Offshoring to a Ship in International Waters 800
JasdonLe writes "Sourcing Mag posted an article about Roger Green and David Cook, who hope to avoid US visa regulations that usually accompany outsourcing, with their company SeaCode, and a used cruise ship, sitting in international waters three miles off the coast of Los Angeles.""
Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently, they have plans for 600 software engineers on this ship. Their major point of having them on the ship appears to be that they can maintain low costs to produce software, while only being 3.1 miles off the coast of Los Angeles. I am assuming they don't have to pay corporate taxes to any entity.
But this just seems to be asking for a lot of trouble. Humanitarily speaking, since they are not actually in any country, who protects the rights of those 600 laboring software engineers? Does anyone have the authority to make sure that it's not (child) slave labor? No government agency can make sure that working conditions are safe and healthy.
SourcingMag says that SeaCode will treat their workers fairly. That's great and all if we suddenly believed that corporations are honest and will regulate themselves. How many times have companys ran sweat-shops and claimed that they were treating their worker's fairly?
At first, I thought this was a joke. I am still unsure if it is.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is probably the oppurtunity of a life time for a lot of people to get out of their home country for a while and see the U.S. a little bit.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Interesting)
And what VISA are they going to use to gain enterance to the US? The article contradicts itself on this point:
"...and run a 24-hour-a-day programming shop, thereby avoiding H-1B visa hassles while still exploiting offshore labor cost..."
-verus-
"Staff can make the three-mile voyage into town in their off hours by calling a water taxi."
I smell something rotten here. Specifically the usage of the word "staff". As in "American Employees can go ashore when they need a break." Gee, thanks.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Insightful)
The lawlessness I'd exploit would be COPYRIGHT. Seriously.... the MPAA and the RIAA have been successfull in shutting down or going after distribution networks, never the root uploaders or the downloaders.
Set up a blatently illegal server system well off shore, enjoy the benefits of satellite based internet access. Sell movies and music an pennies on the dollar at high quality....
.
.
.
oh yea....
3. Profit!
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:4, Interesting)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
A spokesman for the RIAA said that while they could afford it, a nuclear sub was not necessary. "We will only be going out three miles or so, so a diesel sub will do just fine".
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, as far as data service goes, send it straight! If international waters start 3 miles out, I'm sure you can name a few radio technologies that have no trouble covering more distance than that.
So you can only reach the users who live near the shore, big deal! Most of the population lives near the coasts anyway. It'll be a special perk of oceanfront property. And once you're into a shoreside connection, VPN out to wherever.
Anyway, who needs an ocean liner to run a server? I'd love to see someone pack enough processor and storage into a satellite. Launch the world's most expensive Freenet node. The trouble is, FCC regs prohibit amateurs from using encryption, so ground stations in the US would have to hit the thing with part 15 gear. I'm sure it's possible.
The Boat is sitting is US Waters (Score:5, Informative)
I smell something rotten here. Specifically the usage of the word "staff".
I smell a number of things rotten here, including the fact that the "entrepreneur" (or article writer) hasn't a fucking clue about international waters, which extend twelve miles from shore, not 3. This is the 21st century, not the 19th, and maritime law may not have changed much, but the definition of "international waters" has.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, you just described the US Military...
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, getting any other kind of US visa is a very hard, long process. Getting my F1 took many months and several trips to the embassy (a >5 hours long trip for me, then a day spent in a queue, followed by 5h for returning home). I
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:4, Insightful)
This ship will be filled with young third worlders who will have severe difficulty getting a B visa, especially when their home address is a ship.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Informative)
Ships have to sale under the flag of a nation. If they do so, they are legally part of that nation, and have to heave to and let the coast guard and navy of that nation board. They can be punished for crimes committed.
It's just that a lot of crimes are state or local crimes in the US, and don't exist at sea, and of course unless you're on a cruise ship, there's no one to enforce laws anyway. But try to get away with murder and claim you're in international waters...
