We have recently discovered an opportunity to set up a real data haven. The target location is Sealand, the world’s smallest recognized country. (See accompanying report for complete information on the Principality of Sealand). To avoid drawing unwanted attention, we are approaching this as the start up of a simple secure collocation business with the added advantage that the customers’ servers will also be secure against legal actions. The business model has been designed such that it can continue to be a profitable venture even if larger nations manage to force some level of regulation or control over Sealand. The intent is also to use the Sealand operation as a model to demonstrate the possibilities of unregulated Internet commerce to other small countries around the world. We will then replicate the data haven to eliminate any single point of failure, and reduce the visibility of our initial site, which will very likely continue to have the best connectivity.
Funding will be secured to obtain an agreement with the Royal Family of Sealand, set up power generation, establish network connectivity to nearby first-world bandwidth, create a secure data center, and finance our marketing efforts. We will pre-sell servers during the setup phase to offset our initial costs, and offer discounted or free services to NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) that protect individual human rights, to build our reputation as “good guys”. Once we have positive cash flow, we will then recruit new personnel, and begin to duplicate the effort elsewhere.
In the model of “secure collocation facility” we will sell rack mount computers that we assemble ourselves, equipped with the customer's choice of operating system. We will then rent rack space in our secure facility, and sell bandwidth and encrypted data storage. For legal protection, and as part of our deal with Sealand, we will do business only with other Sealand anonymous companies.
We intend to offer the customer a better product in terms of physical security, and convenience. A customer with a credit card will be able to register a Sealand Company, buy a machine already in the rack, have their chosen operating system loaded on to it, and receive their access password within minutes without haggling over prices. This departure from the normal difficulties of setting up a collocated machine, combined with the additional security from legal hassles that our site offers, will make our services unmatchable by any current competition.
The cost of initial setup will very according to the funds that can be initially secured. Our target range for funding is $500,000.00, however, many individual elements of the setup could easily exceed that amount if they were as well as possible to begin with. Therefore, we propose to do the setup in several stages, each using profits or additional rounds of financing to obtain the necessary money for growth.
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HavenCo (from "Haven Co-location") exists to provide customers around the world with highly secure co-location services for their critical Internet, Intranet, and Extranet servers. This is accomplished through a combination of technical, legal, and business process innovations developed by HavenCo, as well as substantial contacts brought to HavenCo by the principals within the supplier and customer communities. Additionally, a unique opportunity, the "Sealand" offshore platform in the North Sea, located 6 nautical miles from England while repeatedly ruled by the UK to not be part of the UK, is available, promising to allow high-quality abundant bandwidth, an extra-national location, and a secure location to be brought together at a cost far below what has been otherwise possible. HavenCo is seeking investment in order to put into practice these innovations and exploit these contacts, and to further develop technical and marketing techniques within the secure co-location industry.
HavenCo is dedicated to maintaining a safe unrestricted environment for electronic commerce by providing our customers with collocation space secure against any physical threat to the privacy of their data.
Technology is constantly making the world smaller. Business of many kinds can now be done in a much larger marketplace than was previously possible. Information based business (I-biz) already has a truly global customer base, as the cost of delivering the product (bits of information) over additional distance has become increasingly negligible. Multiple government jurisdictions with varying laws make it impossible to homogeneously regulate this new global market. Each government can only regulate the businesses that have a presence in their own country. Customers in search of I-biz products or services are free to shop across the borders of their home countries in search of a jurisdiction that will supply what they demand.
This effect also reaches into the physical world, as physical goods and services in the modern world may be purchased by transactions that are simply exchanges of information. Financial services are now also iBusinesses, and it becomes very difficult to regulate even the sale of physical goods within a country when the currency which is used to purchase an item may exist only as informa tion stored in a computer on the other side of the world.
We are moving closer to a truly free society in which consenting adults can do any sort of business they want with each other. The key to ensuring that this continues to happen is to keep pushing the limits, but to push very carefully and gently. The larger a government is, the greater the threat it will perceive in losing control over its peoples’ financial lives. It will then be more likely that they will try to censor information exchange and technological progress.
These changes in the way we do business have to start with the smallest countries, where the perceived risk is lower. The larger countries have to be made to feel that they are being left behind before they will follow a course of action that will allow their citizens more personal liberty. Fortunately, the smaller the country, the easier it is to effect the necessary changes to its legal system.
Small nations, one by one, should find that it is both easy and profitable to set up the necessary legal and physical infrastructure to allow unrestricted I-biz to be conducted from inside their jurisdictions. All they need are good models to follow. HavenCo will provide the proper models, and solicit these small countries, starting with those that have the best combination of low regulation and high bandwidth.
The world’s smallest recognized nation, Sealand, has been chosen as the ideal location in which to incorporate and operate HavenCo. We will set up a situation that will allow any businesses registered in Sealand to conduct anonymous and unrestricted commerce over the Internet. We will do this by providing secure collocation services for these businesses. The data on our client’s servers will be protected by both physical and cryptographic security, ensuring that even if physical security fails, data from a stolen storage device can never be recovered by an unwanted party.
Sealand is currently interested in attracting business, but its limited territory (about 10,000 sq. ft. of usable floor space of which only half is sheltered) makes it unsuitable for most business concerns. However, this is ample space for a good Network Operations Center (NOC) and Data Center. Furthermore, Sealand is located within microwave communications range of an inhabited part of Great Britain’s coastline only 65 miles northwest of London, making good bandwidth available at very reasonable prices. It will also be fairly inexpensive to lay our own fiber from Sealand to Britain. This combination of first world bandwidth and a fourth world lack of legal restrictions makes Sealand the ideal location for free market Internet commerce, and therefore, the ideal candidate for HavenCo’s incorporation and operation.
The following objectives represent the reasonable and necessary goals for the success of the business:
Obtain an agreement from Sealand allowing continued operation of a secure collocation facility from within their sovereign territory. This agreement should be accompanied by specific amendments to Sealand’s laws, guaranteeing the freedom and privacy of information exchange, the confidential and anonymous registration of corporations, and the legal validity of digital signatures.
Set up the necessary connectivity, power, and other equipment to run a secure collocation facility in the Principality of Sealand.
Provide collocation services to at least 50 new customers in our first year of operation, avoiding the most controversial customers at first, and targeting obvious “good guys” like Human Rights Organizations that will benefit by having information stored in areas where it cannot be monitored or subpoenaed by any government. Maintain a solid exponential growth rate, doubling our number of customers every year for the first five years of operation.
Have a good publicist create a world-wide “white knight” reputation for HavenCo as champions of free expression and individual rights. Portray Sealand as the “underdog”, and “little guy” in a world of much larger nations.
Build reputation in offshore financial circles as pioneers of a great business opportunity for small but progressive nations.
Build a solid reputation with renowned security experts and libertarian circles as heroes of cryptography and the free market.
Find other like-minded talented technical people to work from our primary location, allowing for expansion to other locations.
Provide consulting services to other small nations, and set up at least one similar but separate collocation business in another jurisdiction within our first year of operation.
The market for server co-location includes numerous specialized services. For the purposes of HavenCo, these are:
Low volume, Low total cost
High volume, low per unit cost
Outsourced server management combined with co-location
Ultra-high-reliability, regardless of volume
Co-location in specific geographic locations for external reasons
Secure facilities colocation
HavenCo seeks to meet the requirements for secure facilities co-location, in regulatorily advantageous locations, with high reliability, and through partnerships with other firms as well as technical innovations, provide outsourced server management, while retaining competitive base and per-unit pricing. HavenCo does not need to be the lowest cost (base or per unit) provider in the world, nor does it need to be the highest total bandwidth provider in the world, to meet these objectives.
