Pirates of Sealand

[erehwon]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

File this under... "Like you really thought they had a chance!"

Sealand Won’t be Sold to Pirates

His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Sealand said in an interview with ‘CBC The Hour’ that buying Sealand is probably a good way to circumvent international copyright law, but that he won’t sell sealand to the Pirate Bay.

Prince Michael, also known as Michael Bates, said the following about the activities of the popular BitTorrent tracker. “It’s theft of proprietary rights, it doesn’t suit us at all. In fact, I’ve written a book and Hollywood is making a movie out of it, so it would go right against the grain to go into the filesharing thing.”

Sealand is currently prized at 750 million euros, which equals nearly one billion US dollars, a sum of money that would be impossible for The Pirate Bay to raise anyway. Prince Michael said that maybe some wealthy Russian, who doesn’t want to have a radioactive isotope dropped in his cornflakes when he’s not looking, might be a potential buyer instead.

Sealand’s Spanish estate agent, the one who came up with the price, also said that The Pirate Bay may not be allowed to buy the micronation, because Sealand has pledged not to allow a sale that would damage the interests of, or act against the UK.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

Maybe Sealand can hire Donald Rumsfeld as Minister of Defense. That ought to put it on the map (or remove it).

speaking of donnie darko there... seen this recent onion article?

[astcell]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

Maybe Sealand can hire Donald Rumsfeld as Minister of Defense. That ought to put it on the map (or remove it).

[erehwon]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

erehwon, sounds like Sealand needs UN representation. Are you offering?

The only way you'd find me considering representing Sealand in the UN was if their passports were universally accepted, and the State Department would issue me diplomatic license plates so I could park with reckless abandon. Since Sealand isn't even a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, I don't see any of that above happening anytime soon...

[astcell]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

erehwon, sounds like Sealand needs UN representation. Are you offering?

[erehwon]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

The same thing I've joked to Mr. Lackey in IRC still holds true today for the future owners of Sealand, its at least two limpet mines from being put out of business.

Nevermind the number of rogue diesel-electric submarines of the former Soviet republics, I wouldn't put it past the MPAA to bribe one of the captains to take a small detour from the usual Sevastopol to Cartagena route to sink a longtime thorn in the side of the United Kingdom...

[converge]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

I know I mentioned this in channel, but thought I'd share ... what we really need to do is help them with this endeavor and then turn it into a DC16 contest.

The Sealand CTF Pre-Scavenger Mission. First person/team to take the 'island', destroy the data center and escape gets 3000 points and many beers.

[Thorn]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

Like Stephenson pointed out in Cryptonomicon, a real data haven would have to have three things:
A) A real sovereign state with an B) open telecommunications law closely tied with a C) hands-off policy. In addition to that, the state would have extremely strong and confident leadership that would be willing to tell other leaders to take a flying leap in the face of another country bringing pressure to bear.

[bascule]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

(.02)On the gun issue, I haven't visited said forums. But considering that any attack by any "real" nation with a real navy & real marines would almost certainly succeed I find the whole argument rather moot.

I think they have more to worry from the MPAA/RIAA hiring a brute squad to go out there and shoot all their servers up or light them on fire or something (or real pirates showing up to loot the place)

If Britain really cared all it'd take is one Royal Navy ship with one torpedo, or one Royal Air Force plane with one bomb to blow the thing to smithereens.

[Rance]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

Yeah Agent considering it's nothing more than a platform a good fart would destroy it not to mention a navial attack. I think i remember reading that it was about 1 billion dollars to buy it. It would probly take 10 time that maybe more to secure it, and after Thorns post of Ryan's talk I'd say the damn thing was cursed or worse. I can't think of what could be worse but use your imaginations.

[Agent X]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

It's seems like a fun idea, but of course it is still frought with all the same problem's that HavenCo/Sealand had. It might be useful to revisit Ryan's talk on the matter. It can be found here, just search for his name. Seaborne datahaven's are a nice fantasy but pretty much just that.

(.02)On the gun issue, I haven't visited said forums. But considering that any attack by any "real" nation with a real navy & real marines would almost certainly succeed I find the whole argument rather moot.

[Thorn]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

For those who never heard of it, Sealand was the alleged home of HavenCo, a data haven which never quite got off the ground, circa 2000. Ryan Lackey was one of the principals, and he presented this paper at DC 11:

What Really Happended to HavenCo.

[Rance]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

The whole thing is a little bit overblown considering its basically a tiny platform.

Yeah, I'm actually with you on that one, but it would be a great place to have a DEFCON convention. We could all meet up at the nearest dock to the platform and take a boat there. We'd have to invest in a T3 line or some form of satalite internet because I'm sure no one wants to go without internet for a couple of days. Wish they had better pictures can't tell what all that crap is around that landing pad.

caution: never write a post when you've only been awake for less than 5 minutes

[theprez98]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

The whole thing is a little bit overblown considering its basically a tiny platform.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Pirates of Sealand

their forums are an interesting place to browse... was sort of pleased with most of the comments i was seeing in the "what laws should there be" section. one person sort of stated (i'm paraphrasing) that there should chiefly be "one golden rule" of "absolutely everything is legal so long as it doesn't have a direct negative impact on someone else... and things with potential negative effects are also legal if all participating/affected parties consent"

just about the only depressing part of the forums is a thread about gun ownership... and it's only sad due to the huge number of .eu people posting. a remarkably scary commentary, actually, on the long-term social effects of pushing guns out of the mainstream. in nations where that's happened and they're treated like instruments of satan, eventually (after enough generations) people just start to naturally fear them. you get these folks here, who are talking (however facitiously) about starting their own nation, free of the constraints of others' laws and one thread is just awash in comments like "well of course there should be no guns allowed... they're too dangerous for anyone to have around, big boomsticks scare me, etc etc etc." coupled with the oh-so-popular "but there should be a big, central armory that is accessible to the 'government' in times of crisis"