HavenCo Doing Well

davecl writes: "The off-shore datahaven, HavenCo, is doing well, according to the BBC. HavenCo is based on a WW2 gunnery platform several miles of the English coast. In the 60s it was outside the 3 mile territorial waters, and a retired Army officer moved there and proclaimed it the independent state of Sealand. In the 80s territorial waters were extended to 12 miles. Sealand's nation status is this unclear, but this hasn't stopped HavenCo setting up their data haven. Customers are largely gambling sites, but an increasing number of political groups, such as the Tibetan Government in Exile, are based there in an effort to escape government censorship. More regulation of the web means more customers, and business is booming. Wonder if others will see this as a way of making money out of beating censorship?" We've mentioned Sealand several times before -- it's great to hear they're defying the skeptics.

Comments

Betting taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Customers are largely gambling sites"

What's the point... the UK abolished betting tax a couple of years ago to encourage the betting companies to set up on native soil rather than go through the Cayman Islands etc to get tax exemption status, thus you have nothing to gain by going overseas apart from high hosting charges.

more info

[cr@ckwhore]

I took interest in the story of Sealand about 2 years ago. There's plenty of reading material available on the web..

try www.sealandgov.com... excellent historical information, including Sealand's first naval battle.

Also,www.fruitsofthesea.demon.co.uk/sealand/ has a decent picture gallery so you can visualize just how small this platform is.

I had an email conversation with somebody at sealand back when I first heard of the place. I kept the email... funny thing, it usually took them a few months to reply. Being that havenco is very security oriented, I'm sure they use latency to their advantage for communications. Interesting rule of Havenco... customers aren't allowed to supply their own machines in the sake of security.

Re:more info

[stefanlasiewski]

It must have more to it than it appears... space in the pillars, perhaps.

One pillar holds the server rooms, and one holds the living quarters.

The history page says that 200 soldiers were stationed there (presumably, at the same time), and the little hut on top isn't enough room for 25 and their food and gear, much less 200.

No, 200 people cannot live on that thing at the same time.

Think about it: it was a platform for anti-aircraft guns, and not many guns could fit on that deck. You don't need 200 people to man a handful of anti-aircraft guns.

I read an article once (which I could find the link) which talked a bit about the admins at HavenCo. There are 1-3 admins present at a time (I think they are the owners of HavenCo also), and one of their biggest complaints was that there was nowhere to go on your break. You could go for a walk around the platform, but that would keep you occupied for about 5 minutes.

Pretending

[Skyshadow]

It's sweet that HavenCo can sit out in the ocean and play make-believe, but how long do you *really* think they could last if they ever hosted something that really caught the ire of Britain? They have no political recognition, no real ability to defend themselves and no sort of general support from anyone.

Really, there are no real protections to be had here other than those provided by British law -- everything else is a mere SAS raid away from extinction. You could set this place up anywhere in the semi-free world and provide the same level of protection -- it's all just a publicity stunt.

Re:Pretending

[AndrewHowe]

They played by the rules. Without doubt, they are a sovereign nation (check the history of Sealand if you don't believe me). Yes, the SAS could raid them, but that would effectively mean that the UK had declared war on another nation. That wouldn't be a particularly good PR exercise.

Re:Pretending

[Skyshadow]

that would effectively mean that the UK had declared war on another nation

In practice, national governments don't get any sort of protection unless someone pretty important recognizes them as being legit -- look at what the US did in Afghanistan, for chrissake.

That aside, you don't even need to be a government to take this place out -- a well-placed shaped charge on one of the supports would send this SOB to the bottom of the ocean, and *anyone* with sufficiant knowledge and motivation could do it.

I'll believe in a data haven when one shows up in a real country. This place is just hype.

Re:Pretending

[AndrewHowe]

It's a good analogy, I guess, since I think I am right in saying that the coalition (not just the US) didn't actually declare war on Afghanistan. But, neither did they actually wage war against Afghanistan (collateral damage notwithstanding). However, there seems (although us Joe Public farties have yet to be given conclusive proof) to have been a fairly good reason for the attacks against Al-Queda. I don't think that anything Sealand does would mandate deadly force!

