The Security of Sealand v.s. NSA

      What if Sealand kept all our data secure? More secure than the NSA does? Well, that is a good question to ask. To introduce several people to Sealand and what it actually is. Here is a photo: (it speaks a thousand words, doesn’t it?)

      Sealand is a former anti-aircraft deck built during World War II 13 kilometers off the coast of the United Kingdom. It is correctly termed as the “Principality of Sealand,” and the rumors are true that you can actually become a Lord or Lady of Sealand, with your own identification card to follow. Sealand is the smallest country in international waters and it also has its own flag and seal. The legal status of Sealand made it the perfect place for a data haven. People could host and anonymously distribute information that could be considered illegal elsewhere. HavenCo was the company to do such a thing in 2000. Because the land is offshore, anything goes and anything could be said or done by the 18 or so people living there. Storing all of this technically-illegal data was good for the first two years, but after, the company ran into troubles, failed, and had to move their station to a data center on shore in London. Sealand provided anonymity and security to HavenCo. Content that could be hosted on the aircraft deck was illegal to hold anywhere else. When doing things over the internet on Sealand, they don’t have to follow any rules or regulations of other oppressive nations.

       Recently, the founders or HavenCo wanted to try to start up again. This time, servers will be heavily encrypted, operated through virtual private networks and will be located inside the United States. The encryption keys will be located offshore and offline at Sealand.

      On the other side, the NSA has copies of everything each person says and does from online activities. If we didn’t trust the NSA with all of our data, as some people freaked out to find out when they found out the NSA stores all of that, would we trust the ‘Sea Pirates’ offshore the UK? What would happen is this: The NSA could say that they are gathering our data and keeping it for an indefinite amount of time, but, they would lock it up and encrypt it, and give the encryption keys off to the people in Sealand to store. This doesn’t make me surer of our government or any safer as the information is being kept at secret with the people offshore near the United Kingdom. I would be more secure knowing that my information is not being taken from us, and could be potentially used against us in any case, rather than being taken, stored, and the people who have the key don’t even belong to the United States government. After the entire case of the NSA trying to take the information from the American people, there has been a growing interest of greater online privacy and security. It will be extremely challenging for people to agree on the encryption of our metadata to be stored at Sealand. There will have to be a bigger fight in order for the company to start up again, or for people to even agree to follow through with this. I will personally make sure to stand on the side that does not allow for this to happen anytime in the near future.