Specific market segments which will be targetted as ideal customers for HavenCo secure co-location are:
· Online gaming
· Electronic payments
· Corporate and personal records stored in subpoena-free jurisdiction
· Recordskeeping for businesses in a jurisdiction free of EU privacy laws
· Extranet servers
· Security and trust-critical Internet infrastructure (Certification authorities, reputation servers, etc.)
· Offshore virtual corporate support services
· ISPs and other customers which would resell resources to smaller customers, such as a secure web email provider or a secure webspace provider
Certain businesses seem unsuited for HavenCo, including pornography (due to bandwidth constraints, as well as legal issues, and the price pressure on this market), spamming (due to costs of bandwidth, and the speed with which customers will be added to the RBL on fixed addresses), and military or terrorist support against the UK government (due to contracts with Sealand).
Ground Zereau offers a wide range of co-location services to customers, starting from simply connecting your server to their bandwidth, to high security facilities with 24 hour manned guards, card access security, dual AC or DC supplies, air conditioning and humidity control. Their Eaglescliffe Logistics Centre is a secure facility with 24/7 guards. Access is controlled at the guardhouse at the entrance to Eaglescliffe Logistics Centre, and only authorised visitors will be allowed to enter. Customers will have passes which will allow entry during specified times - up to 24 hours, 7 days per week, 365 days per year.
British Telecom: 8Mbps SMDS Fibre
NTL/Comcast: NTL/Comcast have direct local and national connectivity using new fibre laid on site.
Energis: Connectivity to Energis is available as required. Energis fibre is laid at the site boundary.
RACAL BRT: Connectivity to Racal-BRT is available as required. Racal-BRT fibre is laid at the site boundary.
Cable and Wireless: Cable and Wireless have capacity as required although have not indicated where their fibre is in relation to the site.
Fibreway: Nearest node believed to be Leeds, so they are some distance away.
|
Bandwidth |
Managed Server |
Unmanaged Server |
||
|
|
Paid Monthly |
Paid Annually |
Paid Monthly |
Paid Annually |
|
64k |
$1,157 |
$11,570 |
$413 |
$4,130 |
|
128k |
$1,240 |
$12,400 |
$578 |
$5,780 |
|
256k |
$1,570 |
$15,700 |
$909 |
$9,090 |
|
512k |
$2,230 |
$22,300 |
$1,570 |
$15,700 |
|
1Mb |
$3,470 |
$34,700 |
$2,892 |
$28,920 |
$ Rates as of
1999.10.11 17:09:05 EDT 1.00
GB£ = 1.65252 US$
The ScoLocate facility in Edinburgh, Scotland is currently under development for launch November 1999. World·IXTM, Europe's first privately operated commercial Internet exchange, is launched in Edinburgh by ScoLocate Limited, the developer of a secure facilities for housing e-commerce systems and other Internet and telephony equipment.
World·IX(TM) will be housed in Scotland's first major co-location facility, providing a hub through which Internet Service Providers, telecommunications carriers and operators of e-commerce servers can easily and cost effectively connect with one another. Locating these businesses in one facility, along with telecommunications operators, maximises the efficiency of transactions and creates a competitive marketplace for their customers.
Internet Service Providers and telecommunications carriers can place within the facility mission-critical equipment for ISP connectivity, telephone switching, and e-commerce processes such as online banking, mail order processing and shopping. The site is in immediate proximity to more than half a dozen telecommunications carriers, and offers technical space for expansion to more than 50,000 square feet.
ScoLocate is co-funded by The Royal Bank of Scotland, a prospective user of the facility.
This is the only co-location facility we have found that offers online order of server co-location. Rack space for colocated servers is usually available within 48 hours from your order. Processing for colocated server service is performed during normal working hours. The costs for Colocated Server Service are:
|
Item |
|
Cost |
Current US$ |
|
Setup |
|
£850.00 |
$1,404 |
|
Annual Charge |
|
£6,100.00 |
$10,075 |
|
Sub Total |
|
£6,950.00 |
$11,480 |
|
V.A.T @ 17.5% |
|
£1,216.25 |
$2,009 |
|
Total |
|
£8,166.25 |
$13,488 |
1.00 GB£ = 1.6517 US$
Co-location with Mistral includes up to 10GB data transfer per month, and additional traffic is charged at $0.20 per MB, with a money back guarantee if they fail to deliver connectivity for a server for 99.9% in any quarter. A client can co-locate hardware either in London or New York, both of which connect to their backbone through a 100MB network connection directly into a Mistral switch.
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Offshore Information Services in Anguilla, British West Indies offers a variety of Internet packages that range from third-level domain hosting to collocation and virtual website and corporation packages. Prices range from $1000 per year for the lowest level of service, which includes an Anguillian domain ending in "*.off.ai" and 100MB of traffic per month.
For $2,000 the first year and $1,200 each subsequent year, OIS offers a Virtual Website and Corporation package. With this, a customer gets a virtual website in addition to a corporation formed in Anguilla.
Co-location of your machine on our net, 3 GB/month:
$1000/month or $8,000/year
Your own machine housed in our airconditioned room, connected to our T1
Internet connection, and fed with 110 V power. This is a full Internet node
with your own domain name. We will even provide the machine if you pay for a
year of service. Each day (or week if you wish) we will cycle backup tapes
(assuming it has a tape drive). Additional traffic after the first 3 GB each
month costs $0.30/MB.
All packages also provide for a surcharge if the client uses more than his alloted monthly bandwidth, at a rate of $0.25 per megabyte of traffic. This is considerably higher than the $0.01 per megabyte charge in the United State, $0.20 per megabyte charge in Britain or $0.01 per megabyte in Germany.
Tonga currently has only full-service ISP on the island, through the international telephony carrier, Cable and Wireless. The company that handles Top Level Domain name registration for the South Pacific island, ToNIC, has plans to add satellite Internet capabilities and build a co-location facility. This could potentially become a data haven much like HavenCo plans for Sealand. However, their bandwidth will never be as good or as cheap as in Sealand. This may be an excellent choice to approach as a second site. Trading Tonga use of Sealand’s superior bandwidth in exchange for formal recognition is an interesting possibility.
The deep sea Private Transatlantic Telecommunications (PTAT) cable to which Bermuda is connected has a diameter of 32mm at its deepest level but this diameter doubles in shallower water. Inside the cable are four pairs of fibre glass strands, each thinner than a human hair. Three of these pairs are operative and one pair is used as a spare. Each fibre is capable of carrying 5,760 simultaneous telephone conversations.
Coaxial submarine cable: 1
Cellular Services Companies: 2 (Caribbean Cellular, AirTel) Paging Services Company: 1 (Cable & Wireless)
Satellite: 1 Atlantic Ocean INTELSAT earth station Internet Node Connection: 1 (Cable & Wireless: www.candw.ag)
A state of the art submarine fibre optic cable system linking 17 Caribbean countries from the British Virgin Islands to Trinidad and Tobago, was installed in 1995. This Eastern Caribbean Fibre System is complimented by a recently upgraded Digital Eastern Caribbean Microwave System. This investment, together with a new international gateway switch, is part of an ongoing upgrading programme, which provides for high volume transmission of services.
A recent expansion programme of the Internet platform to 4 Mbps now provides exceptional bandwidth capabilities. The Internet service forms part of a Regional Internet network which is fully redundant. This, in particular, has helped to support the development of the emerging offshore electronic commerce sector.
Now you can open a line to the world's richest market with Cable & Wireless International Toll Free Service. Your advertising in North America and the United Kingdom can carry your own 800 toll free number, giving customers in the USA, Canada and the UK a big incentive to pick up the phone and do business within Antigua & Barbuda.
