Comment by mkl
12 hours ago
The Outer Space Treaty [1] says "A State Party to the Treaty on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control over such object", so no escaping jurisdiction.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty_of_1967#Ar...
It is worth noting that this is also identical to the way in which international waters works as well, so there's plenty of legal precedent.
But it's also irrelevant: all your infrastructure supporting such a thing, including your ability to fund it, is on Earth, in someone's jurisdiction.
The US government is hardly going to say "well the datacenter is in space, guess there's nothing we can do about the owner who lives in California..."
Resurrect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket) , launch it 'anonymously' from international waters?
It doesn't say anything about launch location, and you'd need to ship it out there from a country using a large (registered) boat. That loophole won't work.
Staying with exploiting loopholes, that happens all the time with ships, while at sea, in international waters.
I think I've read something about similar things happening with new airliners for fiscal reasons.
OFC that doesn't really erase the track, but one could engage in rented or owned 'lawfare' by then?