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by Sealand is an off-shore installation, one of many Maunsell Sea Forts first constructed during World War II to defend one of the United Kingdom's ports. It was occupied in the sixties and became the Principality of Sealand when owner Roy Bates evaded a court summons after determining the structure rests in international waters outside of England's jurisdiction. Now, Bates has put Sealand up for sale to the highest bidder.
ThePirateBay is one of the Internet's most popular sites for aggregating bittorrent files for multimedia. Harboring illegal media has been a challenge for many sites, regardless the varying laws of host nations. ThePirateBay faced such a raid by Swedish police in 2006 and was subsequently shutdown, however, the site returned to full operation two weeks later. With Sealand available for sale, ThePirateBay has established a fund raising effort in order to purchase the tiny principality.
The possibilities for directly hosting warez, hacker sites, ripped media, gambling and pornography would exist without bound in international waters. Sealand could become the defacto Internet hotspot for illicit activity.
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The whole hacker and warez scene has had an interesting change in the last 6 or 7 years, from the “oldtime” single or small group type hosts and distributors, to the large highly organized country-buying (maybe) groups of today.
The strange thing about these softwares; a lot of times the $15,000 .00 CAD/CAM software has less formidable protection than the $20.00 shareware apps do.
It seems like if no one has come up with a way to stop software piracy at this point, it probably won’t be stopped.
The software and music industry often attribute HUGE losses like “20 billion dollars a year” to piracy, but they are probably counting the millions of people who would never have considered buying or even using the software to begin with, but downloaded it out of curiosity, so I think these numbers are skewed a little for effect.
The possibilities for directly hosting warez, hacker sites, ripped media, gambling and pornography would exist without bound in international waters.
If an entity like ThePirateBay were to actually buy this island or another one, I have a feeling that eventually a lot more would begin to go on there than just software piracy. Amsterdam would probably seem like Disneyland in comparison.
If an entity like ThePirateBay were to actually buy this island or another one, I have a feeling that eventually a lot more would begin to go on there than just software piracy. Amsterdam would probably seem like Disneyland in comparison.
There is, of course, one major hiccup. While "anything goes" may be the local law, they still rely on an Internet carrier to get traffic off the Principality. Given their proximity, they likely piggy-back on the UK's data providers.
Would the next order of business be to push for laying dedicated fiber just for themselves? Curious - how does international law handle communications? The AllofMp3 deal certainly plays into consideration as an example.
Would users like this be a push for commercialized space satellites - a private internet space node if you will.
Up until the private island scenario, the cracks and warez groups seem to have relied on a “parasitic” style of distribution where they operate off of some unmonitored university or corporate server on the sly, or have their own out of their homes. This made it hard to “block” them by IP address because it was always changing. By being in a central location, with a block of known IP addresses,
I was thinking that they might have a problem if some authority was able to simply “unplug” or block the connection to and from the island.
We had a satellite internet connection for a while (we’re out in the sticks). The satellite still had to communicate to a central location somewhere with a connection to an internet provider.
Unless they could get their own channel of some sort, but that would greatly reduce the available audience.
I did not realize when I made my first post that Sealand was so small and manmade. (That's King Danny in the picture) It looks smaller than some oil derricks. I assumed it was an island. It’s nothing but a cement platform on two big pillars. I guess this would limit the amount of activity that could be sustained here unless they were able to add on. Does this mean anyone can build a platform in international waters and call it a country?
Aw crap! Just my luck! Last year I bought my wife & I noble titles from the Government of Sealand for Christmas. It came complete with a color brochure and the framed certificates of title are a hoot.
And now my title of Lord Saint Bucks of Sealand will be to a pirate software corporation instead of rebel hippies bent on independance.
Rats.
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Cryptonomicon by PowerPointSamurai :: NR7 :: on 15 January 2007
Wow. This is so like Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson. Some Sultanate decides to build a data haven deep in mountain, which is really a giant digital Swiss bank account.
Maybe it will start out as a bittorrent haven and morph into something more legit.