Has HavenCo's Data Haven Shut Down?

secmartin writes "HavenCo, the self-proclaimed data haven located on the micronation Sealand, appears to be offline. Their website is down, and there have been no announcements from either HavenCo or Sealand. HavenCo has been covered here before; it was mostly known for offering hosting of content that might be illegal in other countries. Does anyone have news about what happened to them?"

Comments

Sea Boundaries

[telchine]

Hosting on Sealand was always under the juristiction of the United Kingdom. The territorial waters of the UK were increased to 12NM in 1987. You can't legally host content in Sealand that isn't legal in the UK. If they were suggesting otherwise then maybe Trading Standards have raided them?

Re:Sea Boundaries

[Linker3000]

This could go on all day - I'll get popcorn.

From the Sealand Web site...

"On 1 October, 1987, Britain extended its territorial waters from 3 to 12 nautical miles. The previous day, Prince Roy declared the extension of Sealandâ(TM)s territorial waters to be a like 12 nautical miles, so that right of way from the open sea to the Principality would not be blocked by British claimed waters. No treaty has been signed between the U. K. and Sealand to divide up the overlapping areas, but a general policy of dividing the area between the two countries down the middle can be assumed. International law does not allow the claim of new land during the extension of sea rights, so the Principalityâ(TM)s sovereignty was safely âoegrandfatheredâ in. Britain has no more right to Sealandâ(TM)s territory than Sealand has to the territory of the British coastline that falls within its claimed 12 mile arc."

Re:Sea Boundaries

[secmartin]

A British court even ruled that Sealand was outside its jurisdiction in 1968; so according to international law, the "grandfathered in" approach might work. But since there are at most a dozen people on the platform, and no other country has recognized them, I bet the entire platform might just be used for target practice by several navy's if they are ever found to host terrorist websites...

Re:Sea Boundaries

[swillden]

By the letter of the law, Sealand has it right, I think.

However, what this fails to consider is that the force of law is rooted in exactly that -- force. Given the UK's possession of military and police forces which Sealand lacks there's not much question about what would happen if the UK decided to push its claim.

Sealand could try to appeal to the World Court, but since none of the UN membership recognizes Sealand as a sovereign nation, the court would ignore it, and there the issue would end.

Re:Sea Boundaries

[newrisejohn]

It's a little different than that. Delaware's deed claimed all lands within a 12-mile radius from the Courthouse at New Castle, hence the round northern border of the state. The extension of the border to the NJ coast only applies to the area within the 12-mile circle.

From Delaware's website: http://www.dgs.udel.edu/publications/infoseries/info6.aspx

NJ and DE both have interests in the Oil/Gas industry, in the form of tax revenue. Both are home to several refineries. Hence the need for competition.

Re:Sea Boundaries

[nog_lorp]

At the end of the day, a British court ruled that Sealand was outside of British jurisdiction, which atleast means they are not beholden to the British.

Germany also to one degree or another recognized Sealand by sending a diplomat there (rather than communicating with Britain).

Re:Sea Boundaries

[Cowmonaut]

"Since Sealand quite obviously has no chance in Hell in fighting off Great Britain, they're not sovereign."

I guess then a whole lot of countries are not "sovereign" because there is no chance in Hell they could fight off the United States, Great Britain, or Russia if either of those countries decided to go all out on them.

Show of force is not the only, nor even the best, way to prove your sovereignty. It just happens to be the "easiest".

Re:Sea Boundaries

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK reciently used anti-terrrism laws against Iceland. Do you really think they couldn't do similar to sealand and force them to leave? The only reason sealand exists is that they've not annoyed the UK government sufficiently.

Sealand's a gimmick and I seriously doubt any international court would bother with them.

Re:Sea Boundaries

[nabsltd]

Seems the previous government of Iraq - that under Saddam Hussein - lasted all of 6 weeks before it was completely obliterated and their military destroyed. And then a new government was set up with US involvement.

Also, the US was trying to do what was necessary to topple the existing government and military in Iraq with minimal damages to the general population and non-military targets.

If the US had basically just wanted a very large hole where Iraq used to be, that would also have been quite easy to do. There is no country other than possible Russia that could stand up to this, as no other country can project so much of their military power to any location in the world like the US. China, for example, would be almost impossible to invade and conquer, but they can't really use their army for anything but defense against the US (unless they can swim better than we have seen).

Re:Sea Boundaries

[Graham Clark]

As I understand it, Sealand has no land territory and therefore won't be recognised as a country by anyone.

Legally speaking, it's probably a shipwreck - the platform's attached to a barge which was scuttled in place during the Second World War. Shipwrecks can't have their own government or territorial waters.

Their claim to independence is irrelevant.They haven't been closed down simply because they haven't done anything to provoke such drastic action.

Re:Sea Boundaries

[Joebert]

That's like saying the US Government shouldn't have provided disaster relief to New Orleans because it was man made, or that citizens of some southern Floridian cities aren't subject to taxes because they live on sand that was pumped in to a swamp.

