Can anyone with more technical knowledge comment on this facility's connectivity to the internet, and how damage-resistant that is? If someone were to forcibly take Wikileaks offline, I would think internet connectivity would be the easiest attack vector, especially if they're located in a remote bunker which probably limits their options.
Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
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Re: Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
They get an easy pass. The idea of this ever going to Amazon in the first place just seems extraordinarily ill-conceived: There was no way it was going to stay up. Wikileaks is pursuing a remarkably old-school method of releasing these, with the whole centralized distribution point. They should release the entire set via P2P with collections symmetrically encrypted. They could then -- via the most rudimentary methods…
I wonder why they're not doing that.
Even better, they should encrypt with a method that is reasonably, large-scale crackable around the window of their planned release. That would bring a lot of attention to cryptography (and the vulnerability of the same) as every media organization rents out massive AWS GPU clusters to try to crack it. That would be pretty entertaining.
And if something happened to them...well it's going to be discovered anyways.
Re: Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
#13Back in the late 1960s, and early 1970s, AT&T built a series of nuke resistant bunkers. The typical specs were concrete walls 36" thick, self contained turbine generators, water and air purification, plus rations to last up to 6 months. Some of those facilities are still around and operating (including one not far from me). I would expect that the switching gear of todays vintage takes up much less space and power than it did in 1971. Back then the interconnections were via long-distance coxial cable and microwave. Today there are fiber huts adjacent to the bunker.
I wonder what AT&T uses all that extra floor space for now.
Re: Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
#14Back in the late 1960s, and early 1970s, AT&T built a series of nuke resistant bunkers. The typical specs were concrete walls 36" thick, self contained turbine generators, water and air purification, plus rations to last up to 6 months. Some of those facilities are still around and operating (including one not far from me). I would expect that the switching gear of todays vintage takes up much less space and power th…
I don't think you were referring to these, but there are actually a few windowless, fortified concrete skyscrapers in New York that were built as telephone switching centers. Here's one in Lower Manhattan that is 29 stories:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street
They were likewise designed to withstand nuclear fallout. Because telephone switching equipment has shrunken over the years they now rent out some of the floor space as a hosted ultrasecure datacenter.
Re: Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
They get an easy pass. The idea of this ever going to Amazon in the first place just seems extraordinarily ill-conceived: There was no way it was going to stay up. Wikileaks is pursuing a remarkably old-school method of releasing these, with the whole centralized distribution point. They should release the entire set via P2P with collections symmetrically encrypted. They could then -- via the most rudimentary methods…
I wonder why they're not doing that.
I know we all assume that because something seems obvious that people must have though of it, but history has shown that it isn't the case. It could be simply that they haven't though of it.
Maybe send them a email?
As for the visibility of Wikileaks, I think that what matters is that journalists get the files. That's how most people hear of them. So it wouldn't really matter if they were released in a distributed P2P fashion, as long as the files are easy to find and recognize (f.ex. Wikileaks-01-01-2010-003.PGP or whatever).
Re: Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
#16Back in the late 1960s, and early 1970s, AT&T built a series of nuke resistant bunkers. The typical specs were concrete walls 36" thick, self contained turbine generators, water and air purification, plus rations to last up to 6 months. Some of those facilities are still around and operating (including one not far from me). I would expect that the switching gear of todays vintage takes up much less space and power th…
I don't think you were referring to these, but there are actually a few windowless, fortified concrete skyscrapers in New York that were built as telephone switching centers. Here's one in Lower Manhattan that is 29 stories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street They were likewise designed to withstand nuclear fallout. Because telephone switching equipment has shrunken over the years they now rent out some of…
That building looks like something right out of blade runner.
Re: Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
#17Can anyone with more technical knowledge comment on this facility's connectivity to the internet, and how damage-resistant that is? If someone were to forcibly take Wikileaks offline, I would think internet connectivity would be the easiest attack vector, especially if they're located in a remote bunker which probably limits their options.
Remote? It's located in (under) Stockholm.
Re: Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
#18This is a 360 tour of the place http://www.bahnhof.se/panorama/
I found the Tintin moon rocket in the conference room quite awesome ;p
Re: Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
#19Back in the late 1960s, and early 1970s, AT&T built a series of nuke resistant bunkers. The typical specs were concrete walls 36" thick, self contained turbine generators, water and air purification, plus rations to last up to 6 months. Some of those facilities are still around and operating (including one not far from me). I would expect that the switching gear of todays vintage takes up much less space and power th…
It looks like 2000 of those bunkers were sold back in 2002 for $25,000 each.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/11/230203
Here's a map with links to pictures of 5 of the nuclear hardened sites.
Re: Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks
#20"...one wonders why Swedish Bahnhof would take on the challenge of hosting a site that will probably be under permanent attack for the foreseeable future. Unless it's for the PR value" That's a good example of allowing one's imagination of possibilities to wander over very short distances. Is it that inconceivable that a company might be motivated by something other than the bottom line? Arvinjoar commented earlier o…
Indeed. It's a little depressing that we live in a world where someone driven by principles instead of profits is regarded as extraordinary.