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Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

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Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#11

Post by lta »

indolering wrote: post #8
xoa wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you dont colo your own servers you don't own anything. I'm confused, what does ownership have to do with this particular failure mode? The issue here is a (for many) unforeseen new tradeoff involved in centralization. Colocating at a central place has the exact same tradeoff in this case: bandwidth is vastly more available and cheaper towards the core, and there are significant amortization gains to be had with…

I think it's a joke: you REALLY don't want to own your own servers.

I don't think it is. There are many many cases where you do want to own them. The people you rent yours from are making a shit load of money so it doesn't sound that bad of an idea

Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#12

Post by brianwawok »

indolering wrote: post #8
xoa wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you dont colo your own servers you don't own anything. I'm confused, what does ownership have to do with this particular failure mode? The issue here is a (for many) unforeseen new tradeoff involved in centralization. Colocating at a central place has the exact same tradeoff in this case: bandwidth is vastly more available and cheaper towards the core, and there are significant amortization gains to be had with…

I think it's a joke: you REALLY don't want to own your own servers.

It sometimes makes financial sense to own your own servers

Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#13

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

georgemcbay wrote: post #10
xoa wrote: post #7

This may have been long discussed, but I feel like this war is the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war and how that's an entirely new thing since the last time it was really on the radar (end of CW) right? We've built trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure in the peace time since, and it seems fairly concentrated. AWS is amongst…

> the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war Given the rapid and increasing rise of AI use in actually fighting wars, I suspect data centers won't just be a big target, they will eventually be the #1 priority target. Taking them offline won't just be of interest in terms of economic damage, it will be a direct strategic goal toward militarily wi…

Until it is clear that the use of AI in "actually fighting wars" doesn't put senior military people at risk of never being able to leave their own country again for fear of prosecution for war crimes, I'm not so sure that the "rapid and increasing rise" is going to actually be a thing.

Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#14

Post by mooreds »

xoa wrote: post #7

This may have been long discussed, but I feel like this war is the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war and how that's an entirely new thing since the last time it was really on the radar (end of CW) right? We've built trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure in the peace time since, and it seems fairly concentrated. AWS is amongst…

Don't forget underseas cables: https://www.submarinecablemap.com/

Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#15

Post by georgemcbay »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #13
georgemcbay wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war Given the rapid and increasing rise of AI use in actually fighting wars, I suspect data centers won't just be a big target, they will eventually be the #1 priority target. Taking them offline won't just be of interest in terms of economic damage, it will be a direct strategic goal toward militarily wi…

Until it is clear that the use of AI in "actually fighting wars" doesn't put senior military people at risk of never being able to leave their own country again for fear of prosecution for war crimes, I'm not so sure that the "rapid and increasing rise" is going to actually be a thing.

> Until it is clear that the use of AI in "actually fighting wars" doesn't put senior military people at risk of never being able to leave their own country again for fear of prosecution for war crimes

I don't believe that's a real concern that the senior military people have anymore. War crimes are legal in 2026. That ship has sailed (and was double tap struck by the US Navy). Nobody is doing anything about it.

Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#16

Post by tristanj »

xoa wrote: post #7

This may have been long discussed, but I feel like this war is the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war and how that's an entirely new thing since the last time it was really on the radar (end of CW) right? We've built trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure in the peace time since, and it seems fairly concentrated. AWS is amongst…

Instead of targeting data center itself, it's far easier to target the electrical substation that powers the datacenter. It's relatively simple to do. Transformers require oil to cool themselves, and if the coolant reservoir is damaged, then they overheat and shut off. This exact infrastructure attack occurred in North Carolina in 2022 [0], where someone fired bullets into the coolant reservoirs and caused a several day power outage. The perpetrator was never caught. It's speculated a foreign actor did this to gauge the response in a future wartime scenario.

Most data centers have a dedicated electrical substation that powers it, so it's possible to target the data center without affecting anywhere else.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_County_substation_attack

Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#17

Post by propagandist »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #13
georgemcbay wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war Given the rapid and increasing rise of AI use in actually fighting wars, I suspect data centers won't just be a big target, they will eventually be the #1 priority target. Taking them offline won't just be of interest in terms of economic damage, it will be a direct strategic goal toward militarily wi…

Until it is clear that the use of AI in "actually fighting wars" doesn't put senior military people at risk of never being able to leave their own country again for fear of prosecution for war crimes, I'm not so sure that the "rapid and increasing rise" is going to actually be a thing.

The Hague Invasion Act takes care of that.

Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#18

Post by pvtmert »

xoa wrote: post #7

This may have been long discussed, but I feel like this war is the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war and how that's an entirely new thing since the last time it was really on the radar (end of CW) right? We've built trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure in the peace time since, and it seems fairly concentrated. AWS is amongst…

Agreed that Govt/Military runs on AWS/Azure/whatever. They care about "security" in a "virtual" sense, but I presume soon we'll see requirements like: "Must Have: Missile Defence Perimeter" next to the "Must be FIPS compliant".

Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#19

Post by trhway »

xoa wrote: post #7

This may have been long discussed, but I feel like this war is the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war and how that's an entirely new thing since the last time it was really on the radar (end of CW) right? We've built trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure in the peace time since, and it seems fairly concentrated. AWS is amongst…

>We've built trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure in the peace time since, and it seems fairly concentrated.

and thus is easily defended. It would be a pocket change - tens of millions - for AMZN to put say a Rheinmetall Skyshield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyshield at the data center.

Re: Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai

#20

Post by nostrademons »

xoa wrote: post #7

This may have been long discussed, but I feel like this war is the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war and how that's an entirely new thing since the last time it was really on the radar (end of CW) right? We've built trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure in the peace time since, and it seems fairly concentrated. AWS is amongst…

In any significant war the Internet is going to go down. That's what has happened empirically in countries undergoing significant wars or social unrest, like Russia, Iran, Yemen, Ethiopia, Syria, Myanmar, and Afghanistan. While IP packet routing itself may have been designed to survive a nuclear war, there have been many centralized systems built on top of it (DNS? Edge caching? Cloudflare? Big Tech) that are essential to the functioning of what we know of as the Internet.

If your threat model includes war and you want to have some of the conveniences of the Internet, you should make plans for how to host local copies of data and develop local-scale communications for the people you regularly talk with. The Internet is too big of a security and propaganda risk for governments to allow it to continue to exist when they are engaged in a real existential war.

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