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Sealand Looking For Partners
An Anonymous Coward writes "This article says Sealand may be looking to set up additional hosting services in the future, including virtual hosting services. However, they say a partner will be required to do it. Also an interesting note: Ryan Lackey, their CTO, lives on the thing for up to three months at a time while everyone else spends two weeks on and two weeks off." Most of this is well-known information -- the shift to looking for a partner is not at all surprising given the current market.
Good Lord... two weeks on, two weeks off. What a *dream*! I work eight weeks on, two weeks off and am way more remote than Sealand ever dreamed of being.
Porn. Plenty of porn companies can afford this. If they're doing something extreme, and they're located in a dictatorial country like Australia or the US, this may be a good choice.
In the US, what is deemed obscene varies greatly from place to place. We decide what is obscene from community to community. Where I live, in Oregon, we have no obscenity laws. That's right kids, anything goes. You can watch all nude dancers and drink liquor at the same time. Hard core porn? No problem.
It seems to me that setting up a pornserver in Oregon would be a lot easier to do then to row out into the middle of the ocean to a country with dubious independent status. If Sealand started doing something worth shutting down I don't think UK would have any problem at all "invading" (based on their reputation).
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
No argument there.
It depends on whether you view that as a bad thing or not, though - if you don't believe in "copyright piracy", Sealand probably sounds like the only sane country in the world. That's not my position, but I could see how someone could feel that way.
I believe the story is that Sealand was claimed before the limit was 12 miles. As an existing country, they weren't annexed when Great Britain increased their territorial waters, any more than England would be annexed if France increased its territorial waters to 200 Km. Although if they're entirely surrounded by British waters and airspace, Her Majesty could starve them out with little impunity to make a point :)
The real test of soveriegnty remains the ultimate one: force. If someone else can control your piece of land, you're not a sovereign nation. In that regard Sealand may be sovereign in name but it really isn't in fact.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Is HavenCo looking for a business partner because the market is down right now, or is Matt looking for a "partner" because he has to spend 3 months at a time out there?
HavenCo is looking for partners, not Sealand. Sealand is the 'country' HavenCo is in.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Correct. The "real" website is http://www.sealandgov.com/
--
Charles E. Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The problem they're going to run into is that being funded by a land-based business in any country is going to subject them to some laws therein. IANAL and can't point out specifics for you, but this point was brought up before with the idea of Napster moving to Sealand, because accepting payments from the states or any other country would put them under some US laws as a business.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Considering that they provide 256Kb/s of bandwidth to each customer, they obviously have a lot more than 128Kb/s total. The last time I talked to Ryan he said bandwidth was not a problem.
Honestly, I would like to work at Sealand for a year or so. I think it would be quite interesting. I would get a little runabout boat and do some fishing when time permits, and browse the internet at night while drinking some scotch or whiskey and listening to the whine of all of the fans in the server room(s) and staring at the blinking lights. It would be an interesting chapter in life.
scott
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
Step on the wrong toes, and they'll be crushed. How hard would it be to simply cut off their internet connection using a DMCA type law? Not difficult, I imagine.
Declaring sovereignty is one thing, but becoming your own nation does not automatically get or guarantee you an internet connection to neighboring countries.
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All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Perhaps we can get another provider's fiber feed, laid 100ft apart from the first!"...
"No, I say we build a complete second redundant data center! Over there!" (Guy points to other side of platform.)