Re:Pretending

[tybalt44]

I would tend to disagree. The point is not that the UK wouldn't want to "shut them down", but whether they would actually do so. Were the matter something as serious as a "terrorist" attack, they might well do so. That said, Sealand know how precarious their toehold is and have already committed themselves quite clearly (see the government website) to coming down as hard on this as everyone else. Any action would be undoubtedly undertaken (quietly) in a spirit of comity, which allows Sealand to go on claiming sovereignty and Britain to go on ignoring the issue. The very last thing Britain wants to do, is to shut down Sealand, and that's because they then run the risk of their own courts declaring that they have no jurisdiction. In the end, that's the greatest weapon Sealand has: the threat of a bewigged judge in a "foreign" country. A British court is absolutely bound to rule according to the rule of law, and the government is absolutely bound to it. In a sphere where international law rules are invoked, they are going to have to be considered. And a ruling against the British government is going to mean big trouble for Britain... they simply can't disobey a court order from their own court. The British judiciary, remember, has a worldwide reputation for probity (one reason why they are chosen so often as the governing jurisdiction of international contracts). They're not likely to rule one way simply because the government would prefer it.

Re:Sealand

[throwaway18]

Ok, I can karma whore too, Ryan Lackey, the sealand CTO has a couple of pictures on his home page He's a cool geezer. He has shown up at london 2600 and DNScon in the past.

Yo-ho-ho

[unicron]

This entire thing smacks of children playing pirates on the open seas, it's kind of funny.

As for the logistics of it, where does their pipe come ashore? Somewhere in the world that line has to meet another line goverened by a country with stricter laws, which seems to me would end everything right there.

Re:Really secure?

[Bogatyr]

That seems more plausible to me than this Sealand thingy.
Plausible? Cryptonomicon was a novel. Sealand is a real and physical creation. I acknowledge your point the datahaven in Cryptonomicon has potentially longer-term chances for survival, but it's simply not real, in that you can't store your data in the fictional underground datahaven. Sealand is real in that they will take your money and host your data. I forget which writer commented works of fiction have to be more plausible than real life, even if they might contain fantastical elements. l

So why no Napster server on Sealand?

[vkg]

Screw all of this decentralized indexing nonsense: just put the napster server on there, but still let the files live where they will.

Except...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that Ebay has bought PayPal, the order has come to Paypal that they can't be affiliated anymore with online gambling franchises. Probably in an attempt to keep the Ebay image clean.

Without a payment source, you're going to see a lot of online gambling (both legit, and the scam artists) disappear. That's going to cut into HavenCo's bottom line, since I doubt they get much money from the exiled Tibetan Government.

Artificial islands dont

[Animats]

1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 60 (8):

• Artificial islands, installations and structures do not possess the status of islands. They have no territorial sea of their own, and their presence does not affect the delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone or the continental shelf. As a compromise in the balance of granting artificial structures some kind of adjacent jurisdiction, and that attribution of a territorial sea would mean a unjustified encroachment of the High Seas, the artificial structures were granted safety zones with the maximum reach of 500 metres. These zones are to be publicised, and all ships must respect them, but these zones are in no sense territorial sea.

Re:Ashcroft

[Miska]

Doesn't seem if bombing Sealand will be necessary to secure cooperation.

from the Sealand.gov site
(http://www.sealandgov.org/notices/pn01101.html)


Principality Notice
PN 011/01: Sealand offers assistance to US
20 September 2001

The Principality condemns the recent global terrorist activities and announces
that any such related activity whether real or intended undertaken within its
Territorial limits shall be considered an act against Sealand Criminal Code
which provides for placing any persons suspected of such activities under
immediate arrest and detention at the Sovereign's pleasure.
The Principality has communicated directly with the United States of America
offering its resources and making them available not only to the USA but
to any State for the purpose of suppressing terrorist acts of any kind. Its
sympathy and concern for all effected was expressed.
The Principality is on a state of alert, and all activities are currently
subject to scrutiny by Sealand authorities who are co-operating as appropriate
with the International community to combat terrorism of whatever kind.

Re:Ashcroft

[DavidTC]

The reason it was so interesting was that they weren't charged with kidnapping by the British government, like you would normally be if you attempted to 'arrest' people, but the British government ignored them and the German government entered negotiations with them, without the British government in sight.

And the German government didn't get permission from the British government before doing this, either. Germany de facto recognized Sealand as a sovereign nation by its actions. Nations do not enter other nations and negotiation with kidnappers in said nations, they alert the police and work from there.

I don't know why it's at issue, anyway. Sealand has fired on British ships that strayed too close without permission, and they've gotten away with that, too, which pretty much trashes any concept they aren't a real nation. If they aren't a nation, they've done enough 'illegal' things to get arrested several times over. And, yes, the British government could take them down if they wanted, all they have are a few lousy anti-aircraft guns, personal arms, and a helicopter or two. The fact the British government 'lets' they stay there indication they know it would be a violation of international law for them to attack them, because they actually are a sovereign nation according to all internation rules.