Slashdot Mirror
Data Haven To Open For Business - Today
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.
http://www.principality-sealand.net/en 00.htm
http://www.fruitsofthes ea.demon.co.uk/sealand/factfile.html
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 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.
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.
(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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.