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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

#111

Post by NewsaHackO »

tristanj wrote: post #16
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…

That wasn't thought to be due to a foreign actor though, more likely it was domestic terrorism. Why would the effect on a rural local power station ever be a good measure of a wartime scenario at all?

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

#112

Post by Dylan16807 »

quantified wrote: post #46
electronsoup wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> worth their salt That's a big assumption. Often there's no time to do things right, or no money, or lack of oversight, and so on. Not every company is staffed by empowered and highly motivated staff

To the parent poster's point.

It's not, unless you think part of the definition of "worth their salt" is never working for a company with bad resource allocation. And I don't see why it would be.

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

#114

Post by yard2010 »

postsantum wrote: post #52

I hate when "the cloud" which I imagined to be some entity in ether space, turns out to be just a building with computers that can be bombed

It's someone else's computer. Better that someone not be in the middle east..

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

#116

Post by dataflow360 »

This is the part I don’t understand about Elon’s Terafab: What protects it from a missile? Or laser?

Better yet: Jeff or Sir Richard hook up one of their ships and just tow away the Terafab… yoink!

There are good physics-based reasons to put data centers in space, but the geo-political world isn’t informed merely by physics.

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

#117

Post by adt »

stygiansonic wrote: post #30
tristanj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack (Perpetrators also not caught)

>1:45 a.m. – The first bank of transformers, riddled with bullet holes and having leaked 52,000 US gallons (200,000 L; 43,000 imp gal) of oil, overheated...

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

#118

Post by fragmede »

kjellsbells wrote: post #44
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…

Ironically,the classical target, Washington DC, is less than 25 miles down a very simple highway to Northern Virginia's massive datacenter alley. Our national defense is ultimately predicated on heavy ordnance not being able to show up undetected in this part of the world. Hence the path preferred by attackers of burrowing into Azure signing keys or ransomware attacks on the grid. Much less hardware to transport.

Iran doesn't, but whether or not China and Russia have nuclear subs parked off the East Coast is anyone's guess.

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

#119

Post by tristanj »

xg15 wrote: post #101
tristanj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> where someone fired bullets into the coolant reservoirs and caused a several day power outage. So you mean to say, one doesn't even need drones, a datacenter could be (temporarily) taken out with a handgun?

Yes, though with a rifle (higher stopping power than a handgun).

Large parts of our society are built on trust, and there is societal ignorance of how vulnerable our infrastructure is.

Criminals generally aren't that sophisticated or intelligent, so they aren't aware they can target these places.

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

#120

Post by make3 »

tristanj wrote: post #16
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…

hitting the electrical grid is a war crime, not so much an AWS server farm. optics / progressive escalation does matter
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