From: Arun Mehta <amehta@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 20:42:51 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Offshore data havens
Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19960816093326.003053a0@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>
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At 17:30 15/08/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:

>As with offshore buoys, how long do you think such an entity would last?
>
>You mentioned Greepeace...don't forget that the French intelligence
>apparatus sunks a Greenpeace ship in a New Zealand harbor. Don't forget the
>way the U.S. mined Managua's harbor. And so on.

>Think of how any of these schemes are vulnerable to a cheap torpedo,
>"anonymously mailed" from several miles away.

There is another aspect to this: the French sinking of the
Greenpeace ship in New Zealand was arguably the best thing that
ever happened to the organisation. They certainly got lots of
publicity, new members, money... 

On the Internet, news spreads fast, so the cost of such an attack
in terms of damage to reputation would be high. Of course, if the
torpedo were truly anonymous, we wouldn't know who to blame. All
criminals attempt to commit crimes "anonymously", yet many do get caught.

>Oil rigs, buoys, pirate ships....these are all examples of hopelessly
>insecure systems. I could say more, but what's the point?

OK, suppose someone were to bury the server deep in a valley or
shaft under the water, with only an antenna sticking out (and a
supply of spare antennae that could be automatically deployed if
one got knocked out)? And, with Moore's law in operation, one
might even be able to deploy large numbers of such servers that
mirrored each other at reasonable cost. 

Once connectivity is via LEO satellites, unless those beasts are
equipped for the purpose, I suspect locating the source of
transmission will not be all that easy.

Arun Mehta Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103 amehta@cpsr.org
http://www.cerfnet.com/~amehta/  finger amehta@cerfnet.com for public key