Protecting floating datahavens?

[Vincent Cate]

> From: William Knowles <erehwon at c2.org>
> 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 

For those interested in todays piracty I recomment "Outlaws of 
the Ocean" by G.O.W. Mueller and Freda Adler.  The main types
of ocean outlaws:

     1) Smuggling (freon, dugs "square groupers" - bales of pot, ...)
     2) Immigration (illegal immigration can be very profitable)
     3) Insurance Fraud (tanker sinks, but unknow to the insurance
           company the oil had already been offloaded...)
     4) Violent crime  -  what I think of as piracy

Piracy is not a victimless crime.  Since there are victims, there is
someone to shoot at the pirates.  Makes it a tough business and not as
profitable as, some others. Most piracy occures in "known dangerous
areas".  Other piracy is drug dealers taking very fast boat so they have
an unregistered boat. 

There were some stories about freighters being attacked in one area, but
once they started all carrying guns, the attacks ended. 

After reading this my impression was that the odds of car-jacking or
mugging inside the USA were higher than the odds of a cruising boat
getting attacked by pirates. 

Pirates are going to pick what looks to them like easy targets. A Phalanx
or two on the side of a large boat would not look like an easy target. :-)
In fact, just one semi-automatic mounted on the side would probably
prevent all attacks by pirates. 

   --  Vince

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Vincent Cate   vince at offshore.com.ai  http://www.offshore.com.ai/vince/
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