Our International Toll Free Service could really enhance market thrust, unlocking the sales potential of 300 million customers without the need for and office in the USA, Canada or the UK.
This section will detail all of the perceived possible risks to the success of this business. We will explain our plans to eliminate or minimize our risk during start up. We will also show that even in worst case scenarios, the effects of disaster can be dealt with, while still leaving the business as a viable concern, or at a very minimum, recouping the investment.
One risk to any business is of course a failure to attract customers. One reason for this can be that there is insufficient demand for the current supply of businesses, resulting in competition that is too tight for the existence of yet another business of the same type. We believe that there is growing demand for both the easier setup and higher security collocation services that we will provide. Furthermore, the lack of restrictions to free enterprise in our location of choice give us a unique advantage that will bring us a greater than fair share of the available market. But what if we have erred in our estimate of supply or demand?
In the event that it is found that demand has been overestimated, we are still in the position to provide novel and unique services in a marketplace which is experiencing exponential growth. It should be possible to cut back on expenses, while continuing to market our services and let demand catch up to our supply.
It is highly unlikely that any other similar business will soon find itself in a like location with access to inexpensive and plentiful bandwidth, without the encumbrance of a weighty bureaucracy. But even if several new high bandwidth, low legal restriction collocation operations came into existence during our startup phase, this might only be of benefit to us.
We would happily form partnerships with one or more of them to trade backup server space, thus making all our services more valuable. Their existence would remove many of the risks we face by being singled out as the only decent data haven, and this would allow us to move more quickly in exploring the possibilities of our market niche. The entry of multiple such business would legitimize the market, and attract further customers. Even where we did not form partnerships, many customers would independently seek to use multiple providers, and thus customer sharing among a small set of free market collocation facilities is natural, even without specific agreement.
As detailed above in the marketing plan, we can start our marketing efforts immediately, before we even have the necessary infrastructure set up. This will give us feedback as to customer demand before a large amount of the start up capital is committed. If it is found that despite all expectations, there is no demand, the project can be postponed while marketing strategy is changed, or even halted completely. See initial funding figures for a breakdown of expected first day income due to pre-sales, and how this helps to offset initial hardware costs.
Part, though not all, of the uniqueness of the service we will provide is based on our location in a very free market jurisdiction. Some degradation of our service can occur if regulations end up being imposed on us from the outside against our wishes.
In the event that we are forced to operate as a British co-location facility, general rules have been adopted by ISPs which would be wise to adhere to. The material can be broken down loosely into two types:
Material which is illegal to possess, which essentially consists of child pornography.
Material which is legal to possess but illegal or risky to publish; this comprises a whole range of things, included but not limited to:
obscene material;
material in breach of copyright;
misleading use of trademarks;
defamatory material;
certain kinds of "cracking" software.
In many cases the matter is covered by civil, rather than criminal, law; the term illegal is used indiscriminately, even when tort or contract law might apply.
We will now discuss the things that could bring about an attempt to regulate us, the most likely quarter from which such threats could originate, the tactics by which regulation could be attempted, and the strategies we will employ to avoid this problem.
Most enlightened states protect freedom of expression in some form. However, if a government is given the power to control something, it usually becomes more and more restrictive, while always claiming that it is increasing its power with the best of intentions. The arguments for the control of information flow by government are divided into three general categories. These are objections to material on Moral Grounds, Safety Concerns, and Protection of Property Rights. We will look at some of the dangerous territory that invites restriction through these arguments.
Moral objections run along the lines of “we don’t like that, so it should be illegal”. A few examples:
Heresy is the criticism of religious doctrine, or even just political correctness. Heresy threatens a way of life, by offering alternate opinions to those that are sanctioned by the state. Customers of ours who attack strong religions or philosophies will draw fire from zealot proponents of the idea the attack.
Pornography is sexual content that the state finds objectionable. Child pornography is going to be a particularly dangerous thing to be associated with.
Customers who publish material attacking an ethnic group could draw fire from members of that group.
This seems to be a moral issue, only because the endorphin rushes accompanying winning can be addictive. It also falls under the heading of Safety Concerns to some degree, as it may be felt that the average citizen should be protected from its evil lures. Gambling should probably not concern us too much, as Britain, our nearest neighbor, does not seem to find it morally objectionable.
Again, there is crossover here between moral and safety issues. Since addictive substances are not information based, their sale and distribution can not be entirely blamed on a collocation facility. Some controlled substance are not actually harmful or addictive, but organizations like the US’s FDA feel that they must protect their citizens from unsubstantiated claims of value. However, considerable political weight is behind the anti-drug movement, and it has been used as an excuse to eliminate many freedoms. It will therefore be dangerous to be associated with information sites about or markets in controlled substances.
Customers who publish information on the creation of weapons, or traffic in sales of weapons may draw unwanted attention. There has been increased negative media attention in the US to web sites that show how to make bombs or guns.
While customer safety is the main argument given for regulating financial services, the true motive may be to secure competitive advantages. It is just as fair to say that the existing financial structure regulates the government, as the other way around.
Copyright issues are going to be very important. Sealand has to date never signed any of the International Copyright and Trademark protection agreements. We believe that doing so should be considered, but that we should hold it back as a bargaining chip.
The following is a list of countries that we should be concerned with, the reasons why, and the steps that should be taken to protect our business from their interference.
Normally, a business would be most concerned with the country in which it resides. However, the government of Sealand currently consists of a single Royal Family. Prince Roy Bates, head of the family, is himself a British citizen. The nature of the deal we make with them is very important. After that, the only risk is breach of contract. We find this to be unlikely, as once we will have taken occupation of his island, we will control Sealand. Furthermore, we believe that they will be very happy with the results of HavenCo’s business there. They have a background in “pirate radio” and they seem to be free market capitalists. The idea of “pirate Internet” is very appealing to the Royal Family.
Britain has already relinquished its claim to Sealand, but if we started bothering the wrong people, they would be the most likely threat. The have already “de facto” acknowledged the Principality of Sealand, but have not given it “de jure” recognition. The difference is, that while their actions clearly indicate that they do not consider Sealand to be part of Great Britain, they have not formally entered into any sort of diplomatic relationship with it.
While the US is unlikely to come after Sealand directly, it is definitely worth consideration. While once it was a country founded on personal liberty, the US has ironically become the Nation that attempts to press its laws and regulations globally. The Internet started out in the US, and to some extent, the government does not seem to realize that it is just an extension of previously existing international communications systems, and not some new piece of property which the US owns and can regulate.
While China is incredibly controlling within its borders, it seems to care little for the outside world. If it doesn’t like something being done on Sealand, it is far more likely to try and keep its own people from accessing us, than attempting any influence over us.
The Israelis have been known to react explosively to something that they disagreed with. Islamic nations are not particularly well manned militarily, but are often linked to global terrorism. They hate each other, so it would be best to steer clear of any potentially volatile issues between these two camps.
If another country does try to regulate HavenCo, here are the likely tactics they will take:
Countries may black out our connection to the net. Britain especially will have the power to do this, as our major network connections will be through them.
International treaties require countries to pass the communications from other countries freely. If these conventions are ignored, satellite connection should be available as backup, while we pursue an arrangement with Britain through legal and diplomatic channels.
We believe that this is the most likely form of censorship that we will face if we have failed in our early efforts to avoid official notice. Britain has not attempted to enforce their laws over Sealand for over 30 years, despite well-known possession and use of firearms there.
Since Sealand can not produce its own fuel or food, a blockade against supplies could be attempted. This would be very difficult to maintain, and would be unlikely to be 100% effective. If this were attempted, it would only be done as a show of force, and should be solvable through negotiations. It would also constitute further evidence of recognition as a nation, and strengthen our case in the world court.
