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On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Ray Arachelian wrote:

How about "not respecting international copyright law, and not having extradition treaties with the US" ... set up a data haven, we now know why we need it soon... charge by the Kbyte, automate the billing, and relax. How about one of the Middle Eastern countries? Saudi Arabia would have been good until recently, but they've just signed the Berne Convention on copyrights...so there's one down. On the plus side, the authorities haven't banned crypto yet. Why? One only wonders. Kuwait has ready-made Internet access, but is, if I'm not mistaken, also a signatory to the international copyright convention. Both Kuwait and the KSA are also very friendly with the U.S., though I cannot name any specific case of extradition between the two countries. Given the choice between a Saudi court and a U.S. one, however, I'd pick the U.S. :-) Why not Yemen, Oman, or Lebanon? We'd have to start an ISP by ourselves, but the countries are small enough...or just recovering from civil war...such that nothing would be noticed(fingers crossed). Oman has CISnet access...maybe something could be built on that. For Yemen or Lebanon, we'd have to get a satellite hookup(which presents its own problems). Besides, Oman has simply _beautiful_ scenery. :-) Anybody seriously interested? In theory. To actually set up a data haven takes more resources than I have. IMHO, however, one of the smaller Middle Eastern countries would be good, as they generally don't(unless I'm mistaken) have reciprocal copyright treaties with the U.S., are not generally signatories of the Berne Convention (except KSA and the UAE and maybe Kuwait), and do not look likely to outlaw crypto.

Thoughts? David Molnar -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMAVbweFDHpuTkgoVAQHt8Af/VkW5FIqpd46ydnchTpSfKZUS+c4Aviu6 ZQA2UYY5GbCQhyKNJ6Tk2OKJI82vfOpo+n+uSZfvAWnLlxrzQ1mDJxJ9wWaaAa4u WIG4XWbGCFetRYAVYF+h/I6zG7+zCE8N3bn2kAcAz7SoDgqGP1CXiXsXmEiqBJNS O8U8nM1ZFZ4KZBwShf5SsprKgKP98TCmWJc7L5li9Pco7HyLzBdsHUz2pJgCd4Eh rp/8jfzu2so/tF5EHkjGIcPUnp0rEfZ5gKc/gimDloHfyzVxA3ITraXe8xOZF3iX sICCpBb+qoDLzvt5lM+Vpm7+pUa/fF+OJB0+eX4gNw/a082gH6LeOg== =rmDi -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- lo...look to the sig, for there will be no sign