Slashdot Mirror

Check your facts before posting, next time, maybe? *plonk*

>All China has to do is conduct naval exercises >in the region, carefully staying outside of >British waters, and have a little accident with >a missile.

For some odd reason I would presume that eyebrows be raised if China moved their navy across half the globe to have this little "accident".

Sealand (apparently) will go down in flames before allowing unauthorised access

Some of these people, it seems, were involved in the terrorist attack on Sealand in the 1970s that nearly resulted in loss of life, and did involve an international incident with the British, Dutch and German governments."

Check your facts before posting, next time, maybe? *plonk*

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

__

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."

We already have systems such as SourceForge to handle programs and other CVS systems exist...

My data... public?

I don't think so... I'll buy another 100gig drive before sending it off over the net to a public storage facility..

If I wanted secure off-site storage, I would turn to Sea Land

20 Miles from anywhere and it doesn't respect any court of law in the world... So thats what I call secure (Even from the DMCA).

Quite: somebody needs to point out to Katz that if it's about globalisation, then it's safe not to mistitle it. It's okay to mention 11/9 in passing, in the text, without paying homage to it in the title (it seems rather irrelevant to the argument).

Most people are probably fairly happy with the idea of reading articles that don't mention a well-known terrorist attack, from time to time. If only for novelty value.

Perhaps what is meant is 'post-11/9, we noticed that a number of people appeared to be irritated with us. Then we blamed it on globalisation'.

Now, onto the text:

Why anybody should seek unified government, political system or economy, let alone religion, escapes me entirely. Shared, yes. Unified, certainly not. In fact, why anybody should believe it to be possible is a mysterious question in itself. It's quite difficult to find any two people who think the same way about anything (it's the notorious 'common ground' issue).

Why anybody should suggest that countries 'choose between globalism and religious fanaticism' is even less clear.

The whole idea of a common culture is based on an oversimplification. To prove this, try to design an experiment to quantify American [or any other] society. Choosing Sealand as your test subject is cheating. Make sure you don't leave anything out - leave no subculture unmentioned. Hm. Not so easy. Most discussions involving the term 'globalism' tend to ignore this issue, preferring to point out symbols of a culture (like Coke and movies).

Basically, what seems to upset most people about America is not the fact that a certain amount of globalization may occur- hey, these things happen. In context, some events that could be considered 'steps towards globalization' could be a good thing, though there are sure to be those who object to any change. It's more the concept of forced globalization that gets people upset. Sure, invasive American culture has 'highlighted political and religious differences'. But I think there's a significant difference between saying 'look! people are upset because we offered to export various bits of our culture to them, if they wanted it!' and saying 'look! people are upset because we rammed our culture down their throats with complete disregard to their own!'.

Forcing this sort of issue does indeed create a certain amount of consternation. Mainly because everybody's wondering who'll be on the receiving end next. Viewed like this, no wonder the US is occasionally seen as a little aggressive; the attitude often displayed by America makes it look like the Microsoft of international trade and politics. This could be because many American citizens, and notably politicians, have the tendancy to think of their own ideals as being 'right', this despite the fact that said ideals are dominant but seldom universal within the US. Now, so do citizens of any country. But the US is in the unusual position of being, apparently, able to impose these ideals on others through fair means or foul, and being in no doubt that this is the right thing to do, tend to do so more often than is advisable. This is not the same issue as globalization of financial markets... more manipulation, less equality.

To my eyes, associating 11/9 with Soros' view of globalism is a strange thing to do. But with all these oversimplifications already, why not add another?

I totally agree. The US cannot argue that just because the servers were hosted on US land they should fall under US jurisdiction.

If they did, we will see a rise in hosting of servers in "nationless" sites such as The Principality of Sealand

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

Why should any country be able to dictate matters of Internet-based disputes? Oh yeah, it's because the US government has an idea that they own the Internet.

Honestly, we need a new world micro-government to govern matters of the Internet, made up of technology experts and civil rights activists, who can make sure that one government cannot control the Internet.

O how I wish I was a Sealand citizen, but unfortunately you can't be one.

-evan.

Not only do you reap cultural value for your investment, but etoy also pays tangible dividends. Like the etoy.AGENT-PACKAGE (30 shares). But for the truely paranoied geek, the etoy.PROTECTION-PACKAGE (100 shares), which includes a personal data locker on Sealand , comes in mighty handy.

Remember, nobody invests to lose money...

The Bunker offers the ultimate in protection from a myriad of attacks including; crackers, terrorist attack, electro-magnetic pulse, HERF weapons, electronic eavesdropping and solar flares.

How does a bunker protect you from crackers? If I bury an unpatched IIS server in my backyard, it's not going to get broken into?