Even if we are invaded on Sealand, all is not lost. Legal actions can be taken, and diplomatic arrangements can be made. The worst case scenario is where Britain decides not to recognize Sealand as a country, and claims it to be part of Britain. If this occurs, we still have a contract with Roy Bates, and under British law, having held Sealand for years, he still owns it.
We can still negotiate with Britain, claiming status as a colony rather than part of England proper. Even if that fails, and we are held as part of England, under its law, we still have a very secure collocation facility, and a lot of press coverage. This has been designed to be a viable business, even if it is regulated as to the kinds of customers it could have.
We will start the operation up slowly. We are just a secure collocation facility. What could be more boring? At first we will accept business only from a select set of very normal customer businesses. We will only slowly push the limits, by taking customers of new types. Governments move very slowly, and before we are seen as a threat to anyone, we plan to have other locations in operation.
A s far as the risky customers identified above in the “Reasons for Regulation” section, we should target the gaming industry first. Britain, our greatest county of concern, has no real problem with gaming, and it is a very lucrative market. Other risk industries can be targeted as we feel safe in doing so.
Part of our plan is to immediately approach other countries in hopes of starting a second collocation site, then a third, and so on. While Sealand is likely to remain the highest bandwidth place from which we can do business freely, it will be a good model to convince other small governments to enact similar laws that are favorable to iBusiness. Part of the deals we make can include treaties which would mean formal recognition of Sealand.
Once Sealand is not the only real player in the Data Haven industry, all the risks associated with having a single point of failure vanish. Sealand will remain the first and best location for some time, but it is certainly less prone to attack if it is not the only location.
If approached by another government that does not like one of our customers, Sealand will negotiate as an equal, explaining their laws. This negotiation process will be further evidence of recognition, and if an agreement is reached, it will be in the form of a treaty. A treaty would constitute “de jure” recognition by the country in question.
If actions that are contrary to law are taken against Sealand, we will press the issue within the court system of the country in question for rulings on jurisdiction. If this fails, the world court will be petitioned.
In the end, if we attract too much attention, haven’t been able to replicate our setup to other data havens, weren’t able to effectively negotiate, have been invaded, and have lost a case in the world court, we will conform. This only means that we will still have a very secure data haven facility under the control of Great Britain. It is even likely that we could still negotiate special laws or a colony status as part of the conforming process, so we could still expect to exceed the limits of what would be allowed in England proper.
Our core business is providing physical security to hosted computer servers attached to the Internet. Therefore, a breach of our security that was publicly reported could hurt our business.
A covert security breach is unlikely to be reported. If we notice the problem, we will correct it. If we do not, it will remain unknown. It is unlikely that someone will sneak into Sealand, steal some data, and then publicly brag about it. Persons professional enough to do the job will likely stay quiet and simply exploit their successful hack.
Because our business sells physical security, it is very important that we stress the distinction between this, and online security. Since customers will own and administor their own boxes, they are free to make any sort of problems for themselves. Virtually all security breaches will be crackers attacking a box over the net. We must be sure that the first, and every subsequent time this happens, the press understands that Sealand provides physical security for computers, not security from Internet attacks.
If Sealand receives some notoriety, and rumors start that government actions will soon be taken, business will no doubt fall off for a time. Should such rumors get started, they will need to be combated with information about the length of time (30+ years) that Sealand has existed unchallenged, and all the many reasons why it is legally a country despite its small size.
Should some actual breach of security occur, and be widely reported, we must control the damage it would cause. Press releases should be ready, pointing out that once a security flaw is known, and fixed, the facility is actually now probably stronger than any competing facility that has not had its flaws revealed, and that security is a process of constantly upgrading in response to new attacks.
Presently, there are no co-location companies satisfying all of the following requirements:
Reliability - Dual power systems all the way to end-user machines, extensive multihoming, dual routers with failover, 24x7 remote administration, and redundant administrative machines.
Performance - Extensive private peering, redundant high-speed connections to multiple backbones, switched 100baseFX ethernet within the datacenter.
Heavily automated maintenance and customer support - Realtime web-accessible monitoring of all systems, viewable by the public, and secure means for ordering service, modifying configuration, or restoring from backup.
Security - Ultra-high physical security, as well as tamper-resistant cases which protect customers from malicious tampering by HavenCo itself. Biometric devices in addition to tokens and passwords to provide the highest possible protection from theft or unauthorized access to administrative systems and physical facilities.
Instant sales model - Prepurchased, preconfigured machines up and running, capable of being transferred and operational for a customer within minutes, online payment processing.
Outsourced facilities - Use of third-party facilities when possible, under low-price contracts, to avoid needing capital for construction of large fixed assets, and to avoid leaving large fixed assets at risk to any jurisdiction.
Offshore locations in extra-national jurisdictions
Offshore corporate structure - Freedom from taxation or political pressure, ability to switch to new jurisdiction in case political climate becomes unfavorable.
Centrally-maintained disk and tape resources - For the absolute in high reliability, disk space and tape backup is sold by the byte to customers, provisioned over ultra-high-speed fibrechannel storage networks connected to geographically-distributed RAID stores and tape silos.
Seamless upgrade path for high-traffic users - Realtime performance monitoring and system cloning allows saturated or malfuctioning hardware to be cloned and replaced in seconds, with information dynamically placed in DNS to allow realtime load balancing.
Value-added services to customers - Corporate formation services, voice and postal forwarding, application development and distribution, payment processing, systems administration, security monitoring.
The HavenCo sales model has several important features:
· Sale to Sealand corporations, which may be anonymous and bearer
· "Content-agnosticism", i.e. "we're just selling boxes"
· Customers own servers outright
· At worst, customer servers will be removed from production and data destroyed, rather than being turned over to authorities
· Prepayment
· Fixed prices
· Pre-installed machines to allow service provisioning upon payment
· All resources metered, to prevent "resource consumption attacks" and administrative policies to prevent such attacks to the detriment of customers
Due to the security requirements of the facility, as well as logistical issues and lengthy delay in transporting equipment to the secure facility and properly installing the equipment, HavenCo will diverge from many colocation providers by providing standard configuration hardware to customers, pre-installed in the secure facility, rather than requiring customers to purchase, transport, and install their own servers. In exceptional cases, it would be possible for customers to specify a non-standard configuration for a server, which would then be transported to HavenCo's facility and installed by HavenCo staff. However, this equipment would need to be carefully screened for security purposes, to make sure it does not pose a security threat to other machines within the facility, and the shipping delays and additional costs incurred would likely make this an unattractive option in all but the most extreme cases. Pre-installed, pre-configured machines allow customers to purchase a functioning machine and have a working server dedicated to their needs as soon as their payment clears.
In contrast to the hardware policy, users may install whatever software they desire on their servers. The HavenCo network architecture is such that one customer cannot affect another customer's quality of service, using internal firewalls and metered resources.
The initial HavenCo product line will consist of three tiers of service for servers colocated in the initial Sealand facility. These tiers allow meeting the market's requirement for relatively low-cost service while also satisfying customers with higher requirements.
At this lowest-priced secure colocation level, customers are provided with a 1U (1.75 inches of rack space) machine configured relatively robustly, with redundant network interfaces and potentially redundant power feeds. The server has an internal hard drive for storing customer data as well as the operating system, and the entire system is designed to require a minimum of intervention and support by HavenCo during the sales and operational process. One option is the use of Cobalt RaQ high-volume MIPS-based servers, with a web management interface, commonly used by server hosting providers.
