The Feakonomics blog posts on the possibility of Google housing some of their data at sea in "water-based data centers." The post focuses on the threat of sea pirates attacking the floating data centers. Our very own Pete Leeson is cited in the post. Here is an excerpt from the post:
To find out, we asked our resident pirate expert, George Mason University economist Peter Leeson. His thoughts are below:
The situation with Google’s latest proposal is an interesting one: to avoid “political pirates” (a.k.a. the taxman), the company may risk making their data centers vulnerable to traditional sea pirates, who might very well sell stolen information to “intellectual property pirates.” It’s a veritable triangle of piracy involving a different kind of theft at each “corner.”
The danger of modern sea piracy is only significant in a handful of places, such as off the east coast of Africa and the Straits of Malacca, where it’s unlikely Google would float its data centers. Still, there remains some risk of sea scoundrels plundering the company’s precious booty no matter where it floats its data centers.
What’s interesting, then, is what Google’s proposal tells us about the kinds of pirates the company sees as posing the greatest threat to its profit. Apparently “political pirates” pose a greater threat to Google’s property than the seafaring kind do. If not, the company wouldn’t be willing to trade an increased chance of plunder by sea bandits for a reduced chance of plunder by government.
For more on "political pirates," see here.
Wired needs a note from Leeson:
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/09/pirates-a-reali.html
See number 4, interesting that they are judged as a society by their treatment of prisoners.
Posted by: Daniel J. D'Amico | September 17, 2008 at 07:13 PM