing their mail server and then trying to recover the disk.

One of the features I'm working on now is some basic intelligence to detect out-of-character behavior by a mail server client -- such as attempting to download all messages, which would indicate they've been subpoenaed. If that happens, then we would attempt to contact the customer and get positive confirmation that they are *not* being investigated before allowing the transaction to continue. It's a trade-off between allowing normal function and protecting against legal attacks.

Perhaps an extension of normal document retention policies for companies can be to keep them locally for 3-6 months, then move them to offshore "cold storage" where they will only be released when the offshore agent holding the files is certain a request is not due to legal duress. Trade a bit of latency for a lot of security, and otherwise the documents get destroyed anyway.

Well, I did some more digging, and found this at HavenCo's website:
"All of our contracts give HavenCo the right to cancel at will if the customer's web site or service is endangering our access to Internet connectivity, "
While this was referring to spam, it does give them an out for cutting off accounts that piss off too many people.

Well then, sounds like a good use for the services of our friends at HavenCo, doesn't it?
A quote from their AUP:
"Sealand currently has no regulations regarding copyright, patents, libel, restrictions on political speech, non-disclosure agreements, cryptography, restrictions on maintaining customer records, tax or mandatory licensing, DMCA, music sharing services, or other issues; child pornography is the only content explicitly prohibited"

So, they explicitly allow this type of service, and claim they are not worried about the results of angering certain people in the process.

Well then, sounds like a good use for the services of our friends at HavenCo, doesn't it?
A quote from their AUP:
"Sealand currently has no regulations regarding copyright, patents, libel, restrictions on political speech, non-disclosure agreements, cryptography, restrictions on maintaining customer records, tax or mandatory licensing, DMCA, music sharing services, or other issues; child pornography is the only content explicitly prohibited"

So, they explicitly allow this type of service, and claim they are not worried about the results of angering certain people in the process.

A la HavenCo?

We need someone to host an exit server at HavenCo!

Unacceptable publications include, but are not limited to: Material that is unlawful in the jurisdiction of the server. For instance, if a customer's machine is hosted on Sealand by HavenCo, content which is illegal in Sealand may not be published or housed on that server. Sealand's laws prohibit child pornography. Sealand currently has no regulations regarding copyright, patents, libel, restrictions on political speech, non-disclosure agreements, cryptography, restrictions on maintaining customer records, tax or mandatory licensing, DMCA, music sharing services, or other issues; child pornography is the only content explicitly prohibited. At the present time, child pornography is not precisely defined; HavenCo is obeying rules similar to those of the United States, specifically a prohibition on any depiction of those under 18 in a sexual context.

Sealand was originally used as an armed fortress in the Second World War as one of the most easterly aspects of the UK, whose main role was shooting down Nazi bombers, U2 rockets and other undesirables.
In 1967, the island - then known as Roughs Tower - was founded as a sovereign principality with a currency called the Sealand dollar - which runs at parity with the US dollar - and with English as its official language.
Sealand was founded on the principle that a group of people dissatisfied with oppressive laws and restrictions of existing nation states can declare independence in any place that is not under the jurisdiction of another sovereign entity.
The state's independence was upheld in the British courts in the late 1960s when a judge held that Roughs Tower stood in international waters and did not fall under UK legal jurisdiction.
...
HavenCo is offering what it calls "secure Web hosting" on its server farm for any company or organization that is looking for a Web hosting service that is free of any existing global legislation and tax laws.
Although Samir acknowledged that HavenCo could well attract companies wanting to offer tax-free havens for customers wanting offshore services, the firm's main emphasis would be in attracting organizations looking for Web site hosting facilities free from any possible monitoring or censorship from third-party governments.
With its high degree of independence, he said, Sealand offers an ideal home for those organizations looking for a totally offshore Web hosting facility.
Samir said that, while Sealand obviously cannot defend itself against a serious military attack from a country such as Great Britain, its operation is heavily armed to protect the firm from pirates.
"We also chose to locate in Sealand because we know that the UK respects the law. Any legal problems that could develop regarding our sovereignty would be heard in an English Court of Law," he said.

All the nickel metal hydride UPSes in the world won't help much in the event of someone showing up at the door with a piece of paper that has laser toner sintered onto it forming the letters S-U-B-P-O-E-N-A, or maybe W-A-R-R-A-N-T. Those scenarios figure a lot bigger in my threat model than do foreign invasion, nuclear power accident, or similar. This data center doesn't seem to do much to protect against them.

Even Havenco isn't as secure against legal threats as they'd like their customers to believe, because as described in their FAQ, they reserve "the right to cancel at will if the customer's web site or service is endangering [Havenco's] access to Internet connectivity". They claim to use that primarily against spammers - but what happens if Disney and AOL-Time-Warner, which together control a whole lot of backbones, politely inform Havenco that site X has to go, or else all Havenco's customers' traffic will be unroutable on Disney's and AOL-Time-Warner's networks?

