Russia Gives Safe Harbor to Pirates of the Cyber Seas
Putin seems to have revived the 16th-century “letter of marque” that England used against the Spanish Empire.
Cyrillic cybercrime.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
Queen Elizabeth had a problem, and it was not Meghan and Harry. This was the first Queen Elizabeth, who ruled from 1558 to 1603. Her problem was Spain. The Catholic Spanish Empire continually threated Protestant England, using vast resources flowing into the Spanish coffers from the colonies in the new world. Queen Elizabeth needed a means to interdict the treasure galleons that delivered their cargoes back across the Atlantic Ocean. Lacking a powerful navy, she turned to a clever idea: the letter of marque.
Such letters, granted by the crown, turned adventurous sailors like Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Richard Grenville into, basically, legalized pirates. Using the protection of the queen, they could conduct all the piracy they wanted — and the riches of the Spanish Empire became their principle target.