Re:Sea Boundaries

[paganizer]

I'm pretty certain the Vatican could take out the Italian government.
Armed Forces: The Swiss Guard. 1 reinforced company of Swiss Heavy Infantry. One could assume they could expand this force relatively quickly under emergency conditions, and the swiss military man-for-man scores extremely high on QJM. Hitler was polite to the Swiss, and it wasn't just because they laundered money for him.
There are also several Military Orders of the church; Knights of Malta, Sepulcher, Saint George. Purely ceremonial, but there is a framework there.
Lets say that...ok, going to have to reach, but: we continue our current slide into world anarchy; The Major Nations go Bankrupt, meaning the U.S, Russia, Germany, U.K., france, italy.
If things go depression era nuts in Italy, I could see, easily, a socialist strongman taking power.
If a socialist strongman took power in Italy, and NATO was bankrupt, and the EU equally so, I could see an Italian Socialist Strongman using the old "rich, depraved, capitalists have taken over the church" routine.
The Vatican would pretty much have to do something. the Swiss would be relatively unaffected by any turmoil the rest of the world would have; not only do they have assets, but thanks to their every-citizen-has-a-battle-rifle-in-his-closet policy, they are essentially immune from everything but intense air attack. They would almost certainly send a Battalion to the Vatican's aide.
The Church has resources, and would continue to have them after most everything else went to shit. Using the Military Orders as a framework, they could start recruiting good (and not so good) catholics from places they are STRONG, like central & south America. and they could afford to feed them, something The Italian Socialist Strongman would have problems with; The Pope could buy wheat from Kansas, Mussolini, jr. would have problems doing so.
Mussolini, jr. is probably going to have a inflated beyond reality idea of how strong the forces he controls are (it's a tradition); He would probably try to take control of the Vatican. The Swiss Guards Battalion would whip them like little puppies, and then the Knight commander of Malta would order their mainly South American forces to take control of the disorganized territories, to "lend aide and succor to those left without hope from the current crisis".
Viola! the Papal states return!
A closing note: I think I'm in a weird mood today. I'm not sure what makes me think that, but something is telling me....

Re:Sea Boundaries

[erikdalen]

What about Vietnam then?

But I agree they probably wouldn't be able to repeat that feat today.

Re:Sea Boundaries

[dirtyhippie]

That's a facile analogy. If England were to expand its borders in to France, the entire continent would rally to the French side. If they were to annex Sealand tomorrow (or if they have today), no one would blink. To suggest otherwise is idiocy. The instant Sealand has something Britain wants, it will cease to exist. It's a bloody slab of concrete after all, the "native" population of which were British citizens before their "partiarch" went a bit batty.

Don't get me wrong, I wish I could make up my own laws, pronounce myself king, and run my own "country". But I recognize the instant I rocked the boat too much, that would be the end of it. And I have no problem with what Sealand is doing. But to suggest Britain can't put it out of business at any moment they want is madness. The deliver the mails there. They have the cables that connect to Sealand. Get your head out of the clouds.

Love,
Dirty Hippie.

Lack of funding, maybe?

[rodrigoandrade]

We're in the midst of a global economic crisis, you know?? Maintaining an offshore host must be quite expensive, especially if there's no local infrastructure to maintain such service.

Re:Lack of funding, maybe?

[cshotton]

Anyone who followed the photo essay about the fire on Sealand a few years ago would recognize that Sealand is little more than a fantasy/hobby of a couple of nut jobs trying to scam some income out of a rusty hulk. No reliable power source, no easy transport, not potable water, no permanent residents. It is a investor funded camping expedition with the occasional porn video streamed over a slow-ass satellite connection. It is not, nor was it ever, a viable "offshore hosting facility". And after they burned up the generators and half of the platform, it's really not even habitable now. So no surprise that the royalty has likely departed to points closer to the mailboxes holding their dole checks.

So, if Sealand isn't part of the UK...

[caluml]

From http://www.bobleroi.co.uk/ScrapBook/Sealand_Fire/Sealand_Fire.html : "A security guard has been airlifted to hospital after a fire broke out on an old sea fort in the North Sea." and "More than 20 fire fighters have been drafted in to tackle a blaze at Sealand off the coast of Felixstowe." - I wonder which country's hospitals, helicopters, and firemen helped out here.

Aaah. "Thames Coastguard, Harwich RNLI lifeboat, Felixstowe Coastguard rescue teams, firefighting tug Brightwell, the RAF rescue helicopter from Wattisham and 15 Suffolk based firefighters from the National Maritime Incident Response Group (MIRG) were all called into action to tackle the blaze"

It's not exactly a surprise

[hairykrishna]

They talked a good game and had 'coolness factor' going for them but that was about it. I don't think they had all that many clients really. What were their advantages? They didn't offer anything over a normal provider. You couldn't host anything really inflamatory (i.e. normally illegal) there because you'd just get their link cut.

I was a HavenCo customer

[SteveFoerster]

I did work for a firm in 2001-2 that used HavenCo. I recall only one significant outage, which, given the advantage, was worth it for my client. Nor did we have problems with bandwidth. Anyway, I'm sorry to hear of the fire, and hope they'll recover, although I suppose it doesn't look good.

Replace to words and things become interesting

[krischik]

Interesting definition - especially if your replace to words in your sentence: Georgia quite obviously has no chance in Hell in fighting off Russia, they're not sovereign.

I know, this is off topic - but I could not resist.

And thinking about it: If your replace UK/Russia with USA then ~95% of all countries become "not sovereign". That's the ~95% which are not mayor nuclear powers.

So by your rationale: sovereign = mayor nuclear power and signing the "Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons" is signing your sovereign away.

Martin

Re:5 official nuclar powers

[the_womble]

Your number is wrong on one count, and possibly another:

Britain does not have independent nuclear weapons.

States outside those five have large arsenals. India for example.

"havenco" has been hosted in London since 2003

[rdl]

HavenCo moved all customer servers to London sometime after I left, in 2003. Supporting evidence for this, besides traceroutes, is that the big fire, which destroyed generators and other equipment on sealand, did not affect the servers at all. Either you believe they had enough UPS capacity to ride out a multi-month power outage, or ...

(the 1ms pingtimes from routers in London is also a good sign...)