The other option is to sale under no flag. At which point you're a pirate vessel, you can't dock anywhere except a few quasilegal ports, and not only can any military board you, they can legally just sink you if they feel like it. (Legally according to international law, that is. Possibly not according to their own law.)
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet these workers were searched to make sure they would have no passports so they would be forced to stay under slave labor
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:3, Funny)
-matthew
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Funny)
ROFL (Score:3, Funny)
*clap* *clap* *clap*
Just the potential wordplays might be worth it...
Re:ROFL (Score:3, Funny)
Well it would have been a nice idea, until you brought clap into it....
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.clickmonkeys.com/aboutus.shtml [clickmonkeys.com]
The FSF Crimson Permanent Assurance! (Score:3, Funny)
You raise a good point (-ed fanblad), what happens if the 600 software engineers make the pointy haired bosses walk the plank and sail off for Tahiti?
Call her the FSF Crimson Permanent Assurance, and you'd have a great movie and some killr appz!
Don't be silly! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, come on. No one would hire child slave labor! Everyone knows child slaves are horrible at commenting their code.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:3, Informative)
I heard about this on NPR yesterday. They are incorporated in California, so in fact they will be paying California and US taxes. However, they don't have to pay for their employees health care, social
Other business (Score:3)
I'm thinking that they'll probably have several hundred programmers. Given the current environment, they'll be about 90% male. They won't be able to enter the US because of their status.
I think running a boatload (literally) of women to them on payday is a guaranteed money maker.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:3, Insightful)
>How about outsourcing to The Principality of
>Sealand?
You can't accommodate 500 people in Sealand, and you can't take control of it. A cruise ship on the other hand, affords a broad range of possibilities. It can also be motherf*cking expensive to operate. When's the last time you negotiated a contract for diesel fuel in TONS?
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Insightful)
Follow the lead of the US Aircraft carriers aka "The cities that float"
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Interesting)
This does not really add to the cost of doing business compared to what it would be in India as the power grid there is so unreliable that most IT shops need their own generators. Ships often use cheaper bunker oil instead of diesel so it might even work out to their advantage.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Insightful)
And how about bandwith? The best thing would be to rent a T3, if that is enough, and lay a cable. But subsea stuff like that is quite expensive.
And I doubt they could get away with the 3 nm distance. More like 12 nm.
How about security and piracy. Did they think about that? Doubt so. And safety regulations? On both oil platforms and cruise ships everyone that works there needs to take a (two?) weeks safety course. Lots of $ there too.
What about waste/sewage? I'm sure the supply ship can handle that too. Only $15000.
And how long do they think coders are willing to stay on this ship before they _need_ some R&R? I'd say max 4 weeks. What then? How do they get visas so they can visit LA? And how do they get back to LA anyway? What about productivity and retaining workers?
This is a shitty idea.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Funny)
No kidding - this is really going to confuse the issue! What if some of those engineers download some pre-released movies and then Blackbeard hijacks their ship? Would he get an extra 3 years tacked on to his sentence?
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Umm, yes you (mostly) can (Score:3, Insightful)
well, yeah, theoretically. but is this the way to treat the engines of a cruise ship? and how long will it take to regain control of your vessel when you need it?
Plus: the open sea isn't a nice place for machinery - if you leave the engines off for a month, what are the odds that they won't start again? Who wants to play that game when spare parts are potentially days away?
Re:Umm, yes you (mostly) can (Score:3, Interesting)
Offshore refuel and repair is relatively easy. The ship would have to be dry-docked occasionally. You could do that in Mexico. But it's still expensive.
Technically feasable but would the "savings" be worth it? I think not.