This place is still cool to /.ers, but IMHO SeaLand would offer you protection from the more immediate threat to your privacy from governments.

turns out, australia has the equivalant of the DMCA + net censorship. that's one worse than the US. but it's legal to reverse engineer. so i guess i won't be a 'terrorist' if i move there. but i'm sure there are "fair-use.. what's that?" type hidden clauses in there. so i guess it's time to form my own country or move to sealand

Yes there is. It's sovereignty is on pretty thin ice, but it does exist, and it is technically a coutry.

See these articles:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/16/174211 &mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/02/160253 &mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/12/060259 &mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/06/002524 4&mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/09/221424 2&mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/07/015323 8&mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/04/174220 9&mode=nested

and this:

http://www.sealandgov.com/

Make of it what you will.

Yes there is. A guy took over an old WW II platform, called Roughs Tower, and declared independence from England. You can read more about it at Sealandgov.com. Or, copy and paste:

http://www.sealandgov.com/

The .sl domain name does mean Sierra Leone, though.

Sierra Leone.

As far as I and appendix C of "DNS & Bind" are aware SeaLand does not have a ccTLD yet. I can't see that it really needs one and they don't seem to think so either since their official website is at http://www.sealandgov.com and HavenCo. has their own seperate .COM website. That aside, .ccTLD != server in whatever "cc" represents, but WHOIS should give the correct info. If is wasn't so easy to lie on WHOIS anyway...

So we've established that ccTLDs are useless in this respect and that WHOIS is unreliable, which rules out the Internet regulating itself as it stands. So the Econmist has hit the nail right on the head; because the global legislative bodies can't agree on anything we are going to end up with a patch work of laws and ugly France/Nazi memorabilia type law suits.

In that light, countries like China and Afghanistan that take on the responsibility of policing their own laws at their borders suddenly seem more friendly to the Internet's way of doing things. It's just highly unfortunate that their populace didn't get a say in the matter, which more than cancels that out.

Yeah, a creaky old aircraft platform in the middle of the ocean sounds like an idyllic paradise. What's not to love about living on two giant rotting concrete cylanders in the middle of nowhere?

You are correct. There were even fake passports circulated in 1997. Find out more here:

Official Sealand Site

Might be worth getting some advice from Michael of Sealand. But it can be quite exciting,as reported here.

Have you seen the thing? I initially thought it was a small island, but no, it's literally just this thing sticking out of the ocean. I find it hard to believe that you could even live on it, let alone run a business out of it. Apparently the server farms are in the legs of the platform...

... then copyright everything in existence and demand that royalties be paid to you. Imagine what sealand could do with this!

It's in the Sealand History under the Initial Challenge to Sealand's Sovereignty heading. Read all about it! :) There is also information about Sealands first war on that page.. very interesting read!

International waters or not, ocean platforms belong to the organization (or, in this case, military) that built them.

This is VERY correct; however, you seem to have forgotten a very important point, your quote should read: International waters or not, ocean platforms belong to the organization (or, in this case, military) that built them, until they abandon them., Which is exact what happened, that is how Sealand was able to claim the land!

I'm afraid you misquote history. According to Sealand's homepage, the day before the UK extended it's territorial waters, Sealand extended there's as well. Not to mention the fact, that, according to international law/treaties/customs, you cannot claim another country just by extending your waters. I believe the only accepted way to claim another country is to invade it.

Actually the same man (and his wife) who ran that pirate radio station on Sealand are the ones who declared it a country. Fascinating history...though I suspect some parts may be a bit dramatized.

Then, I make a physical copy of my hard-drive using some handy-dandy sector-copying tools that don't run under Windows. Onto a brand new 80G hard drive. Which I then sell to someone for the cost of the hard drive plus a small fraction of the cost I paid for the music. Repeat a million times.

Granted, I live on Sealand and eat only cans of beans for food, and have all sorts of friends I stay in touch with via my shortwave radio... I mean, sure - it's still ILLEGAL - but it's technically POSSIBLE.

Morons should be punished. And these guys are standing in line. The only thing that protects them from my proposal is that it's inconvenient to reinstall Windows. TYPICALLY people don't want to throw away their files with a new install. But the problem is that nothing prevents the files from being PHYSICALLY COPIED. And as long as the system doesn't protect itself further, these guys are screwed.

They'd have to 1) Register me with a unique ID in their system. 2) Encrypt each file authorized for me with my unique ID. 3) Authorize me to use the file, via the internet, EVERY time I wanted to use the file. Sounds like they're not doing any of those things. Sounds like they're nowhere NEAR as secure as they pretend.

The article itself quotes Bruce Schneier beautifully, "Digital files cannot be made uncopyable, any more than water can be made not wet."

