Has HavenCo's Data Haven Shut Down? 287
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?"
Re:Sea Boundaries (Score:5, Informative)
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:Lack of funding, maybe? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sea Boundaries (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:2, Informative)
Sealand's war record is 2-0. The incident you cited, and also some Germans (not the German gov't) tried to take Sealand over, and failed. I believe there was a kidnapping involved in the latter.
Re:Sea Boundaries (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sea Boundaries (Score:3, Informative)
That's because it's "owned" by some nutbags who think that using loopholes in UK law gives them credibility. If the UK wants sealand they'll take it. If sealand ever got recognition as a sovereign country then I'm sure that the UK could make life impossible for them through legal channels.
Sealand continues to exist because they're not hurting anyone and there's no advantage to kicking them off their little platform. Killing the inhabitants via an armed takeover would be easy but silly.
Re:Sea Boundaries (Score:3, Informative)
Sealand has defended itself, by force, from invasion. It was taken over then liberated by the "prince", this is what prompted the visit from the German ambassador.
It is a sovereign nation, as defined by the UK's own laws; saying it isn't is sort of like Usenet doesn't enjoy common carrier protection.
In other words: a heck of a lot of people are saying it, and unless interested parties do something, what the people are saying will become reality regardless of precedent and law.
Sealand vs. More Conventional Islands (Score:4, Informative)
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 :-)
Re:Sea Boundaries (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Sea Boundaries (Score:3, Informative)
Err...that's not exactly right. New Orleans is NOT man made. It has existed long before the US was a country, and I kinda doubt they could man make a city out of nothing back then.
Actually, when I got back from Katrina...they had an interesting set of maps in the newspaper. They showed the areas of New Orleans that did not flood (the whole city didn't go under, some areas were bone dry)....and then they showed the original maps of NOLA as settled/explored/used...and amazingly enough..those non-flooded sections coincided with the old maps of NOLA.
Now...in addition to those areas of what I call 'natural' New Orleans...many areas, like New Orleans East, and some of the suburbs were often swamp lands or areas prone to flooding...and those had been pumped out, and 'processed' if you will to make for areas to build. Many of those were wiped out by the levee break related flooding.
But, just wanting to clear up the misconception...NOLA is not man made. Some areas around it are...and some areas of NOLA are naturally here, but, below sea level, but, that isn't man made, nor unusual...they are just prone to flooding and always have been. The man made levee system just protects them...and THAT is what failed.
Save some time (Score:5, Informative)
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...
Micronations vs Italy (Score:3, Informative)
However, there are real reasons why it would be difficult to invade the Vatican. One, the majority of the Italian population is Catholic, and would oppose such a move. This makes it a non-starter under the current democratic government, naturally, but it would be a significant problem even for a dictator. In fact, the treaty that established the Vatican City was signed by Mussolini, who was eager to appease Catholic sentiment.
Two, the Holy See has diplomatic relations with 177 states, and there are over one billion Catholics in the world. International opposition to an invasion would result in strong sanctions against the invading country, at the very least.
None of these reasons apply to Sealand, of course. In fact, there is a much closer precedent involving Italy and an island micro-nation. In the 60s, Italian engineer Giorgio Rosa built a platform in the Adriatic Sea, right outside of Italian territorial waters, and declared it independent under the Esperanto name of "Respubliko de la Insulo de la Rozoj" (Republic of the Island of Roses [wikipedia.org]). Italy reacted quickly: the Coast Guard established a naval blockade of the platform, the Police occupied it, and eventually, the Navy demolished it using explosives. There were hardly any international protests, and the incident was soon forgotten.
Re:Sea Boundaries (Score:3, Informative)
As far as defining maritime jurisdiction goes, that may very well be the case. Consult a lawyer. There are rules on what can be counted in such cases.
As an example, though this page [uniset.ca], which is apparently a summary of a Sealand citizenship case in West Germany, states that in international law a state must have (among other things) territory consisting of a natural part of the Earth's surface, which on the face of it would rule out any body consisting entirely of reclaimed land or artificial platforms. If this is a far summary of the law, then Sealand simply have no tenable case for statehood.
Re:Well, (Score:1, Informative)
Am I missing something? Amazon.com run on Linux.