On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Arun Mehta wrote:

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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.

On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Douglas R. Floyd wrote:

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On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, William Knowles wrote:

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?)

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.

Now I don't claim to be a naval defence expert, But from what I do read of the dogeared copies of Jane's Defence Weekly, Would be to install three or four Phalanx Close-In Weapons Systems, The Phalanx is a radar guided 20mm Gatling gun spraying out 4500 rpm at a range of 1600 yards. Quite perfect for downing a privately owned MiG-21, Exocet missles from pissed off French gunboats for storing Chirac's medical records and maybe keeping those pesky mercenaries from skydiving onboard. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, there are literally all sorts of firepower for sale in the open markets, trolling in the alt.business newsgroups I have been able to find quite a few MiG's for sale, and there's a fellow in Finland that has a former Soviet 'Julliet Class' Diesel-Electric submarine and I understand he's taking offers. Now this is a completely doable concept, and likely more realistic than the Oceania project, Unfortunatly like all things, it comes down to how much money you want to throw at it, I remember how many us on this list balked at Vince charging $500.00 for one year on a Unix Shell account, I wonder what the market would bear for both a technologically and physically secure datahaven? William Knowles erehwon@c2.org -- William Knowles PGP mail welcome & prefered / KeyID 1024/2C34BCF9 PGP Fingerprint 55 0C 78 3C C9 C4 44 DE 5A 3C B4 60 9C 00 FB BD Finger for public key -- Vote for Harry Browne in November -- http://www.HarryBrowne96.org

On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Douglas R. Floyd wrote:

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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?

On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Arun Mehta wrote: 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? (The machine crashed when I was writing this letter, so if cpunks got two, I apologize.) How would this rig be defended?

.50 Machine guns on the decks, everyone on board capable of shooting straight carrying at least a pistol and gas masks. The gas masks are for the tear gas dispencers. Hire Vinnie? There are ways to make it inadvisable to attack the system. Blackmail material is always a good thing.

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.

A couple of surplus wire guided missles might go a long way to disuading them. Petro, Christopher C. petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff> snow@smoke.suba.com