Friday, June 30, 2000

6/30/2000 3:17:12 PM

• HavenCo / Sealand harassment begins. By now you've heard about the grand experiment of HavenCo, who are trying to set up a data haven on a salvaged WW-II anti-aircraft platform off the southeast coast of England. The cover story of this month's Wired, by Simson Garfinkel, goes into copious detail. Wired's subtitle conveys a good idea of why the various nations of the world are not anxious to see HavenCo begin operations:

  Hunkered down on a North Sea fortress, a crew of armed cypherpunks, amped-up networking geeks, and libertarian swashbucklers is seceding from the world to pursue a revolutionary idea: an offshore, fat-pipe data haven that answers to nobody.

  The problem with data havens is that they have to connect with the rest of the world at some minimum number of points: for food, transportation, bandwidth, and the movement of money. At any of these points, the real world can make their life difficult. A TBTF Irregular just forwarded this note from an unnamed mailing list.

  I urgently need to transport _______ ___, _______ ___, and a bunch of luggage to Sealand. Britain has started turning away known HavenCo employees at the airport, so I have arranged transport by boat tonight from a port town in _______. I need a brave hearted individual with a large car or van (or the ability to rent one) to drive [the lot] to the rendezvous point this evening. HavenCo will pay all your expenses, plus some reasonable additional fee for your time. If you can help, please give me a call ASAP at +__ ___ ___ ____.

Wednesday, June 28, 2000

6/28/2000 8:30:22 AM

• Oracle admits hiring private eye against Microsoft. Last week both Wired and the Wall Street Journal published investigative pieces about an attempt to buy the trash of a Washington, DC lobbying group funded by Microsoft. This article I wrote for Media Grok gives the early background to this complicated, Watergate-like story. IGI was the investigative agency linked to the cash-for-trash scheme, and possibly other shady activities that resulted in press leaks unfavorable to Microsoft. It was not known who hired IGI.

  Today it develops that the company behind IGI's year-long campaign was Oracle. You'll need a paid subscription to follow this WSJ link. See also [NYT], [CNET]. Oracle admitted to involvement in press leaks about the Independent Institute and the National Taxpayers Union, but didn't directly admit involvement with the cash-for-trash affair directed against the Association for Competitive Technology.