Re:Umm, yes you (mostly) can (Score:3, Interesting)
PROPULSION
The vessel is propelled by four MAN B&W L48/60 non-reversible, four-stroke engines. Two have an output of 9,450kW and two of 6,300kW at 500rpm. Each gearbox is additionally provided with a power take-off for a 5,200kW shaft generator for electric power supply during the voyage. Depending on the required ship's speed, different propulsion modes can be operated. The engines are
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:5, Interesting)
you have to worry about attacks.........
Sealand Fights Off Invaders (Wins War)
In August of 1978, a number of Dutch men came to Sealand in the employ of a German businessman. They were there to discuss business dealings with Sealand. While Roy was away in Britain, these men kidnapped Prince Roy's son Michael, and took Sealand by force. Soon after, Roy recaptured the island with a group of his own men and held the attackers as prisoners of war.
During the time that he held the prisoners, the Governments of the Netherlands and Germany petitioned for their release. First they asked England to intervene in the matter, but the British government cited their earlier court decision as evidence that they made no claim to the territory of Sealand. Then, in an act of de facto recognition of Sealand's sovereignty, Germany sent a diplomat directly to Sealand to negotiate for the release of their citizen.
Roy first released the Dutch citizens, as the war was over, and the Geneva Convention requires the release of all prisoners. The German was held longer, as he had accepted a Sealand Passport, and therefore was guilty of treason. Prince Roy, who was grateful that the incident had not resulted in a loss of life, and did not want to bloody the reputation of Sealand, eventually released him as well.
Internationa Water Boundaries (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore, since I think Reagan, the US (unilaterally) declared that its waters extend for 200 miles: the first 6 miles belong to the state, and the rest 194 miles belong to federal government.
Either way, 3.5 offshore is not International waters.
Re:Is it April Fools Day? - must be (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporations owe their existence to the state. Capitalists owe their ability to own such artifical property as copyright, patents, and resource exploitation rights, to the state.
In a democracy, the state owes its existance to the people. (Not individually, obviously, but en masse.)
Therefore, corporations indirectly owe their existance and capitalists indirectly owe their riches t
People owe their riches to corporations (Score:3, Insightful)
The logic needs to go a bit further bit further -- where do the people get their riches? Without employers (mostly corporations), the people would have no money. Without consumer goods makers and retailers (mostly corporations), the money paid by a job would have no value. So the people owe their riches to the corporations and we have come full circle.
The point is that economies are mutually depen
Re:Is it April Fools Day? (Score:3, Funny)
I understand perfectly. The problem is, that we didn't pay enough attention in Latin class.
A Mariner's First Impression: (Score:3, Funny)
So... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:3)
Where do we sign up? (Score:5, Funny)
How would this affect taxes?
Tax Issues (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tax Issues (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Dumb idea (Score:3, Insightful)
But if they're going to do this thing, they should at least do it in style [slashdot.org]. By utilizing an inexpensive aircraft carrier [fleetairarmarchive.net] they could at least send these people home for occasional weekends and vacations. Under the proposed plan, they're basically prisoners on the ship unless they can manage to get a Visa to enter the country. Which, of course, negates the entire point of not messing with H1-Bs. And how do they think the government is going to react to having these people parked right off our shore? (Hmm... maybe they could refit the guns on the old carrier to keep the coast guard off their backs.)
Did I mention that this is a dumb idea?
Re:Dumb idea (Score:4, Insightful)
So do we my friend.
Just remember, when you see businesses going out of business after outsourcing their workers, make sure you hammer in the point by saying something like "I TOLD YOU SO DUMBASS!" and humilating the corporate officers in public.
Outsourcing is a numbers game: It appear that you are saving money because the labor is cheaper, and the cost of labor is written down in the corporate financials. However, you LOSE money because of the inefficiency, which is harder to pin down.
Re:Yes, dumbest idea EVAR! (Score:3, Interesting)
More like Navy than pleasure ship (Score:5, Interesting)
The pleasure does not derive from the ship itself, it derives from the crew that is there to care for you and to provide you with luxury. The pleasure also derives from the ship being something new and different.
