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WikiLeaks To Ship Servers To Micronation of Sealand?
Velcroman1 writes "Julian Assange's investors are in the process of purchasing a boat to move WikiLeaks servers offshore in an attempt to evade prosecution from U.S. law enforcement, FoxNews.com has learned. Multiple sources within the hacker community with knowledge of day-to-day WikiLeaks activities say Assange's financial backers have been working behind the scenes on the logistics of moving the servers to international waters. One possible location: the Principality of Sealand, a rusty, World War II-era, former anti-aircraft platform off the coast of England in the North Sea. Based on a 1968 British court ruling that the facility is outside the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, Sealand's owner has declared the facility a sovereign state, or 'micro-nation.'"
This has never worked, would never work, and could never work. And it was a PR stunt when Pirate Bay said they were going to do it, it was a PR stunt when HavenCo was founded, and I can't believe anyone thinks anyone still buys it. Hell, even the batshit-crazy Sealand founder and his family long ago abandoned their "country" and HavenCo collapsed in 2008. It's also been pretty much abandoned since a fire in 2006 (amusingly forcing the few "independent" countrymen left to cry for a rescue from the British Air Force). The facility has a single generator left and living facilities for one person. There is no way to get fresh water on its own. And there are DAMN SURE no internet trunk lines there.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
In this day of age of virtualization, cloud deployments and the like the idea of moving servers offshore being equivalent to physically moving boxes across the ocean seems absurd. You setup some new machines at the new location, sync the data across this thing called the Internet, flip a switch and then wipe the old boxes and sell off the hardware (if you ever owned it to begin with).
Anybody actually think that would stop the bombs and bullets? Please! It would only suffer the same fate as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Vietnam, Philippines, etc etc etc.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
To add to your doubt, the wikipedia article for Sealand makes it sounds like a couple guys with a boat and some small arms could over take it ... so, uh, you're moving your servers to a defenseless island? Where no other nation recognizes you? Where no one will come to your aid if someone decides to just blow you out of the water? And you're planning on hosting what? Oh, sensitive information about the United States government that they consider to be a threat to national security? Yeah, good luck with that. The US will take out anybody in Pakistan (or a number of other countries) in the middle of the night if they want to, I highly doubt they'd be worried about slapping some thermite to some servers out in the middle of the ocean and calling it a day -- which government would they worry about upsetting if they did so?
My work here is dung.
One fatal flaw. Easily declared an enemy combatant and easily bombed.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
This whole deal is starting to sound like a Monty Python skit.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Sorry, but them claiming it doesn't make it so. You can claim anything you like, doesn't make it the case. The two ways you can become a sovereign nation is by force and diplomacy.
The first is the most obvious: You simply have a large enough, powerful enough military that nobody can tell you that you aren't sovereign. They are unwilling to spend the money, material, and men to take you down so that is that. You are sovereign on account of nobody being able to say otherwise. This is how the USA gained sovereignty, as an example. They said "We are independent," England said "Nuh uh." A war was fought, the US won, that pretty much settled it.
The second is diplomacy. You get the big, powerful, nations to recognize you as a nation, as well as international bodies like the UN. They all say "Yep, you are a sovereign nation and have the right to your own government and laws," and you do. Since they agree and won't try to attack you, and also usually will keep others from doing so, you are sovereign. The big boys have agreed to leave you be, so there you go.
Sealand has neither, and in fact the UK claims it belongs to them. They can go on all they want and the UK doesn't really care but push comes to shove and the UK has a reason, they can clamp down on them. One platoon of Royal Marines would do the trick.
So this would solve fuck all for Wikileaks.
Not many, but there are some. Moving it to Mogadishu, for instance.
If they were to move some FAKE servers out into the middle of the ocean and just wait to see what happened, the results might be very interesting.
I'd imagine they could prove a very good point about the lengths governments will go to in order to censor information - or at least take some attention off of the actual servers.
The right to offend is central to the right to free speech.
Multiple sources within the hacker community
WTF does that even mean? I understand Fox is trying to tie the negative connotations of the modern day usage of the word hacker to WikiLeaks, but who the flying fuck is this conglomerate of the hacker community such that Fox can claim them as reputable sources, much less assume that these people speak for the community as a whole, assuming that there is a uniform grouping of people that aren't just an amoeba group of a couple people who claim to be 'hackers', and thus the whole community is now tied to WikiLeaks via Fox's shitty sourcing in the first couple sentences that catch eyes.
Ein Volk. Ein Reich. Ein Fuhrer. Ein News Channel.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I think Costa Cruise lines has a good deal on a slightly used ship Wikileaks could use.
