Companies Still Not Reporting Computer Break-Ins

Has Haven For Controversial Sites Sunk?

from the bye-bye dept

Mon, Aug 4th 2003 3:25pm — Mike Masnick

About a year ago, I was wondering what had happened to HavenCo, the well hyped data hosting facility that was to be set up in the "nation" of Sealand, a floating platform off the coast of England, that some claim is its own nation. The idea was that they would set up a co-location facility that would be immune to laws of other nations, and let people host whatever content they wanted. After it was announced, it pretty much disappeared from public view. Then, last year, there was a short story saying that it was still going strong. Looks like that might not be the case any more. The former CTO of HavenCo says he's no longer working for the company, and that it's in a lot of trouble. He claims that the people who control Sealand have become increasingly worried about the content they would host (and turned down Film88.com - an online movie distribution site). He also says that they've had trouble with keeping their connection up, and there are only six customers left of the data center. Doesn't sound particularly promising.

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Munich, 4 Aug 2003 @ 4:30pm

Sorta Like Cryptonomicon?
I get Wired, but don't remember this story, but reading this blurb reminded me a bit of the book Cryptonomicon - the data hosting facility in that novel was set up in a safe nation specifically for banking (untraceable virtual money). I wonder if either the author or the founders got any ideas from one another? This sounds like an idea that looks good on paper, but won't work in the real world.
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Mike (profile), 4 Aug 2003 @ 4:33pm

Re: Sorta Like Cryptonomicon?
Yeah. HavenCo came out after Cryptonomicon, though, so it sounds like the idea came from there. We pointed this out back in June of 2000 when HavenCo first announced its plans, wondering if they had stolen the idea from Cryptonomicon, and when we would read about them fishing for lost Nazi gold.
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