If you want a ship that is a more appropriate comparison think the navy. You get food, quarters, laundry, exercise room, etc. Yet the chaplains have to keep an eye out for the kids on their first cruise getting suicidal. A shipboard workplace gets old very fast.
Why can't I get this image out of my head.... (Score:5, Funny)
(first post?)
Re:Why can't I get this image out of my head.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why can't I get this image out of my head.... (Score:5, Funny)
Source code leaks from the ship...
Re:Why can't I get this image out of my head.... (Score:5, Funny)
Is it just me or is that site slow? (Score:5, Funny)
A Slashdot First (Score:5, Funny)
Good job, everyone! Now, World Domnination is within our grasp!
Misleading summary (Score:3, Informative)
Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
I see lots of problems here.
Should we wait... (Score:5, Informative)
until they anchor it three miles off the coast to tell them the US claims territorial waters twelve nautical miles off the coast?
Re:Should we wait... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Should we wait... Gues they better tell CIA too (Score:5, Informative)
CIA Factbook [cia.gov]
Maritime claims:
territorial sea: 12 nm
contiguous zone: 24 nm
exclusive economic zone: 200 nm
continental shelf: not specified
the exclusive economic zone (Score:4, Insightful)
I rather doubt the Coast Guard or Navy will have any difficulty claiming jurisdiction over a vessel that is more or less permenently "anchored" within 200 miles of the U.S. coast.
It will be foreign registed though (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Should we wait... (Score:3, Informative)
It will be foreign registed (Score:3, Informative)
As they'd be working for the ship's owners they'd be consided ships crew regardless of what they do. Just as when a ships' owner comes aboard with his own personal staff for a trip, or the owners' fleet management people are onboard on a trip, they have the same status as ships' crew when in foreign waters & ports.
Morons. (Score:5, Funny)
asdfasdfasdfa
ASDFAESRFA
NO CARRIER
More typos? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh shit awesome (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh shit awesome (Score:5, Funny)
Plus if you're caught being an actual pirate, the sentence is much lighter than if you were caught swapping copyrighted material.
Heh.. (Score:4, Informative)
I've done my fair share of time aboard a ship, and let me just say that anchoring out and taking a ferry (or water taxi, or whatever you want to call the vomit inducing small craft that transport you to and from the port) a "mere three miles," is a much bigger pain in the arse than you might think. If you're lucky, they run once every 30 minutes. In a situation like this, it's more likely to be every hour, or every few hours.
Do some shopping during the day, and now you'd like to change and grab some dinner and maybe go out? Enjoy catching the ferry back to your boat and then waiting for the next one to get back to land.
Oh, and that moderate sized TV you just bought? Have fun carrying it up the brow.. not to mention just getting it off the ferry, which is probably using its own power to stay pressed against a barge tied alongside the ship. Oops, you slipped? That's a shame. Dropped your TV in the drink? Hope you have a good credit card company, and they believe you.
But I guess maybe it's better than the pay and conditions in the country you come from, and I'm just a spoiled American.
They need to do their homework... (Score:5, Informative)
Maritime claims:
territorial sea: 12 nm
contiguous zone: 24 nm
exclusive economic zone: 200 nm
continental shelf: not specified
In other words, they'd have to be at least 12 miles from shore, and possibly (depending on who's doing the interpretation) over 200.
Also, as far as I'm aware, the ship will have to be flagged somewhere, which means that it's effectively that country's territory when in international waters.
Someones tax man will find them.
Re:They need to do their homework... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the 200 Mile Economic Zone? (Score:3, Interesting)
And while you're at it, why not just drop a super long anchor out at sea, declare your cruise ship to be an artificial island, and petition the U.N. to recognize you as an autonomous state? [luf.org]
Sure, sure, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sure, sure, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sure, sure, (Score:4, Informative)
You owe me a new keyboard.
