

Roy Bates, Founder of Sealand, Dies at 91 - rglovejoy
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/world/europe/roy-bates-founder-of-sealand-dies-at-91.html

======
rdl
Prince Roy (and his wife Joan) are really great people -- the best of the
British in WW2, in addition to all the interesting Sealand stuff later. (I
probably met them ~5 times -- we (me, Sean Hastings, Jo Hastings, maybe Sameer
Parekh?) had tea with them in 1999 and then went forward with the
Sealand/HavenCo thing.

It didn't really amount to anything in the end (written about a lot
online...), but was an interesting experience.

I have a lot more faith in either technological solutions (cryptography, cloud
computing, threshold cryptosystems, tamper resistant devices, etc.) and in
jurisdictional arbitrage of "normal" countries than in any of the "new
countries" or even borderline countries (Somalia, Kosovo, South Sudan, etc.),
though, for being great places to host stuff. Still seems more likely to
succeed than political change in places like the US and EU, though.

------
DanBC
(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l7w1p>)

This BBC radio programme is fascinating.

> _In 1966, a former pirate radio broadcaster, Major Paddy Roy Bates, occupied
> a disused military platform in the North Sea, and moved his family aboard.
> The next year he declared it to be the sovereign Principality of Sealand,
> appointing himself Prince Roy, and his wife, a former fashion model, as
> Princess Joan. Five decades on, the Bates family still occupy the platform,
> having survived the repeated attempts by the British government to evict
> them by legal means, and having fought off attempts by rival groups to seize
> the platform by force. It's a story of coups, counter-coups, guns, petrol
> bombs, and rival groups of foreign businessmen. Jolyon Jenkins interviews
> surviving witnesses to tell the story of this real life "Passport to
> Pimlico"._

------
dmor
I am guessing they have been mostly left alone because they aren't really
doing anything with the place. What would you do with it?

~~~
rdl
Probably the best way to use a marginal state for datacenter stuff for
"difficult" content (Liberia, Somalia, etc.) would be to put a relocatable or
write-offable datacenter there (containerized stuff which could be fully
depreciated in 6mo, which is about as long as you might trust their
government...), or maybe a ship in offshore waters.

A lot easier today than back in 1999. Even places like Somalia (+Somaliland,
Puntland) have decent bandwidth for cellphone IP backhaul, so you could put a
rack or two of equipment in a van nearly anywhere, and either buy bandwidth
locally or get 10-100Mbps of satellite bandwidth (expensive and slow, true),
But, there really isn't much point.

~~~
JanezStupar
First problem is that without support of the local Sovereign (Be it state or
local warlord) in this class of states you will be robbed sooner or later.

The other problem of marginal states is that they will catch you and present
you as a token of good will to "The Empire", as soon as "The Empire" only
mentions about "investing" around 10$ MM.

I really don't understand why (some) shady people feel safe in banana
republics. Its a fact that as soon as Eye of Sauron turns towards you, you
will be betrayed and given over. Plus you have to endure many other hardships.

The other way is that you serve eg. Russia vs USA or any other permutation of
world powers, where one power keeps you in its area of influence and keeps
signaling to your adversaries that you are off limits. This enables you to
operate from where ever. Or if you become a possible diplomatic problem, your
sponsor will tell you where to go.

~~~
rdl
It's now at the point where you can stand up a datacenter for $100-200k and
provide the same cloud API to there as to anywhere else. You can then write
off that infrastructure entirely if you get raided. Obviously you don't stick
around, you have it set up by contractors who may or may not know you, etc.

As long as your content in a given country is only slightly annoying to the US
(which is really the only global power that matters; within regions, there are
other countries which are important regional powers though), it won't warrant
a $10-100mm effort to shut it down. The US isn't going to invade Somalia for
Adobe or Universal, and the Somaliland government doesn't care much for the
Transitional Government down in Mogadishu. Paying $100k/yr in local "taxes"
would make you the most fifth most profitable industry in the country (after
remittances, international aid (small to Somaliland, mainly from Islamic or
Diaspora charities), the ~4 cell providers, the airport).

------
marcamillion
Related to Ryan Bates of Railscasts fame?

~~~
rdl
No

