More information would be appreciated on Havenco,
reported on by John Markoff in today's New York Times.
It is a project to set up an off-shore data haven on Sealand,
a former anti-aircraft structure six miles off the coast of
England which declared itself a sovereign nation a few
years back. Havenco's founders are said to be "loosely
associated with a movement of American computer mavens
known as 'cypherpunks,' a largely libertarian group
espousing the idea that advanced computer encryption
techniques can create electronic privacy and provide
freedom from potential government Big Brothers."
Sean Hastings is named as the CEO and co-founder
of Havenco. Havenco founders "are hoping that the
installation, connected to the Internet by high-speed
microwave and satellite links, will become a refuge from
governments increasingly trying to tame and regulate
the Internet."
Legal experts, most ex-gov, doubt the venture will escape
government intervention; one said, "the flaw in the Havenco
plan was that cyberspace markets must still have points of
contact with the world's conventional economies." The failure
of a similar effort in Anguilla is noted.
A photo of the outlaw platform is shown. It appears to this
eye a prize-winning piece of architecture, unimproved by
horrified professionals who would intervene to make it
safe and pretty as if Martha Stewart was not hiding billions
there.
