At 10:23 AM 06/06/2000 -0700, Michael Motyka wrote:
>Wasn't there some sort of ship being fitted out a year or two ago that
>was being advertised as an internet connected tax haven? Did that ever
>happen?
I think all of the Liberty Ship variants were talking futures, not present.
Sealand exists, and Havenco appears to be in business, at least Real Soon.
>> >Unacceptable publications include, but are not limited to:
>> > 1.Material that is ruled unlawful in the jurisdiction of the
originating server
>> >(Such as child pornography or other obscene material.
>> My question is what in the hell does "or other obscene material" mean?
>This "acceptable use" stuff sounds like conciliatory nonsense.
Sounds like they've got an official policy telling you not to serve
stuff you're not allowed to serve at home, so if you're a Bad Citizen-Unit,
they can be quite up-front about how they're shocked, *shocked* to discover
gambling (or whatever) taking place on their servers.
But it's all being done by their customers, not by them.
And as far as "other obscene material" goes, that differs depending
on where you live, but there's realistically not much reason
to use Havenco for it when there are so many US servers
that will allow their customers to show women with their veils off.
>Fine for stuff served up in the clear but who would be stupid enough
>to place proscribed plaintext in a rented space no matter how cute the
>coat of arms. At which point any use restrictions become moot.
All sorts of stuff gets proscribed in all sorts of jurisdictions,
and gets permitted with payments of government license fees in others.
Casinos are an example of something that works just fine in that
kind of environment - public, just not permitted at home.
Credit rating services, personal information databases, etc.,
work much better with heavy encryption of their contents,
so that the Blacknet folks or insurance companies can make their money,
but the front doors to the service can be quite public.
>Does havenco have a doomsday plan in their user agreement? One
>helicopter gunship and a few men is adequate to secure the property.
>What if you don't want your data captured?
I'm sure they've got physical protection plans,
and they've discussed potential options for /dev/thermite.
But the important protection is that all disk access is encrypted,
so if they cut the uninterruptible power, it's toast until
the keys can be restored from offsite.
>All traffic in and out can be logged. Except hand-carried data. Expect
>people embarking to Sealand to get serached if the thing takes off.
They've published their physical access policies.
And hand-carried data isn't a risk; hand-carried explosives are.
Hand-carried pharmaceuticals will presumably be evaluated for quality :-)
>It may always boil down to the local rules on rubber hose treatment for
>key extraction regardless of where the data are stored.
That's why keys are stored out of the country, presumably in
multiple locations - pirates, whether using black flags or bright-colored
ones,
may not have the proper respect for human rights that Sealand's
European neighbors claim to promote.
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