For those who don't get the reference: Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson. BTW: the audiobook version from Audible.com is excellent. The narrator has just the right attitude and vocalization for that book.
Baloney (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice how their first "Company News" lists an Article-FORBES with no link. If you go to Forbes.com and search their site for "SeaCode" you get: "Sorry, your search for SeaCode did not return any Documents. Please revise your search and try again."
Besides, 3.1 miles makes no sense as your not in international waters.
Re:Baloney (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody can quite figure out what restrictions they're avoiding 3.1 miles offshore anyways. Their chart shows them INSHORE of Catalina Island, for god's sake. They're in Los Angeles County.
These guys are scamming the press, and laughing their asses off.
Corporate Motto (Score:4, Funny)
2. To live in sea.
3. To live by the code of sea.
Rrrrr, it be a pirates life for thee
How about a pot farm supertanker (Score:5, Funny)
arrive via boat.
Eventually some pissed govt sticks a torpedo in it.
Re:How about a pot farm supertanker (Score:3, Funny)
And get busted as they attempt to return to shore.
Re:How about a pot farm supertanker (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about a pot farm supertanker (Score:5, Informative)
1) Transportation of slaves
2) Piracy (private acts of violence, detention, or depredation)
3) Illicit traffic in narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances
4) Unauthorized broadcasting
Now, only 1 and 2 allow a boarding by any nation regardless of the ship's flag (though 4 allows any nation receiving the signals or interference from them to board). However, all countries are obligated to cooperate in the supression of all four; somebody will call your ship's flag country and get their cooperation.
What if your ship isn't under any country's flag? Well, ships without nationality are subject to boarding at any time by any nation, merely for being without nationality.
On the oceans, the only times you are not subject to the laws of one country are when you're subject to the laws of more than one country; the only times you are not subject to the laws of a specific country or countries is when you are subject to the laws of any country.
Re:How about a pot farm supertanker (Score:4, Funny)
Would that be a supertoker?
I hereby christen their second ship (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you. I'm here all week.
Good opportunity for those running from the law... (Score:3, Insightful)
You get to live on a cruise ship in international waters, and work "below the radar", so to speak. What a great way to lie low until the heat cools off. Shoot, forget running there AFTER the feds are looking for you, it seems like a great place from which to RUN all kinds of criminal activity.
steve
New excuse for delayed releases: (Score:5, Funny)
Scurvy.
how do they plan to get the coders there? (Score:3, Insightful)
in addition to that, if they want to go anywhere once they are on the ship they have to either enter the US without a visa, which is a felony and will get you banned for 10 years, or find a way to get a visa while on the ship. good luck!
Like (Score:5, Funny)
Week 1: Operations launch. Works getting done. Going well.
Week 2: Work is better.
Week 3: Pirates came in and confiscated all our computers and electronic equipment. Called the coast guard. I think I heard them laughing in the background.
Week 4: We've drifted into China due to a complete lag of navigation or ship control systems. I, for one, welcome our new communist overlords.
A thousand oceans (Score:4, Interesting)
This is from a twenty five year old guy that had lived all his life on land, and I have to say I consider myself a fairly practical person, so something about the entire idea just kept hitting me the wrong way, it had that "no, this is pie in the sky, it can't happen" feeling to it, and I just couldn't figure out why. I went into dramatic levels of detail in speccing out the lifestyle, you can purchase water generators which will create freshwater from seawater using nothing but energy (provided from the aforementioned power infrastructure) and there's plenty of storage room in a houseboat for food, which is pretty much the only thing you cannot harvest directly from your immediate environment.
That last statement triggered my attention and I thought, well, what about the ocean? What does it really take to make ocean passages on the high seas? or even just clinging to the eastern coast of Australia? If all the provisioning you've done so far works for a houseboat, why wouldn't it work for an oceangoing vessel?