Wikileaks should put a server on a satellite in orbit if they want autonomy.
http://www.sealandgov.org/announcements/get-a-sealand-email-address
Let's make Sealand a financially stable nation. :-)
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
... that this story came from FAUX News???? Nothing about it makes any sense at all. Apart from that moving the servers to Sealand would be illogical and stupid, it would take more than one boat as they already are in many different locations. And investors who might consider buying a boat for the purpose must have so much money that it is likely they already own at least one boat that could do the job. In addition, of course, boat can be hired or rented. Somebody are trying to drum up hysteria about Wikileaks again; probably to cover up something that is really happening. NOT news, but normal operational practice for media.
Brings a whole new meaning to the name Wiki 'leaks'....
If the ongoing activities at Sealand ever bother a major power, they'll work with the UK to simply demolish the platform.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
It doesn't move them out of reach, it just adds an extra step or two to takedown.
A takedown would actually seem to be far easier. The site could be treated as a vessel engaged in criminal activity on the high seas and an naval vessel could board it, search it and confiscate contraband.
It would seem that in reality they have removed the required legal steps for a takedown.
...why not send MicroServers?
I call shenanigans. The story has all the hallmarks of being manufactured.
#1) It's from Fox News, a known organization that will lie, lie, lie, violate the law, lie some more, and then lie to cover up the law violations. Oh, and they lie.
#2) "According to sources in the hacker community" == something I heard on Reddit. A rumor.
#3) You don't have to physically move machines to a new host -- There's this thing called FTP I'm sure the author knows nothing about.
#4) Wikileaks is already redundant across the globe. What would be the point of putting machines on Sealand? This is also something the author doesn't understand.
#5) Sealand, if they were to be the sole host, like the author implies, doesn't have the bandwidth to serve Wikileaks.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I have major doubts that the US will recognize or abide by Sealand's "sovereignty". The US has a history of violating sovereignty and getting away with it. Extracting Bin Laden from the nuclear armed nation Pakistan without permission? Flying drones in Iranian airspace? If someone or something is labeled an enemy of the US, sovereignty or nuclear weapons won't stop them from invading or entering that area. If nuclear weapons aren't even a deterrent (Pakistan), then what makes you think that Sealand, with absolutely no defenses, will be able to protect its servers?
Those issues aside, how do you protect the internet connection or power connection to your mini island? Anyone supplying power or internet to Sealand will be deemed responsible for supporting their actions and the US will step in and stop them. Also, the US could setup an embargo against Sealand. US embargos against nations work extremely well. Iran is extremely scared at the prospect of the US imposing sanctions against them and setting up an embargo. How is North Korea doing with their isolation? Sealand doesn't stand a chance. It will only help the US. They'll be able to step in and take the servers and only risk the wrath of Sealand citizens (do they even exist)?
I have a question about this. Let's say that some group was doing something that we all legitimately disagree with. Let's say that some criminal organization was involved in money laundering, stealing and selling credit card numbers, distributing viruses and controlling those viruses using servers hosted on Sealand, etc etc. What would we hope/expect that governments would do to Sealand in those cases? Would/Should governments just throw up their hands and say, "Well, they're a sovereign nation, we can't do anything about it."?
I'm just curious because it seems like we either have to say:
- Sealand is sovereign and can do whatever they want (regardless of any real damage they do to anyone or everyone), or
- Sealand's sovereignty is dependent on not doing illegal/bad things and governments could (fairly or not) come down on Sealand for doing those things - and this could involve capturing people on Sealand and putting them on trial, cutting off internet access, etc.
Sealand couldn't possibly have guaranteed internet connectivity. All they will need to do is cut off internet access. Sealand will easily cave in at that point.
It would be better if they turned their service into an "app" and distributed their data into a torrent like cloud. The app would just be a frontend to browse/search the data.
... and accidental bombing/drone filled with explosives crash into the "micronation".
USA apologizes for what they say is an accident.
Be seeing you...
Indeed. Just making land does not extend territory, and certainly there's nothing on the books about trying to insist a completely artificial structure can make any claim to sovereignty.
All these examples of airports and reclaiming land from the sea don't help Sealand at all, as in all these cases, these projects are well within territorial waters.
Anyone who wants to know about the intricacies of this should look into the Spratly Islands dispute in the South China Sea, which involve serious issues about control and access of resources.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There is going to be a market for a super-secure digital vault that is outside of all nations legal influence. It doesn't meant that the US gubment won't still try to sieze their DNS records or something but you can always get there by using an IP address..
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is facing a great battle." - Philo of Alexandria -