Ryan Lackey

Early Life

Lackey was born on March 17, 1979, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He lived throughout the United States and Europe, and at various points resided in Anguilla, Sealand, Dubai, and Iraq. As a teenager, he was briefly involved with the Globewide Network Academy.

Lackey attended MIT, where he majored in Course 18 (mathematics), but eventually dropped out due to financial constraints. During his time at MIT, he developed a strong interest in electronic cash and distributed systems, initially motivated by an interest in massively multiplayer online gaming. This led him to attend conferences such as Financial Cryptography 98 and various MIT presentations, and to participate in mailing lists including the influential cypherpunks and dbs lists.

While at MIT, Lackey collaborated with Ian Goldberg to implement patented Chaumian digital cash in an underground library called HINDE, named after Hinde ten Berge, a Dutch cypherpunk who was present at FC98. He also contributed to the cypherpunks movement as one of its longest-running anonymous remailer operators.

Career

HavenCo and Sealand

In 1999, Lackey was living in the San Francisco Bay Area before relocating to the self-proclaimed state of Sealand, where he co-founded HavenCo, widely recognized as the world's first data haven. The venture attracted significant media attention, including a cover story in Wired magazine, and positioned Sealand as a jurisdiction outside conventional national legal frameworks for hosting sensitive data.

In December 2002, Lackey departed HavenCo following a dispute with other company directors and the Sealand "Royal Family."

BlueIraq

During the US military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lackey founded and operated BlueIraq, a VSAT communications and IT company that served both the US Department of Defense and domestic markets in those countries. The company's business model was ultimately rendered unviable by an escalation in anti-Western violence, primarily in the form of improvised explosive devices, and by troop drawdowns. BlueIraq pursued venture capital with the aim of transforming into a large consumer cellular telephone company, but the 2008 financial crisis combined with regional instability made fundraising impossible.

CryptoSeal and Cloudflare

After returning to the United States and settling in San Francisco, Lackey worked for a number of startup companies before applying to Y Combinator. He was accepted into Y Combinator's Summer 2011 round. He subsequently founded CryptoSeal, a VPN-as-a-service startup built with a small team of individuals known in the computer security community. The company secured funding from Ron Conway and a venture capital fund. In June 2014, CryptoSeal was acquired by Cloudflare.

Later Work

In 2017, Lackey began serving as Chief Security Officer for the Tezos Foundation, supporting the Tezos blockchain project. He held that position until November 2020, after which he moved to a crypto-related insurance company based in Puerto Rico.

Public Profile

Lackey has been a recurring speaker at major security industry events, including DEF CON and the RSA Data Security Conference, addressing a range of topics in computer security. Beyond the Wired cover story, he has appeared in numerous television, radio, and print articles, primarily in connection with HavenCo and Sealand.