Equipment at this tier is a 2U-high machine (Celeron, Pentium III, K7, or Alpha based), with a high-end configuration, dual fibre channel ports to redundant RAIDs, redundant power, redundant network
Dual redundant Compaq Alpha 21264 DS10 or other 4U high machines, high-end configuration, dual fibre channel ports to redundant RAIDs, redundant power, redundant network, active security monitoring if desired
HavenCo will offer multiple levels of service from basic collocation of a single server to … Pricing is still being researched, but a preliminary proposal is as follows:
$2500 startup including equipment, $750/month or $7500/year, internal disk for storage, 1 kbit/sec at 95% use included bandwidth.
$5000 startup including equipment, $2000/month or $20000/year, 10 GB included storage on redundant RAIDs, 128 kbit/sec included bandwidth
$10000 startup including equipment, $5000/month or $50000/year, 100GB included storage, 1mbit/sec bandwidth included
· WAN Bandwidth charges: $1.50 kbit/sec at 95% use
· Disk charges on 2 x redundant RAIDs (Fibre Channel or network access) $50/gigabyte/month
A fair bit of Sealand's security comes from the location in the North
Sea. However, there are several threats which need to be addressed.
The HavenCo/Sealand security promise is "Your Machine Will Never Be
Physically Compromised". This does
not mean prevention of denial of service (including destruction) or electronic
compromise due to user software problems. Problems that may be encountered are
summarized below.
this can be best addressed by never allowing
anyone into the most secure areas of the facility, and ensuring that at least
one staff member is behind a security barrier from any guests at any time. Guests include delivery pilots, etc. It may be possible to seal off an entire
tower of sealand from the outside world, using a heavy steel door, which would
be ideal.
maintaining a constant state of
monitoring and alert should help to prevent this, with electronic monitoring of
the area around Sealand, outside, and inside the platform, and keeping the most
sensitive areas (datacenter, NOC) permanently locked.
to some degree this can be prevented by
monitoring the area around the platform and attacking any threats, examining
any cargo loaded onto the platform, etc.
It is difficult to do well.
this would be best addressed by making
Sealand as self-sufficient as possible for basic operations (power, network)
and only yielding to a State which can subsequently be confronted in a court.
surrender followed by
legal action.
denial of service can be made more difficult
by using hardened border routers, active management, and filtering any sites
which originate attacks. Other means
are available to deal with many kinds of attacks.
The following are the major items that will require startup or ongoing expenditures:
???
???
We will need a lot of power, and it must be reliable. How much is "a
lot of power", and how reliable?
Since we need to completely build from scratch the necessary power
systems, we need to determine what our maximum requirements are likely to be.
* Datacenter small (computers, routers, etc.) (30-300 x 100-400)
(10-100KW)
* Datacenter lighting (minimal) (5KW)
* Datacenter chilling and air dehydration/desalination (use waste heat
from generation to run chillers, maybe 50KW for air handlers)
* Communications (10KW for assorted routers, ss microwave, and fiber,
unknown (200KW?) for satellite and radio)
* Radar (sea and air) (50KW?)
* Assorted hotel loads for rest of platform (50-100+KW)
* Major machinery (winches, machine tools, etc.) (50-100+KW)
* "Anti-air equipment" (0-500KW)
Datacenter small, communications must be run at 100% uptime, dual
redundant feeds, and cannot be shed.
Chilling/air handling can be shed for 2-8 hours, depending on volume of
chilled area.
Heavy equipment, radar, hotel, anti-air, etc. could be shed for 2-3 day
stretches periodically.
The cost to retain staff at the facility is high, and for long periods of
time it is difficult to bring or remove heavy equipment from the site, due to
seasonal rough waters. Current staff
would be 1-3 NOC/operations personnel who, while technical, will not likely
have specific power maintenance skills.
However, given real-time video teleconferencing to shore, it should be
possible for onshore-aided diagnostics and minor repairs to be conducted by
these personnel.
Due to the location, access to fuel without national taxes should be
possible, lowering the price of fuel substantially. However, a 6 month supply should be stored onsite, due to
difficulty scheduling refueling.
1.2 MW turbine uses 15 m BTU/h.
Number 2 fuel oil has 140 000 BTU/gallon. 15 MBTU/h is 107 gal/hour.
12.5 KW/gallon.
10826 BTU/KW
NY spot fuel prices are about $21-25/gallon, or $0.62/gallon. We would presumably want to hedge our fuel
purchases; this is a standard technique to control future risk by using the
futures markets.
$66/hour
$0.05/KWh for fuel for turbine
$0.06/KWh for Diesel reciprocating engine fuel
$0.03/KWh for fuel cell fuel
The fundamental choices are 120/240/480 AC vs. -48v DC for datacenter,
using non-electricic (waste heat) to power larger equipment such as chillers, a
unified system vs. separate systems for critical and non-critical loads, and
which of several generation options to employ.
Pricing for each kind of generator is exclusive of additional switchgear,
conditioning equipment, etc. Datacenter
AC supply, if run through a AC-DC-AC double-conversion UPS or UPSes, will need
to be oversized 1.5-3x with respect to the final load. -48vdc power, or clean AC which required only momentary switchover
protection, would not need to be oversized.(generators in the 500KW range
produce near sine-wave output relative to smaller gasoline or diesel backup
generators)
For comparison, in most competing jurisdiction, power is very expensive.
Anguilla, for instance, uses an array of 1MW Diesel generators and a poorly
maintained distribution network, and charges US $0.25/KWh. The world minimum for electrical power is
probably Iceland, where industrial power is available for approximately US$
0.01/KWh due to naturally-occuring geothermal sources.
The PC-25 is a 200,000 watt phosphoric acid fuel cell from ONSI. It lists
for $600,000, but discounts are available to lower costs to $200-400,000. It has exceedingly high reliability, and
very low maintenance requirements. It
is available in a pre-configured trailer configuration, suitable for mounting
on the superstructure of Sealand.
The PC-25 produces DC power internally, so it may be possible to purchase
a -48vdc version from the manufacturer.
This would greatly increase efficiency (20%?) over an AC to DC
reconversion. This will run from any hydrocarbon fuel, including the various
fuel oils, natural gas, etc. At $600,000 for 200 KW (conservative estimate),
this will cost $300 KW to install. Costs for generated power, assuming a 5 year
lifetime, are $0.10 per KWh.
A gas turbine, in this case, is a high-bypass turbine with 30-60 second
time from stopped to developing full power.
These are high reliability, although some maintenance is highly
specialized, especially in the case of catastrophic failure. These are compact, lightweight, and can
produce between 50 KW and 100 MW of power depending on size. The most suitably sized turbines are in the
500KW to 2 MW range.
Costs for generated power are $0.06 KW/h.
This is assumed to be a continuous-duty marine or industrial Diesel, a
heavy device roughly 4x derated from a truck engine, from any of a variety of
manufacturers. Since 1HP of shaft
horsepower equals approximately 500W of delivered electrical power, a 500KW
Diesel is a substantial engine, roughly equivalent to a "4000HP truck
engine". Diesels have
comparatively high maintenance requirements, and much of the work is physically
demanding, but is technically simple to perform. Diesels are commonly used for power
generation in the sub-1MW size, and are common on offshore platforms, ships,
trucks, etc.
Costs for generated power are $0.05/KWh.
For AC power systems, all power sources which may possibly be connected,
or whose output equipment may have any electrical interconnection, must be on
the same ground (easy) and same phase (harder).
UPSes are available to provide 30 seconds to 24+ hours of backup. Major technologies are battery or rotational
kinetic energy. Costs in the 50KW range
are roughly $2/W/h of backup (a very rough figure), and havesome maintenance
requirements, take up a lot of space, and the batteries must be replaced every
3-5 years (does not apply to rotational systems). As a result, it is rarely
worthwhile to rely on long battery runtimes, but rather to use UPSes to switch
among other power sources.
