Because the case was not known to the general public it was not known to US citizen Ryan Lackey when Roy Bates entered into a contract with him to establish the HavenCo internet project on Rough Tower which Bates called ‘’Sealand’’.
In 1999 Lackey lived in the San Francisco Bay Area after a period in Anguilla before moving to the unrecognized state of Sealand off the coast of the United Kingdom and establishing HavenCo.
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He also speaks at numerous conferences and trade shows, including DEF CON, RSA Data Security Conference, on various topics in the computer security field, and has appeared on the cover of Wired Magazine, in numerous television, radio, and print articles on HavenCo and Sealand.