Day after day, they just keep rolling into my inbox.


loser with a small qozrip

i know it is down ci mkcnps

you have a small one ahah uatvfxihs afypt


I can't take it anymore! It's not because I'm getting spam pushing erectile disfunction pills, nor that I'm getting so much of it. It's that I can't wrap my head around this new ad tactic of taunting the prospective customer. Since when is making fun of your target audience a wise business model? It makes me wish at times that I had hacker skillz and could track down the spammers and confront them, ala the Jay and Silent Bob internet payback scene. Of course, I'd be in for some travel as so many of these operations are based in other countries. But imagine the surprise factor. Especially if you went to personally meet one of the Nigerian bank officials who need you to accept a large sum of their countrymen's money for a brief time. It would probably end badly, but still, just 'magine.

Daydreaming about this made me wonder: what's going on with HavenCo? I read about them in a fascinating WIRED article a few years ago: an internet "colocation" compay that would keep your web data safe from anyone or government who might try to confiscate it all. How would they do this?





Well, you guessed it of course; by setting up a huge phalanx of servers on a WWII-era anti-aircraft platform that's been declared a sovereign nation, duhr. The micronation in the North Sea is called Sealand, formerly known as Roughs Tower, and you can learn more about it at this website. Essentially, a free thinking fisherman named (Prince)Roy staked it out in the 60's and since it was 6 miles out at sea and out of Great Britain's domain, was able to create his own principality. Over the years he and his family have scraped barnacles off of and painted their country, and with the help of some fishing buddies (I presume) Roy once fought and captured some Dutch brigands who kidnapped his son and attempted to take Sealand by force.

Then in recent years, a young computer maverick convinced investors to help him form HavenCo, which would pay to house its operations on Sealand. On their site they make a big deal about freedom and individual rights, and of course it looks like their intended clientele is largely people hosting gambling or porn sites that need to avoid "laws". It's hard to tell from their webpages if many companies are actually using their services though, or if the whole thing is even in operation yet.

Obviously by now you're thinking as I thought: Sealand isn't a member of the U.N. or NATO or anything--it could be attacked!





Back in the WIRED article, the whiz kid, Ryan Lackey, boasted that the structure was going to be outfitted with "50-caliber heavy machine guns, 5.56-mm automatic rifles, and 12-gauge shotguns." Once you've recovered from the laughing fit of imagining programmers and techies running out to man guns, you'll then spend time thinking of affordable ways to bring that platform down. A moderate sized gunboat should be able to do it, maybe even a fishing boat with a couple of rocket launchers to lob heat at that main building on top. I assume those two foundations have rooms in them too. You could probably just sail up quietly at night without being detected, park under the thing and wire it to blow.

Now, I don't really want to bring the thing down (unless they host some really reprehensible stuff), in fact I want more of it. This is the closest thing to an evil villain's base I've seen. There must be some offshore oilrigs that have gone dry and closed that could also be exploited in this way. I'd like to think I'd have something better than shotguns for defenses. Myself, I'd go for underwater mines for handling the ocean-based attacks. Then I'd try to make any large platform guns able to swivel, aim and fire by remote control. Make the defense work like a video game, and then those geeks will be able to do some real damage.