Given sufficient funding, the most reasonable option appears to be:
* 2 x 150% sized gas turbines, equipped to run from a variety of fuels,
with 2-4 fuel storage tanks containing 6 month supply at 75% dual load. These would generate AC power, run through
switchgear and used to feed a variety of heavy equipment. Additionally, these would be fitted with
high-grade heat to allow waste heat to be used by chillers.
* 2 x chillers matched to waste heat output from generators (or larger),
used to provide chilled water to cool the datacenter.
* 2 x large battery (or potentially rotational, but preferably battery
for simplicity) UPSes, equipped to back up datacenter critical loads in a
redundant, 150% oversized fashion. If
these are expandable with additional modules, it would be ideal. Backup time should cover at least switchover
between the two generators, and preferably allow a safety margin. However, it would be infeasible to provide
sufficient backup to allow major repairs or replacement of onsite generator,
unless a mobile generator mounted on a helicopter were available. Consequently, as little as 30 minutes of
battery may be sufficient.
* 200KW ONSI PC-25 fuel cell power source, with feeds both into the main
grid and directly to datacenter. These
are ultra high reliability and low maintenance, but $400-600k per unit.
As above, but drop the large additional expense of the Fuel Cell.
If power loads are low, and maintenance is considered a major issue, a
power system could be constructed using multiple PC-25 fuel cells. This would greatly simplify matters, but has
a high per-megawatt cost relative to other options. A UPS would only be needed to cover switchover time between the
PC-25 and alternative source of power (other PC-25 in a PC-25 dedicated system)
One option is to power the datacenter primarily from a fuel cell, and use
a gas turbine as a secondary for general platform loads, as well as backup for
the datacenter. Perhaps 10% of the
power of the fuel cell could be used to run general platform loads as well, so
the turbine would only need to be powered on for major work.
A Diesel secondary rather than a turbine is another option.
If gas turbines are excessively expensive, large diesel generators would
be possible. However, maintenance and
reliability issues for large diesels in a maritime environment are severe, and
would require additional measures (extra staff?) for periodic maintenance. Additionally, the battery array for the data
center would need to be oversized to allow for minor repairs to be made and
possible down time of all power generation.
Sealand is only 6 miles off the coast of England. It might be possible to run an undersea power cable from a land based power source to our site. This should probably not be done until we are confident that no attempt will be made by Britain to try to extend its regulations to us by denying its recognition of Sealand’s sovereignty. While specific treaties cover the forwarding of communications, we have been able to find no such principals applying to power, so power could pretty much be shut off at the governments whim, with no recourse to any legal action. Furthermore, the use of British power could be used as grounds to demonstrate that we are part of Britain proper.
The network connection is the key to being able to do business. The minimum projected cost is that of establishing a single microwave link to the shore. The maximum is the projected cost for two separate fiber lines with microwave backup. We will also explore the possibility of satellite bandwidth for backup.
External connectivity should be redundant, and should be at minimum two
E1 connections, or 4mbps total. The major expenses of the network connection
are the following:
$20,000 Class B "swamp" space,
one-time payment
65,000 network addresses which can be allocated
to customers
$1,000/mo. Equipment in
co-location in London at London Telehouse
$40,000 2 high end routers, Cisco 7000 or
better at $20,000 each
$ ??? High-speed connectivity between London and Sealand
DS3 to OC12 in speed (45 to 622 mbps)
* In London itself, bandwidth (transit) can be
had for $300-600/month/mbps, and peering should be possible with many providers
(peered traffic is free).
, 65 miles overland
- Fiber from British Telecom (BT)
- Winstar microwave relay
- Purchase using UK telecomms license to get
lowest tarriff, various friendly companies have these licenses
$55-70,000
7.1.3.3.1.3.1 Wireless
Dedicated licensed microwave ($20,000 for up to OC3)
License-free spread-spectrum RF ($5-20,000 for up to 55 mbps)
7.1.3.3.1.3.2 Fiber
Flexistow to Sealand is
6 miles by sea. Fiber costs ($1/foot x 20,000 feet, plus $5,000 per end,
gigabit+ speed)
7.1.3.3.1.3.3
($15,000/month/1.5mbps for large footprint,
or per-megabyte using a VSAT terminal up to 1 mbps. High bandwidth like 45 mbps is relatively expensive, but cheaper
per bit, and uses about $50-100,000 in equipment.
Running a cable from Sealand to Amsterdam is also possible but would cost
on the order of $20,000,000. However,
capacity on this cable could be resold on the open market as well, and may be
cost-effective in the long run.
Alternatively, If a large communications provider were laying such a cable anyway, we might be able to convince them to run it through Sealand.
The datacenter itself requires:
* Cable management (trays or raised floor)
* Air circulation
* 19" racks for equipment (customer computers, routers, disk
storage, networking equipment, etc.)
* Cooling
* Power distribution
* Security/access control
* RF shielding
Given a 22.5' diameter circular room, an ideal configuration is placing
the tallest possible racks around the outside of the room, set 3' from the
outside.
Racks can be either open relay style or cabinets. Racks can optionally have locking doors and
can be RF shielded. These cost anywhere
from $200 each to $5 000 each.
The room itself should be shielded with 8 or 10 ga continuously-welded
steel for RF shielding, with a double door (each shielded), preferably with one
door at a 90' angle to the other, and a high security vault-style door (or at
least steel security door) for access control, with biometric and other
authentication.
Cable management via trays is easiest.
A full floorplan showing wiring, air handlers and air circulation, etc.
is needed.
What we need to do is provide customers with high-quality storage. We have a farm of machines with internal
flash boot devices (4mb), which then mount a section of a fibrechannel storage
array (encrypted except in RAM on the machines).
We need to provide customers with a way to back up their storage
automatically, restore from backup automatically, and potentially send/receive
offsite backup as well.
The actual storage is standard SDRAM in the processor nodes. Then, dual mirrored RAID 5 disk silos with
~1 TB of storage each to start, and then some kind of backup. Options for backup seem to be WORM (cd-r being
ideal for ease of replacement in the future...CD-ROM will be around for a
*long* time relative to any other standard) or a DLT autochanger.
One of the main goals is that the 3 onsite facility staff will be doing
as little work as possible, as far as routine disk-swapping, etc.
One other thing we could potentially do is migrate things from disk onto
optical disk for near-line access if they are not routinely used; this would
either require an automatic HSM like Veritas or we could just
charge customers different rates for online vs. near-line storage so they
have an incentive to move things.
A DLT autochanger has the lowest cost per GB for offline backup or other
true backup, but isn't really suited to near-line access. CD-R has the advantage that data is never
overwritten, so all versions of every document are available. We'd need to add this to the security model
-- there's no way to delete a document once it is committed to CD-R (we could
destroy a disc, but that would be complicated, and users would need to trust
us).
The ideal storage architecture seems to be:
|
High-end Node |
Low-end Node |
|
Fibrechannel |
100 base FX |
|
RAID5 stack |
RAID5 stack |
|
CD-R jukebox (nearline) |
CD-R jukebox (nearline) |
|
DLT silo |
DLT silo |
Both stacks would mirror each other, so one device at each level could
fail without the users noticing. For
offsite backup, we could spit out large numbers of DLTs and then securely
transport them offsite, or do CD-R, or both.
These would go to a secure offsite location en masse (for backups we do)
or would be shipped to individual customers.
We probably thus need a combination of sealed DLT jukeboxes, sealed CD-R
jukeboxes, and "output" DLT and CD-Rs. It is essential that the "sealed" devices not require
any interaction, since they are near-line, and if the "output"
devices didn't require much interaction other than loading/unloading, that
would be ideal as well.
Unless the software commercially available does 100% of what we need,
we're probably better off writing management software completely from scratch
to allow customers to securely manage their disk partitions, etc. over the web
with SSL.
