HavenCo's error was not initially raising the necessary cash to buy Sealand
outright from the Bates, or if that didn't work they could have done it the old
fashioned way by marrying into the family. Not having total control led to
this outcome.
As they say it's good to be king.
The bigger and more glaring flaw--pointed out by many of us, years ago--was in having an identifiable nexus for pressure to be applied. Cf. the archives for much discussion of what would happen when MI-6 finally got tired of them, or of when Mossad decided to do something about things, or when Hollywood got fed up.
Bruce Sterling dealt with this in "Islands in the Net," circa 1988, which predated Cypherpunks by several years and which was coming out just about when I was writing up my first things on crypto anarchy. I though Sterling had placed much too much emphasis on the havens' attempt to be physically secure by owning small countries and not nearly enough (if any) emphasis on using strong cryptography to achieve security inside cypherspace, a la "True Names."
The idea of being secure in plain sight within the claimed territorial waters of Britain was just too laughable.
--Tim May
"We are at war with Oceania. We have always been at war with Oceania." "We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia." "We are at war with Iraq. We have always been at war with Iraq. "We are at war with Havenco. We have always been at war with Havenco."
