--Back in the days of yore pirates like Drake and Raleigh sailed with "Lettters of Marque"; i.e. documents signed by their sovereigns that gave them the "right" to go forth into the seas and raid hostile nations, provided they tithed a portion of their booty to the crown. In this era of electronic commerce (and landless hostile entities that are smaller than nation-states) this would still seem to be a valid business model, hitting hostile organizations where it really hurts: in the pocketbook. There's less scurvy this way, too. I propose setting up a company whose mission is to sail keyboards into hostile territory and grab everything that's not nailed down. Getting some form of written consent from a government entity might seem a problem, but curiously this has already been managed at least once in recent times. A band of characters who operate a reconstructed pirate vessel that's used to amuse tourists got such a document. It might seem to be for show, but it's a "legal" precedent. IIRC the vessel is sailing the waters on the East Coast. --Assuming the company could muster governmental consent it's a money machine and an alternative to conventional warfare which has, so far, come up empty...
-- Steamboat, Aug 17 2004

Piracy: You tend to operate globally, take what you want and leave the witnesses stranded in a boat 4 months from the nearest port (assuming that they survive and you didn't kill them first).
All this is against the law (moral or local!), you accept this because you are hard (ask DrBob why pirates are so hard!) and you are obliged to pay your sovereign because s/he is expecting you back and funded the whole venture in the first place.

e-piracy: You tend to operate globally, take what you want and then get found out and sent to jail. You are not obliged to pay your sovereign because they didn't ask you to do it, and even if they did they make sure that you are deniable.

I won't even mention the High Accountant Seas!
-- gnomethang, Aug 17 2004



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