If we're doing versioning, the ability to rewrite DLT isn't really an
advantage -- we'd use each tape once.
If we could eliminate tape entirely and just go 100% CD-R it might
simplify things. However, since CD-R
can only write at 1.2 MByte/sec per drive, and DLT can do 5 MB/sec native, and
DLT can hold about 53 per cartridge more than CD, a CD-R system would have some
disadvantages over DLT. To back up a 1
TB drive silo would take 11 drive-days and 2 000 CD-Rs.
A DLT7000 archive would take about 3 days per drive to back up a
terabyte, and about 30 tapes.
However, DLT drives cost about 10x more than a good CD-R ($3500 vs.
$300), and DLT tapes are about 30x more than a CD-R. It might be to our advantage to have dedicated sets of CD-Rs per
customer, rather than just backing up a drive array linearly.
We can fairly easily parallelize the backups by just buying multiple
jukeboxes with multiple CD-Rs per jukebox.
The cost of robotics seems to be substantial but not necessarily
insurmountable. DLT autochangers in the
8-10 cart range are almost commodity, as are CD-R jukeboxes in the 200 disc
range. Our drive arrays can output at
gigabits per second, so bandwidth to the backup arrays won't be a problem.
We should try to figure out what the actual customer requirements are for
online storage, near-line storage with versioning, and real archival offline
offsite backup, and pick a storage system accordingly. Most likely, customers will be very happy
with near-line CD-R backup to 2 independent RAIDs onsite. Offsite backup may be met with WAN
transmission of data in many cases to other datacenters. For true offsite physical media transport,
transportation costs will probably subsume media costs, so we should go for
something with the most compact possible output which can still be widely read.
Density: DLT
Availability worldwide: CD-ROM
Speed/$: tie
Long-term stability of media: CD-ROM
I'd probably say we should go 100% CD-ROM for both nearline and offline,
unless space/cost of robotics for the greater number of CD-ROMs needed is
substantially greater than for the DLTs.
Cost per GB:
Battery-backed up RAM-buffered flash secure device $5000/GB
SDRAM in processor nodes $500/GB
Cheap 7200rpm IDE disk with PC controller on 100baseFX: $10/GB
RAID 5 Fibre Channel 10000rpm seagate disk with controllers: $50-100/GB
DLT jukebox (assuming tape not removed): $70/GB
CD-R jukebox (with static discs) $50/GB
Offline CD-R (media only) $01/GB
Offline DLT (media only) $01/GB
Storage space for 50 CD-Rs or 4 DLT is $200/year in a Swiss vault, and
transport costs per shipment are approximately $5000 for up to 100 units by
secure courier or $100 per 2 units by FedEx.
I'd probably go ahead and put 1-4 GB of SDRAM in each customer node, to
be used as ramdisk. However, if a
machien crashes, this brings down the ramdisk, so they need to back up their
transactions to more permanent store like the RAIDs.
High-end customers can connect to the RAIDs via fibrechannel directly.
This is about a $300 card with dual ports; they may need two cards for true
redundancy.
Low-end customers can connect over 100baseFX, the same network
connections they use for TCP/IP, to frontend machines with fibrechannel
interfaces. This has no incremental
cost.
The storage servers need to "ACK" data as it is written to
fibrechannel disk. It's unclear how
current SAN disk arrays work in that regard.
In the worst case, all read/writes could be fed through a frontend
machine. Ideally, a cryptographic ACK using a (keyed?) hash would be done.
For the SAN itself, the best vendor appears to be TrueSAN. They are cheaper than EMC and are fully
fibre-channel based. They also are
interested in getting encrypting drivers for the qlogic fibrechannel card.
The equipment needed is:
per high-end machine: 1 or 2 $300 fibrechannel cards
cabling
switches or hubs (driven by bandwidth), per port costs of $300-1000
RAID frames (10-20k per 10 drives?)
controllers ($50k per 10 frames?)
36gb Seagate Cheetah Fibrechannel drives (IBM 10000rpm drives may also be
an option) ($1500 each)
For low-end storage, it may also be worth offering regular x86 PCs with
4-8 x 34gb IBM 7200rpm IDE drives in RAID 5 configuration. This would have the lowest cost per GB of
online storage, somewhere between $10 and $20, but would only have 20-40 MB/sec
output speeds.
In a marine environment, the important things are 1) dehumidify, 2) cool,
and 3) keep corrosive salt out of the machine room. The power generation
equipment will generate a fair amount of heat and also require exhaust.
For the machine room, the best solution is to have redundant
chilled-water fed chillers with electric fans.
As for capacity, sizing the chillers to maintain a room at 65 degrees
farenheit when the room is at full load during maximum summer temperature would
make sense.
Liquid water circulation for cooling would be ideal as it takes up the
least space for high-power cooling.
Some kind of dehumidification and de-salination will also be needed for
air. External air intake run through filters maintaining positive pressure in
the machine room would be ideal.
For administration of the network, a workspace is needed with:
* small hardware lab to assemble/repair equipment
* machines to display system status for all systems, computers, power
generation, security monitoring, etc.
* etc.
Ideally, this information would all be in a form where a laptop with
Internet connection could access it from anywhere in the world. A NOC designed for impressing customers
would be useful, however, possibly with a large projection screen, nice desks,
etc.
Personnel will need to be able to take RR in England on a regular basis,
and these trips will coincide with the necessary movement of consumable goods.
helicopter, $1000-2000/trip, 500-1000 pounds
capacity
* Rental heavy-lift cargo helicopter, up to 15 000 pounds capacity,
probably up to $5-10k per trip
light helicopter, $100k plus 100 hours of
flight training time per pilot, 500 pounds lift capacity or 1 pas senger plus
pilot
fishing/cargo boat, maybe $500 per trip?
$50-100k for small boat
plus $200/trip in fuel and maintenance, plus storage, etc.
Equipment could be shipped commercially to UK or Amsterdam, then
transferred internationally without paying EU vat or UK taxes to light
transport. This is tricky with certain
sensitive cargo.
Alternately, an ocean-going ship could be chartered or purchased to
deliver cargo from the US directly to Sealand.
It is approximately a 10 day one-way trip from the east coast of the US
to Sealand.
A ship would also be useful for eventually laying cables to the UK shore or possibly even to Amsterdam.
To maintain service, there should be 2-3 people onsite, minimum, so there
can be someone available at any time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to handle
onsite issues.
Outside technical assistance to deal with major equipment problems
(generators, turbines, etc.) would be possible, as well as routing
configuration.
It should also be possible for the majority of customer interactions to be automated -- rebooting machines, ordering new machines, reinstalling operating systems, restoring from backup, etc. This staff will have to perform the following functions:
Security: ensuring that no unauthorized persons enter Sealand
Network Administration: maintenance of all computers and networks
others?
For legal reasons, all actual employees of HavenCo will claim legal residence in Sealand for the term of their employment. This unfortunately means that they will have to spend a good deal of their time confined to a very small territory. Fortunately, the idealistic nature of the project should allow us to find competent personnel who are willing to pt up with some initial hardship.
The following people have already agreed to staff the first 6 months of start-up:
Resume
Resume
The following people have expressed an interest in working on this project and may be available for work sometime during the first two years of operation.
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???
???
???
