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

[morgan_greywolf]

But Sealand is 'grandfathered in'. There's a controversy surrounding it, but at the end of the day the 'sovereignty' of Sealand is not tested in court.

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

[theaveng]

I don't think a government can overtake another government's land simply by claiming an extension of water rights.

The government of New Jersey tried that tactic a few years ago in order to justify the building of an oil platform on the Delaware River. The NJ government claimed they own half the river and can do whatever they wish. The government of Delaware objected, and after digging through old documents dating to the 1600s, it was determined that Delaware controls the river adjacent to its capitol. The intervening birth of the United States had not changed or altered that prior claim. Therefore New Jersey's government was blocked by the Delaware government.*

If the territory of Sealand has prior claim to its land and local coastal waters, the UK cannot simply "take over" the place by whim, and I'm sure the EU version of the Supreme Court would hold this to be true. Sealand remains an independent government by previous land/water claims.

*
* The heart of the argument is that NJ wants oil and Delaware wants to protect "their" river from environmental destruction. Two governments with two goals are moving in seemingly opposite directions. The irony is that both governments are run by the same party (Democrats), and yet they still can't get along with one another.

Re:Sea Boundaries

[Nursie]

Last time th British tried to take Sealand by force, they lost. The ruler of Sealand saw them off with a shotgun.

Re:Sea Boundaries

[ultranova]

There's a controversy surrounding it, but at the end of the day the 'sovereignty' of Sealand is not tested in court.

Sovereignty is independent of any court. That's what sovereignty means: you are not beholden to or dependent on another power. As such, the test of sovereignty is quite simple: can you fight off any attempt to deny your sovereignty ? If yes, you're sovereign; if not, you're not.

Since Sealand quite obviously has no chance in Hell in fighting off Great Britain, they're not sovereign. They might gain some manoeuvring room by skilful use of legal tactics, but the very fact of needing the help of a British court and law to keep from getting crushed like an ant also means that they're beholden to it. You can't be dependent on and independent of the same thing at the same time.

Sealand gets shut down as soon as they annoy someone enough that they'll bother.

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

[Pikiwedia.net]

That's why Sealand needs nuclear weapons, prefarrably deployed in several nuclear subs spread out around the oceans. Actually, I can hardly think of any nation with a greater need for nuclear weapons than Sealand. No army, not recognized my other states. Mutally assured destruction is their only way to truly uphold their souvereignity.

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

[malkavian]

Well, by that argument, most of the countries in the Middle East and Africa haven't got a snowflake's chance in hell of fighting off either the US, Russia or China. By that yard stick, they aren't sovereign either.

One of the reasons we aren't mired in huge amounts of empire building these days is because the major powers are largely bound by international law (which is still young and a little 'edgy'). Sealand makes interesting use of those laws in maintaining its independence (and hey, lots of places are now no longer truly independent, just look at the effects of this global credit crisis to see how far and how deep international trade runs).
Should the UK get sufficiently peeved, it will still need sufficient legal backing to annex Sealand (otherwise, it could quite happily decide that it'll expand its borders into, say, France).
There is already a lot of jostling and arguing over National boundaries, and has been for some time; it's just all handled in the courts (well, apart from the jostling in the fishermen's boats). Sealand is just using exactly the same laws.
I suspect the legal wrangling would be that Sealand was never truly a sovereign nation anyhow, making the whole of the later legal premises void. But that in itself would be an interesting courtroom wrangle.

You can of course say "What the hell" and just shut it down. But that would be against the law.. And the UK has big enough issues at the moment without getting hauled through the international courts.

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

[pdboddy]

By that standard, parts of the UK are in Sealand's jurisdiction.

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

[jeffmeden]

...This court ruling, an act of jurisdiction, establishes that we do not have jurisdiction over the territory for which we are passing jurisdiction. In other news, Rule #1 at sealand is: There are no rules! Rule #2 is "See rule #1", and oddly enough Rule #3 is "don't piss off the Germans"...

Re:Sea Boundaries

[Venik]

It seems sometime in the past y few years /. geeks were replaced by /. retards. I don't remember getting the memo...

Re:Sea Boundaries

[Alioth]

The Isle of Man is NOT sovereign (I live there). We may issue our own passports; I travel with an Isle of Man passport - but the island is still a British crown territory even though it is not in or part of the UK.

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.

Re:Lack of funding, maybe?

[cshotton]

Pics of the fire. Not a place I'd base my business computer infrastructure...

Obligatory..

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdotted.

Well,

[Skiron]

...according to that Netcraft screen dump in the link they have changed from Linux (I also presume apache) to MS IIS server... no wonder they appear to have sunk.

Deal between HavenCo and Sealand

[jsse]

This presentation outlined a brief history of the deal between HavenCo and Sealand.

HavenCo has to pay Sealand considerable amount to keep the business running there. Therefore, the recently financial crisis would hit HavenCo badly.

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"

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

[Ardeaem]

So, rendering humanitarian aid gives you jurisdiction over an area? Your title combined with your quote seems to imply that you believe that, but I know many countries who would dispute that claim.

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:Replace to words and things become interesting

[halcyon1234]

That's the ~95% which are not mayor nuclear powers.

Wait, they're handing out nukes to municipal governments now? I don't know what it's like in your town, but the vast majorities of the mayors around here are factory-sealed with 98.5% pure batshit-grade insanity. I barely trust my mayor to run a furniture store, let alone an apocalypse.

Re:Replace to words and things become interesting

[jeffmeden]

If your replace UK/Russia with USA then ~95% of all countries become "not sovereign".

I think the list is currently broken down something like this:

Nuclear capability ~ sovereign
No Oil ~ sovereign
Pissed us off in the past ~ NOT sovereign
Can't prove that there are no terrorists around ~ Really Really Not Sovereign

Sealand vs. More Conventional Islands

[billstewart]

The Havenco folks were well connected with the Cypherpunks group that hung out in Anguilla back during the 90s boom. It was outside the US, so legal to develop cryptography there when it wasn't quite legal here, and it was a tropical island with good beaches and a friendly English-speaking population. Some of the group are still there, and have been running the .ai country-code TLD from the island for some time (for a few years, the ccTLD's DNS server was located in a bedroom in Berkeley :-)

Save some time

[Smivs]

I've just spent a good half hour going through these posts, and nobody knows why HavenCo is absent. Save your time and move onto the next story...

"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...)