The Sealand website states that the day before Britain expanded its territorial waters to 12 miles, Sealand did the same. If you accept the thesis that Sealand is a sovereign nation, then they have a right to those waters (otherwise they would have no right of access.) Also, note that the expansion of territorial waters does not make an existing sovereign nation the "property" of the expander. There's a lot more on the site about British court decisions placing Sealand outside of UK jurisdiction.

Like this one?

:)
--

C'mon!

That (apparently) isn't the case. Check out the Sealand history page:
"The previous day, Prince Roy declared the extension of Sealand's territorial waters to be a like 12 nautical miles, so that right of way from the open sea to Sealand would not be blocked by British claimed waters."

From the Sealand FAQ:

Does the Principality of Sealand sell its passports?

No. The Sealand government has issued passports only to certain individuals who have lived there, or who have been of service to Sealand. It has never sold its passports. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion, criminal groups have gone into the business of selling forged Sealand passports. They target Sealand because it has very little recourse to stop them. Sealand's resources are much too limited for it to launch its own investigations on foreign soil, and its lack of formal recognition by other countries makes it difficult for Sealand to enlist the aid of foreign authorities in such matters.

In the History Of Sealand there is more information about how a German businessman claims to have sold 150,000 fake Sealand passports for $1,000 each. As there are only 300 real Sealand passports in circulation there are 500 times as many fakes as authentic Sealand passports.
--
01 13 19
TVDJC TDSLR AZNGT NWQSH KPN

From the Sealand FAQ:

Does the Principality of Sealand sell its passports?

No. The Sealand government has issued passports only to certain individuals who have lived there, or who have been of service to Sealand. It has never sold its passports. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion, criminal groups have gone into the business of selling forged Sealand passports. They target Sealand because it has very little recourse to stop them. Sealand's resources are much too limited for it to launch its own investigations on foreign soil, and its lack of formal recognition by other countries makes it difficult for Sealand to enlist the aid of foreign authorities in such matters.

In the History Of Sealand there is more information about how a German businessman claims to have sold 150,000 fake Sealand passports for $1,000 each. As there are only 300 real Sealand passports in circulation there are 500 times as many fakes as authentic Sealand passports.
--
01 13 19
TVDJC TDSLR AZNGT NWQSH KPN

From the Sealand FAQ:

Does the Principality of Sealand sell its passports?

No. The Sealand government has issued passports only to certain individuals who have lived there, or who have been of service to Sealand. It has never sold its passports. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion, criminal groups have gone into the business of selling forged Sealand passports. They target Sealand because it has very little recourse to stop them. Sealand's resources are much too limited for it to launch its own investigations on foreign soil, and its lack of formal recognition by other countries makes it difficult for Sealand to enlist the aid of foreign authorities in such matters.

In the History Of Sealand there is more information about how a German businessman claims to have sold 150,000 fake Sealand passports for $1,000 each. As there are only 300 real Sealand passports in circulation there are 500 times as many fakes as authentic Sealand passports.
--
01 13 19
TVDJC TDSLR AZNGT NWQSH KPN

Incase you're wondering about Sealand, here is the official website. For pictures, look at their old website.
If you ask me, it looks like a raft on stilts rather than a sovereign territory, but hey. To each his own. {=)

Sealand isn't really much of an island. It's an old WW2 concrete artilery platform - completely man-made. It was abandoned for many years, before being settled on by Paddy Roy Bates, who has since been proclaimed 'king'

Their main claim to sovereignty is that the UK ignored them for many years, writing them off as a bunch of loonies. However, in the last few years they've been allowing HavenCo to situate their servers on the island, and the UK government have started laying claim to the island.

Note however, they get all their power and internet connection from nearby countries, who would be entirely within their rights to switch off the connection if Havenco start doing something they disagree with.

Useful Links:

• The Principility of Sealand's page
• HavenCo's corperate page

-Ciaran

Matt

maybe this has been talked about before, but what about moving napster/etc to a place like Sealand,an island off the british coast that has claimed it's own independence since 1967. A company called HavenCo plans to host colocation services there.

may be a longshot, but you never know

--

The US can be a really neat place. There's lots of pretty girls and guys, sexual freedom (ignore the Sunday morning pundits; nobody actually cares, not even George Bush Jr.) And there's every kind of food, and all (most) of it cheap. Cost of living is comparable to other highly rated countries (Canada, Japan, etc.), although part of that comes from having lots of land to play with (and assoc. taxes). It can also be really horrible when it comes to certain things. That is: getting certain electronics from japan (you know which ones), and being able to speak your mind and having someone listen to you even though you're not on MTV.