Note, too, that Havenco forbids content illegal in Sealand, which at the moment consists of and only of "child pornography" - and that sounds perfectly all right, we're decent folk who don't want to support those yucky child pornographers - until you realise that child pornography is not actually defined in Sealand law (Does it include text? Does it include photographs of adults who look younger than 18? Does it include drawings and paintings made without a model?), and that Sealand has not yet determined its official position on "regulations regarding copyright, patents, libel, restrictions on political speech, non-disclosure agreements, cryptography, restrictions on maintaining customer records, tax or mandatory licensing, DMCA, music sharing services, or other issues", and these facts are explicitly stated in Havenco's AUP. You just have to trust that the Prince of Sealand won't do anything you disagree with when it comes time to decide those issues, and that he won't cave in to pressure from other nations or large corporations. How much trust are you willing to put in one person?

All the nickel metal hydride UPSes in the world won't help much in the event of someone showing up at the door with a piece of paper that has laser toner sintered onto it forming the letters S-U-B-P-O-E-N-A, or maybe W-A-R-R-A-N-T. Those scenarios figure a lot bigger in my threat model than do foreign invasion, nuclear power accident, or similar. This data center doesn't seem to do much to protect against them.

Even Havenco isn't as secure against legal threats as they'd like their customers to believe, because as described in their FAQ, they reserve "the right to cancel at will if the customer's web site or service is endangering [Havenco's] access to Internet connectivity". They claim to use that primarily against spammers - but what happens if Disney and AOL-Time-Warner, which together control a whole lot of backbones, politely inform Havenco that site X has to go, or else all Havenco's customers' traffic will be unroutable on Disney's and AOL-Time-Warner's networks?

Note, too, that Havenco forbids content illegal in Sealand, which at the moment consists of and only of "child pornography" - and that sounds perfectly all right, we're decent folk who don't want to support those yucky child pornographers - until you realise that child pornography is not actually defined in Sealand law (Does it include text? Does it include photographs of adults who look younger than 18? Does it include drawings and paintings made without a model?), and that Sealand has not yet determined its official position on "regulations regarding copyright, patents, libel, restrictions on political speech, non-disclosure agreements, cryptography, restrictions on maintaining customer records, tax or mandatory licensing, DMCA, music sharing services, or other issues", and these facts are explicitly stated in Havenco's AUP. You just have to trust that the Prince of Sealand won't do anything you disagree with when it comes time to decide those issues, and that he won't cave in to pressure from other nations or large corporations. How much trust are you willing to put in one person?

I got your data safety right here. They answer to nobody, since they have their owm government.

I remember seeing plots of moon land for sale on eBay about 1.5 years ago. These were plots of land as large as 500-1000 acres. I wonder when territorial rights disputes on the moon will start happening. This is an opportunity for people to start building more micronations, I would hope.

The cool part: it was in a retired federal bank. Literally a fortress: fully bulletproof, tempest-shielded, multiple sub-basements, iron gates and fully enclosed by fences or walls, the works.

The ICBM silo gets me thinking about the same thing. They have on-site power generation and battery backup and an obviously pretty damn secure setup. So, why not open a secure hosting facility? It's not HavenCo/Sealand, but it's not bad.

The main problem is it's in the middle of nowhere (Mapquest link ), about 50 miles from Topeka. Paying the local loop charges for dedicated (and redundant) Internet access is probably going to cost a fortune.

• Greg

disclaimer: im not a crypto freak, nor really a privacy either, so i might not know what im talking

As you describe it, its ofcourse clear that the way you describe it can be used to link people to other people but still the conversations between them can and will remain private.

Anonymous remailing took a bellypunch when anon.penet.fi got "invated" by scienlogists so its not as well used as it might have been before.

But...

HavenCo has recently started to host anonymous remailing. While there's a clear warning on the sites main page:

• HavenCo operates an anonymous remailer for customers of HavenCo and the general public. No warranty express or implied is given as to the security of this remailer.

Considering this to the fact whats the business "catch" of the Havenco i hardly doupt that there will be any way for any parties to retrive sender/receiver information without physically executing "man-before-and-after" type of attack. (Which might be really hard to execute)

Anyway, The best thing with cryptographic tools is that you are on controls. 128bit key is a laugh. One not make a key of 4096 bytes or hell, triple that. I would like to see that goverment computer farm which can cruch a bruteforce attack against that kind of cryptokeys.

disclaimer: im not a crypto freak, nor really a privacy either, so i might not know what im talking

As you describe it, its ofcourse clear that the way you describe it can be used to link people to other people but still the conversations between them can and will remain private.

Anonymous remailing took a bellypunch when anon.penet.fi got "invated" by scienlogists so its not as well used as it might have been before.

But...

HavenCo has recently started to host anonymous remailing. While there's a clear warning on the sites main page:

• HavenCo operates an anonymous remailer for customers of HavenCo and the general public. No warranty express or implied is given as to the security of this remailer.

Considering this to the fact whats the business "catch" of the Havenco i hardly doupt that there will be any way for any parties to retrive sender/receiver information without physically executing "man-before-and-after" type of attack. (Which might be really hard to execute)

Anyway, The best thing with cryptographic tools is that you are on controls. 128bit key is a laugh. One not make a key of 4096 bytes or hell, triple that. I would like to see that goverment computer farm which can cruch a bruteforce attack against that kind of cryptokeys.