So I looked into that some more, and found it very interesting indeed, there's an entire subculture, admittedly mostly of retired people, that live onboard their sailing yachts, travelling the world mostly at leisure. They had all the facilities that I had imagined you would need for a life at sea, large capacity batteries, solar and wind generators, backup diesel capacity, watermakers, etc etc etc, and lived almost entirely self sufficiently, travelling where they wished, when they wished.
This sounded like a pretty ideal lifestyle to me, I'm actually currently in the process of saving up enough money to buy a suitable vessel for precisely this purpose, investigating further I found that catamarans provided a very good level of stability and comparitively low preparation time, as monohull vessels would tend to have a more severe angle of keel whilst under passage, catamarans were a better choice for a real working environment.
The only remaining hurdles are *absolute* global internet access, and raising enough money to buy the catamaran itself, I've tentatively decided on a Perry 57 catamaran, as I figure if I intend to spend the rest of my life on a vessel, I had best get something I'm not soon going to tire of.
I hope by the time I purchase the vessel broadband global satellite access may be a step closer to reality, if not it will likely be mostly hugging various coasts for doing actual real work rather than wandering the ocean blue at a moments notice and entirely on a whim, but even that is a hell of a lot more freedom than a five day a week desk job back on terra firma.
All I can say is, it sounds crazy, but it isn't. The only reason I can come up with that this deep seated belief that it really is insane remains with me is that we're conditioned from birth to believe that the infrastructure modern society and government provides us with in order to aid our survival is so complex that we could never hope to sever that link, because if a large amount of people really did do this, it would greatly reduce the current "democratic" and utilitarian justifications for the absolute power of modern government.
Don't take my word for it, though, if you're feeling restless, ill at ease, whatever, investigate it yourself, you may be pleasantly surprised at the results of your enquiries.
Location (Score:3, Insightful)
They've got it all wrong! (Score:3, Funny)
Seasick! (Score:3, Funny)
Ever try reading a book as a passenger in a car? What happens to you?
Now, imagine a computer screen and a gently rocking boat, and a programmer's work week. You'd need an IV drip bottle of Dramamine to survive this gig.
Re:International Waters (Score:4, Informative)
communications issues (Score:4, Informative)
It should be pretty easy to get a high power [archive.org] and supremely noisy transmitter [eskimo.com] to play havock with this threat to national security [hammeroftruth.com].
Might even [linkbase.org] make the pringles cans [bbc.co.uk] go 'POOF' [typepad.com]
Re:International waters (Score:4, Informative)
The official 3- and 12-nmi lines are demarcated on the highest-resolution NOAA charts for a particular area. These charts can be hard to find on-line, though it is possible to find certain areas though various state GIS websites and such. I also think the NOAA is systematically making vector data of the lines available.
In the case of Catalina Island, it has it's own 12-nmi belt of territorial sea, but the space between it and the mainland (so long as it is at least 12 nmi from either shore) is International waters.
There is a belt extending 24-nmi from shore called the "Contiguous Zone", in which a nation may exercize authority mainly to enforce environment and customs regulations. This area is still considered Internation waters, however.
Re:All well and good (Score:3, Informative)
-matthew
Re:A matter of trust (Score:4, Insightful)
Like it or not, offshoring is legal. Business often lets morality and ethics and so forth take a back seat to the bottom line and that's where many go off their tree about offshoring, not about its legitimate use in the business model. Employees are out to save their ass, and employers are out to save theirs. When you get to something like offshoring, you're talking about certain employees unable to save their ass because the employer is saving theirs.
What we really need is a better way to play the game, as employees, so that offshoring is either a) no longer appealing or b) no longer a threat to us. Note the differences in those two statements. Either developers need to make it so that offshoring is unappealing -- by developing better, smarter, faster, etc. -- or by making the threat of offshoring inapplicable to our state as employees, probably by developing skills, abilities, and knowledge that make no sense to offshore.
Now, HOW to do this is not something I've come up with.