???
|
Start-Up |
Best |
Minimum |
|
Network
Connection |
75,000 |
20,000 |
|
Power
Generation |
50,000 |
25,000 |
|
Air-conditioning |
20,000 |
20,000 |
|
Computer
Hardware |
100,000 |
0 |
|
Transportation |
50,000 |
5,000 |
|
NOC
Setup |
30,000 |
10,000 |
|
Data
center Setup |
50,000 |
20,000 |
|
Security
Equipment |
20,000 |
0 |
|
Marketing |
10,000 |
1,000 |
|
Administrative/Legal |
10,000 |
2,500 |
|
Soverignty
Deposit |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Totals |
415,000 |
100,000 |
|
On-Going (weekly) |
Best |
Minimum |
|
Staff |
6,000 |
0 |
|
Power |
1,500 |
1,500 |
|
Food/Housekeeping |
1,000 |
500 |
|
Bandwidth |
2,000 |
500 |
|
Maintenance |
2,000 |
500 |
|
Auxiliary Communications |
500 |
100 |
|
Marketing |
1,000 |
0 |
|
Transportation |
1,500 |
500 |
|
Lease Costs |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Weekly Totals |
15,500 |
3,600 |
|
Yearly Totals |
806,000 |
187,200 |
The corporate structure of HavenCo will be a Sealand-based company. Since we will be closely involved in setting up the rules for incorporation in the Principality of Sealand, we will naturally make company registration anonymous and have ownership of shares based upon digital tokens. All operations of HavenCo will take place from our Sealand headquarters. Any needs that require mainland office or storage space will be outsourced to some other corporate entity. This will ensure that no person or agency can try to pin us down as having a corporate presence in any other jurisdiction.
We will only do business with other Sealand Companies (until such time as we can get other countries offer similar incorporation). We will of course offer Sealand incorporation as part of our standard package. This will ensure that the equipment we host is not owned by any foreign company and that all legal matters fall only under Sealand jurisdiction. To guard against the possibility that Britain repossesses Sealand, a second British corporate structure will be implemented. Contracts between Roy Bates and this entity will give us recourse to the British court system, should we need it.
There are any number of spin off businesses or strategic partnerships with existing businesses that we can make. These fall into three major categories – Customer support related sub-businesses, Government of Sealand owned businesses, and unrelated businesses that operate from HavenCo servers that we might want to do ourselves:
This can be computer, technical, telephone operator or secretarial support that ensures that other jurisdictions will recognize that Sealand businesses are in fact operating out of Sealand.
Here is a list of some of the busineses that we ca expect customers to run. We can also create our own businesses of these types, and once we have the software, we can offer turn-key setups to customers that want to do this type of business.
There are currently over 200 unique Internet casinos in existence, with many of those operating multiple casino websites. While this type of business is legal in over 25 nations worldwide, there are other nations such as the United States that seek to eradicate this type of business completely from the Internet.
On August 20 1999, British Columbia's Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit raided the offices of Starnet Communications, one of the leading players in the online gaming industry. Through a subsidiary, Starnet provides interactive gaming software for numerous Internet casinos from servers on the Caribbean island of Antigua. Starnet's original business was the operation of pornographic Internet sites. It is in the process of selling off that segment of its business in order to concentrate on online gaming.
British Columbia's CLEU made claims of illegal gambling and pornography, and two corporate bank accounts in their headquarter city of Vancouver, BC were frozen. However, official charges against Starnet have never been made. Even so, this crackdown was the direct cause of the company's stock to decline by two-thirds. Canada does not permit gambling servers to be located within their borders, although there is no written policy prohibiting Internet gaming corporations. Despite this, they raided the business of a company that holds a legitimate gaming license with no cause of complaints from Antigua, the server host country.
Increasingly, the United States and governments closely tied to it are putting pressure on operators of this legitimate business. Many companies do not even accept wagers from citizens where they are incorporated, in order to placate their respective governments. This does not stop them from being harassed by the very same governments they are trying to appease. As Great Britain has a long history of legalized gambling, they are not likely to complain if Internet gaming operators flock to Sealand, which given the current insecurity in the business, they probably will.
The success of offshore sportsbooks accepting wagers by telephone gave rise to the growth and rapid expansion of the Internet gambling business. As countries like the US put increased pressure on small nations that receive substantial foreign aid or tourists from the US, telephone-operated sportsbooks will become a thing of the past. However, since Sealand will be receiving neither, it will be free to accept automated or Internet sports wagering from the existing companies that the US is trying to intimidate out of existence.
This market has proven to be one that will quickly expand to fill the supply, which is typically limited by government regulations. As Sealand becomes available for hosting sports wagering data in a secure manner, new and existing bookmakers will want to take advantage of the opportunity.
As government budgets become further stretched, they seek opportunities for new revenue. Many turn to state-sanctioned lottery, bingo or keno games, which is seen by many in the western world as the most acceptable form of gambling. Sealand can provide the gaming servers for nations and corporations alike seeking to market these types of games over the Internet. The high level of security provided at Sealand will make these games more attractive to players, giving the host companies a market advantage.
Many corporations in many jurisdictions will benefit from the storage of physically secure data in a location immune from court orders.
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While content of a sexual nature is highly regulated by many governments, this is probably an area where we will not want to actively court business. There are other nations that already host most of this type of content quite legally, and it is a very high bandwidth requirement business. This market should probably only be targeted farther down the road.
NGOs should be given server space at reduced rates, and in some cases for free. These customers are vital to our showing that we provide a legitimate and necessary role in the world by providing protection of innocent individuals from out of control governments.
Amnesty International is a worldwide human rights organization that works to promote human rights as typified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was ratified in the United Nations, and other international standards. They have members and initiatives in 162 nations and territories worldwide, and employ targeted campaigns to achieve their goals. Since they often put pressure on various governments to implement human rights policies, it is imperative that their data and communications be protected from those governments who may be unwilling to protect their citizens' basic rights. Because of the importance of their work, we at HavenCo intend to offer secure collocation to Amnesty International at greatly discounted rates.
The EFF protects rights and promotes freedom in the electronic frontier. They began the blue ribbon campaign, in which they request that interested parties place a blue ribbon graphic on their websites to show support for the essential human right of free speech, "a fundamental building block of free society , affirmed by the U.S. Bill of Rights in 1791, and by the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in 1948." The blue ribbon has since become ubiquitous websites everywhere, and the EFF site very quickly became one of the top four linked-to sites on the web. This very effective campaign spun off countless similar "ribbon" campaigns of every other color, where individuals tried to raise awareness for their own organizations using the EFF blue ribbon model.
The organization has matured to a level where they can rely primarily on lawyers to press their cases to governments instead of the more grass-roots approach. They are currently involved in campaigns against the US government for free speech issues, the Chinese government for imprisoning online democracy activists, the Australian government for passing Internet censorship legislation, and many other countries. HavenCo also plans to extend a discount to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for secure collation services.
The CryptoRights Foundation is a relatively newcomer to the electronic privacy sphere. They are a non-profit organization founded in March 1998 which is dedicated to promoting: (1) the use of electronic security tools to protect human rights workers, (2) protections for privacy rights on the Internet, and (3) continuing freedom for international cryptology researchers.
Because of the sensitive nature of the data that the CRF houses, it is imperative that they have a high degree of security for their data. The CRF and any scientists engaging in the research and development of cryptography tools will be able to use Sealand servers as a home for data that may otherwise be deemed illegal to publish by various governments that are signatories to the 1999 Wassenaar Arrangement.
Among the CRF's proposed projects are the following:
A conference for Cryptography and the International Protection of Human Rights (CIPHR);
The operation of a trusted security resource center for human rights organizations and fieldworkers on the web (including certificate server and anonymity services);
Educational opportunities for human rights and cryptography professionals;
Security consulting services for the grassroots human rights community.
There are a wide variety of Non-Governmenal Organizations that will want to use HavenCo facilities on Sealand to protect data they use to put political pressure on governments. These include, but are not limited to, Human Rights Watch, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, Internet Free Expression Alliance, the Open Society Insitute (Soros Foundation), and the Coalition for International Justice.