A
libertarian's (and
thief's)
paradise. The
bastion of
free speech. A system that
people and
organizations can use to
store and
exchange information, in complete
privacy (and
secrecy, if reasonable
encryption algorithms are used), without the fear of
governments intervening through
subpoenas,
taxes and
censorship. Hosted in a country with a
legal system much more lax than the ones of most
industrialized countries, or one with
no legal system at all.
This sounds like an excerpt from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, except that it's not. This one's for real. HavenCo (www.havenco.com) opens tomorrow, in Sealand, a former British WWII fortress located off the eastern coast of England. From a New York Times article: "... a self-proclaimed prince, Roy Bates, an eccentric retired British army major ... in 1968 briefly gained notoriety when he landed at the abandoned fortress and declared it a sovereign nation -- the Principality of Sealand -- outside the reach of British law."
According to their website, they will even offer free colocation to organization with worthy causes, such as Tibet Online. (Sorry, DMan)