Of course, if you're really smart, you'll invent a new popular medium like the Internet which will solve both those problems (like eBay and Slashdot respectively)

Until then it's buying an island. When will Sealand start selling real estate? :)

The scarey part is though the uk can try to go back and say that sealand belongs to theim

Read the Sealand website. Sealand is located in international waters. England has already tried to take the land back since they occupied it during the second world war. The case went to the supreme court and England LOST. The country is free of English jurisdiction.

-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"

Hey, they've got their own web site! If they've got their own web site then it must be true!
www.sealandgov.com
Here's an excerpt:
"The history of Sealand is a story of a struggle for liberty. Sealand was founded on the principle that any group of people dissatisfied with the oppressive laws and restrictions of existing nation states may declare independence in any place not claimed to be under the jurisdiction of another sovereign entity. The location chosen was Roughs Tower, an island fortress created in World War II by Britain and subsequently abandoned to the jurisdiction of the High Seas. The independence of Sealand was upheld in a 1968 British court decision where the judge held that Roughs Tower stood in international waters and did not fall under the legal jurisdiction of the United Kingdom."

On the other hand that might just be the level of undesirable attention that would lead to an invasion of SeaLand.

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

I thought the guy from Sealand grabbed it when no one was looking.

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

Does this sound like Sealand (more info here) and HavenCo? It sure does to me.

I was pondering at length on this a while back, and had a disturbing though:

What would happen if instead of HavenCo operating on Sealand, suddenly Microsoft picked up from Redmond and plunked itself down on Sealand? What would happen if Microsoft was its own COUNTRY?

I thought the interview said that http://www.sealandgov.com is the only official sea land site.

Sealand has a homepage!

We should all move to Sealand! Well, there might not be enough room for all of us there, but we could probably find some more abandoned bunkers somewhere.

Given that:

• [ A ] HavenCo is explicitly designed for regulatory arbitrage
• [ B ] Sealand was chosen by HavenCo specifically for :
  • [ i ] theoretical sovreignty
  • [ ii ] relative advantages for physical security
• [ C ] HavenCo is a commercial venture
• [ D ] HavenCo is also a political statement
• [ E ] Many countries (including USA, UK, France, Russia, and China) have all acted aggressively to prevent regulatory arbitrage (ie, double tax treaties, etc)

Then:

• [ 1 ] What precautions have been taken to ensure that HavenCo physical assets and human resources will be protected from predatory legal and/or physical assault?
• [ 2 ] Have any "pro-active" plans to co-opt national intelligence agencies, to prevent possible destruction of HavenCo physical and human assets (ie, developing a relationship with the CIA so that the NSA doesn't call "national defense" and activate SEAL teams to neutralize a potential "national security risk")?
• [ 3 ] In the event that physical security is breached, and it becomes necessary to incinerate the Data Vault, have "live tests" been done to verify that, indeed, the data is unrecoverable (uncompromisable)?

What is interesting is the idea that they may want soverign control of their domains. While it does allow a country to do what it wishs with said domain, all it would take is one small whacko nation going for it to screw it up..

'Nuff Said

Sealand is obviously in the sea.

I didn't find in the Sealand site geographical information.

How safe is Sealand against sea storms and rust caused by salt water?
__

According to the Sealand Government web site, Havenco "will now take over operations of the government of Sealand." As I understand the other text on the same page, it is generally believed that the government of the UK would not interfere in any acts of piracy, terrorism, or assault on your "territory." Since you are now within the limits of the territorial waters claimed by the UK, you probably won't have to worry about a full-out assault from a sovereign nation, but another attack like that of 1978 could happen again. Of course, there is nothing but a few court rulings to protect you from Her Majesty's Armed Forces.

Given the precarious nature of the "sovereignty" of Sealand, will you be seeking international recognition and treaties to guarantee your physical security from such attacks? Will you be joining any of the international protocols for cooperation in law enforcement or other areas? I would think that joining these would go a long way to cementing your viability.

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:

• The New York Times Article that started it all.
• What appears to be the official webisite:http://www.sealandgov.com/index.html
• The HavenCo homepage: http://www.havenco.com/
• A very nice article about the off-shore radio stations in England during the 1960's. http://fre\espace.virg in.net/line.design/forts/radioforts.htm. This includes a nice picture of the fort being installed: http://freespace.virgin .net/line.design/forts/sea_forts.htm.
• Some publicity shots of Sealand from their old (archived) website. http://www.fruitsofthese a.demon.co.uk/sealand/gallery.html.
• A Guardian Article about Sealand.
• A Sunday Telegraph Article.
• Dorothy Lerda at The National Geographic answers a question about Sealand. (Notice that she has what is likely to be the web address of the imposters responsible for selling passports.)
• A brief history of the forts with pictures and diagrams.

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