August 5, 2003 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — HavenCo’s (havenco.com) offshore hosting facility located in the Principality of Sealand is failing due to political, technical and management problems, said one of the company?s founders in a report published today by ZDNet.
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The “safe haven” is a man-made platform situated in the English Channel that also servces as a co-location facility. According to Ryan Lackey, a former MIT student that served as the company’s chief technology officer but no longer works for HavenCo, the project is failing because many business partners have become nervous about hosting objectionable material. At press time, there were reportedly only six customers remaining, according to Lackey.
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“The key lesson on this is if you’re going to put a ‘co-lo’ facility somewhere, political and contract stability in that jurisdiction is very important,” Lackey said during an address at DefCon, a yearly hacker convention in Las Vegas, on Sunday. “Customers want stability. They don’t want the network to be down for two months.”
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Representatives of Sealand said in an e-mail interview with ZDNet on Monday that “HavenCo is a viable operation. It is moving from strength to strength,” and suggested that Lackey was not in a position to understand how the company currently operated.
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Sealand is an allegedly sovereign political entity also claimed by England.
