Re: Anguilla - A DataHaven?

["Douglas R. Floyd" <dfloyd@io.com>]

> 
> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Arun Mehta wrote:
> 
> > I'm sure this has come up before, but what would prevent a server
> > being located on a buoy or something at sea outside territorial
> > limits (or when satellites become cheaper, on a satellite itself)
> > offering such services?  
> 
> Something that I thought would make an excellent data haven would
> be older offshore oil platforms, Their size would allow extended
> living periods, electrcity and communications are in place, They
> are generally built outside of the territorial waters of most
> countries to avoid any damage to the shorelines if oil spilled
> (possibility for becoming its own country?) and with the hoops
> that Shell Oil went through to please Greenpeace with its last
> oil platform.  You have to wonder how cheap these could sell 
> for just to get them off the oil companies hands? 
> 
> Comments or suggestions?
> 
> William Knowles
> erehwon@c2.org

(The machine crashed when I was writing this letter, so if cpunks got two,
I apologize.)

How would this rig be defended?

Pirates still exist.  Even if you can give them something to think about
with a 30/06 bullet at their waterline, there are always small countries
who have navies that can be hired.  They may be small and defenseless
compared to the US navy, but against a basically unarmed oil rig, do have
the ability to sink the rig at their whim.

Its ironic that I am playing Devil's Advocate with data havens, but have
the only working input/output code for one that I know of.  (I have been
having problems with it, so until I work some bugs out I haven't put it
for offer via FTP.)

I think for now try to make something that uses the same technology as a
data haven -- An offsite secure storage server.  Discussed in this list
about a year ago, this uses data haven code, and is equivalent to a
sufferance remailer, but at least these can exist.  The first step is
having them exist overtly first, and having "terms of service", then
working on DC-nets, "RAID" DH's, etc.

I have a tokenlike system -- "Storage Noodles", but haven't gotten it
working reliably yet.