At 4:54 PM -0400 6/8/00, Dr. Joe Baptista wrote:
>On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, David Honig wrote:
>
>> Not having the King in control of the
>> island is good, as Baptista says, because law changes every time a judge
>> (or king) farts.
>
>Exactly. I'm watching the Sealand thing very closely. I have a personal
>vested interest in it's success - called freedom of information.
>
>> Maybe the single-point-of-failure can be addressed by getting other
>> Sovereigns to set up
>> data havens. A distributed island data network. Tonga has more than a
>> cute TLD: it has
>> its sovereignty. Similarly Anguilla. That's a lot of islands to nuke. HM
>> Roy might
>> show others how to live independently.
>
>Exactly - for the last two years I've discussed the concept of datahaven
>with Richard Sexton. It requires a certain legislative framework - i.e. a
>computer systems - it's associated networks etc. etc. are imune and
>protected from tampering and interference by the state.
Not gonna happen. There will never be any "legislative framework" such as this.
Every state/jurisdiction has its thoughtcrimes...child porn,
anti-Islamic literature, Nazi memorabilia and screeds, snuff films,
money laundering, amphetamine recipes, libel, and so on. The list is
long.
The United States bans many of these, regardless of the First
Amendment. (And the Supreme Court has of course upheld some of these
bans. Obscenity laws, for example. The upcoming ban on bomb
instructions, methamphetamine recipes, drug advocacy, pace Feinstein,
Hatch, et. al., have not yet been tested in the courts.)
Most European countries ban some of this material. Ditto for Canada,
which has onerous laws about hate speech. Canada also practices prior
restraint on news, pace the Homolka/Teale case. (Canada is an
interesting case to consider because of the single point of failure,
as currently set up, for ZKS's Freedom Network.)
It's hopeless to expect any kind of "hands off" policy.
Any data haven with an identifiable nexus of control, financial or
physical, will face the wrath of one or more governments. How quickly
depends on the nature of the materials and the anger and will of the
offended parties. Relatively minor data haven thought crimes, like
hosting MP3 files in the wake of upcoming legal actions, may not even
be bothered for months or years.
A site which hosts material on how to make drugs, bombs, etc., may or
may not be shut down. Depending on the laws and court decisions.
Muslims who planned to kill Salman Rushdie may react with more than
just legal challenges were a site to go beyond "The Satanic Verses,"
for example. Those same hit teams that Britain guarded Rushdie
against will be deployed to stop underwater saboteurs of Sealand?
Doubtful.
(So, the question as always for those who act as "hosts," with
identifiable nexuses or nexi of control is this: What will they
allow? Morphed images of the Prophet Muhammed screwing a goat?
Digitized sound files of Jews dying in the showers? EZ instructions
on how to derail trains? JPEGs of toddlers being raped? If they say
"anything goes," then of course some people will post such images
simply to test the system. Then the fireworks will begin.)
Which thought crimes Britain has on the books--or de facto thought
crimes if not de jure--will determine how quickly they move to
restrict Sealand.
Underwater demolition teams are another matter.
>That's the first
>key - a law to keep the governing authority from violating data integrety
>in any way. The usual laws to keep others from tampering with data
>integrety - etc. etc. It would be a practical twist for the governing
>authority to declare cyberspace an independent territory - but that's
>another argument.
Sorry to be blunt, Joe, but this is a terribly naive line of
thinking. We used to debate this a number of years ago, but the
notion of a "Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace" is just
plain naive.
Authority coming out of the barrel of a gun and all. A country can
fight a war for independence and then, with some effort and good
geography, keep its independence.
Is there any hope? Yes, but not by "sitting ducks" declaring
themselves to be "independent nations" or "data havens."
Trust in the laws of mathematics, not the laws of men.
An old issue around these parts.
>
>I don't know how sucessfull sealand is going to be. But it will serve the
>purpose of showing existing government authorities who maintain bank
>secrecy laws another means of making revenue. And you can make more
>revenue in data then you can financially.
>
>I say - three cheers for sealand and the concept - hip hip hurray.
>
The concept has been around for a long, long time, too.
Friends of mine were involved in the Minerva project in the early
70s, and that was hardly the first attempt to set up a libertarian
nation cum data haven. Several other efforts have been described.
Bruce Sterling popularized the notion with "Islands in the Net,"
circa 1988, but the ideas were even then commonplace.
The new version of Sealand has some undeniably interesting aspects,
and I wish them all well.
My point is that it's a fantasy to think they'll be immune from laws.
Lessig is right about the there be three legs to the law.
We'll see how many legs the Sealand tripod has after a few years.
--Tim May
--
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
