From: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 04:39:40 +0800
To: Vincent Cate <vince@offshore.com.ai>
Subject: Re: Anguilla - A DataHaven?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.91.960814081442.12075C-100000@offshore>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.94.960816111931.24799B-100000@polaris>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Wed, 14 Aug 1996, Vincent Cate wrote:

> 
> Tim:
> > Rather, there is an "archetype," if you will, of what a "remailer" is, what
> > a "data haven" is, what a "tax shelter" is, etc. While we cannot reasonably
> > expect a remailer to exactly match the archetype, we can point out obvious
> > deficiencies.
> 
> 1)  Anguilla has secrecy laws.  Professional relationships are confidential.
>     There are strong secrecy laws.  I have not given out taxbomber's
>     name, nor will I as I could face legal action if I did.
> 
> 2)  Anguilla has no sales or income taxes.  A business does not need to
>     report anything about income, sales, etc, to the government (or anyone
>     else).  If a guy wants to sell his data and keep 100% of the profits
>     instead of 50% or 60%, then Anguilla would be a haven for him.
> 
> 3)  We don't have the same laws as other countries, so there are things
>     that can be done here.  For example, we can export encryption 
>     software.  Also, we will have bingo.com in Anguilla.
> 
> There are deficiencies from a cypherpunk or Libertarian point of view. And
> these are interesting.  And exactly what I want to do is changing. As I
> said, Anguilla is not the datahaven of cypherpunks wet dreams.  I am sure
> there are no datahavens that match the cypherpunk concept of an ideal
> datahaven, yet. 
> 
> But I think the term DataHaven applies as well to Anguilla as any other
> place I know of.  
> 
> Tim, we would all be very happy if you were to locate a country that could
> be the site of the ideal datahaven, and finance a couple cypherpunks to
> setup there.  It would be a big help to our cause.  Could you do this? 

In the way that you suggest, I would argue it is not possible.  You cannot
ever have a "DataHaven" in a single jurisdiction.  As Mr. Cate notes,
there is no jurisdiction that will fit the bill, nor do I ever expect
that one will be created.

> In the mean time, people may have to exist in cyberspace (like
> www.taxbomber.com) without having a totally secure physical location. 

The trick is to get the ISP to exist in cyberspace, or ever will it be
subject to the whim of the local authority.

This is a key and very important distinction.

> This is not the end of the world, or really even that painful.  If done
> right you could be down for only an hour - just long enough for
> nameservers to change.  Taxbomber is now setup to do it very fast next
> time, if the need ever comes.  Tim, I think you have even advocated this
> approach, not stressing the physical location, just the cyberspace
> location.  No? 

I have advocated the approach, but as applied to service providers, not
users of service providers.

>    --  Vince
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Vincent Cate   vince@offshore.com.ai  http://www.offshore.com.ai/vince/
> Offshore Information Services         http://www.offshore.com.ai/
> 
> 

--
I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist
unicorn@schloss.li