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Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

wikileaks.org

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Re: Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

#41

Post by halbritt »

mtmail wrote: post #3

The address in Palo Alto is right off University Avenue behind the Walgreens. The one in Luxembourg is an office building as well. I don't see much value unless one wants to destabilize internet infrastructure.

Most of the ones in the Bay Area are, to my knowledge relatively small "retail" colo spaces.

200 Paul, 528 Bryant is PAIX, 11 Great Oaks is Equinix. SV2 got shut down years ago. I don't remember AWS ever being in 3000 Corvin, which is a tiny, poorly powered data center.

As an example of how old this data is, I reported to someone in 2014 time frame that led data center operations for some AWS regions including North America. He told stories of vacating 200 Paul, I'm guessing in the pre-2010 timeframe.

In any case, none of this information is that big of a secret. It's all in the public record. It's pretty hard to build something that size and with that degree of power consumption without others noticing. There's generally plenty of news media about such things:

http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/local-news/20170317/amazon-k...

Re: Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

#42

Post by wnevets »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #16
morpheuskafka wrote: post #6

How come WikiLeaks is distributing this? I don't see any meaningful connection to government transparency or even corporate transparency... this has nothing to do with abuse of power, it is completely normal and rightful for a company to keep its infrastructure locations secret. Some of this could be found through public records, etc. and that fine to post, but internal operating procedures are not. Sure, it's fun to…

> AWS competitors benefit Wikileaks desires a world in which there is high competition between web service providers so none of them gets too powerful. This is consistent with their objectives.

Wikileaks desires whatever putin tells them to desire.

Re: Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

#43

Post by halbritt »

dekhn wrote: post #10
mtmail wrote: post #3

The address in Palo Alto is right off University Avenue behind the Walgreens. The one in Luxembourg is an office building as well. I don't see much value unless one wants to destabilize internet infrastructure.

So, basically, it's at PAIX/Equinix.

Those have been vacated by AWS for quite a while.

Re: Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

#44

Post by blakesterz »

saalweachter wrote: post #26
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess the goal is more to keep this list from coming up in public records searches than to serve as a truly effective disguise. I can't imagine the datacenter employees are expected to lie to everyone about where they work.

Which reminds me of the article on HN a few months/years back about how you could identify most spies because they all appeared the same way in embassy listings (which was all public information). With a lot of things like this, you're really squatting at a particular point in the effort-reward curve. You're not going to make something of this scale absolutely secret; there are hundreds of people involved, deliveries…

I didn't even know there was a new Mary Poppins!

Re: Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

#46

Post by amatecha »

The timing on the release of this information is very _interesting_, considering:

"Currently, Amazon is one of the leading contenders for an up to $10 billion contract to build a private cloud for the Department of Defense. [...] Bids on this contract are due tomorrow."

Re: Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

#47

Post by yasp »

wnevets wrote: post #42
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AWS competitors benefit Wikileaks desires a world in which there is high competition between web service providers so none of them gets too powerful. This is consistent with their objectives.

Wikileaks desires whatever putin tells them to desire.

Is there any evidence that Wikileaks works for Russia, as opposed to some other nation state, eg China or Iran?

Re: Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

#49

Post by lawnchair_larry »

azinman2 wrote: post #19

I’ve lost all respect for Wikileaks. How about actually leaking documents on day, I dunno, how the Chinese government is trying to brainwash Uighurs and erase their culture and religion? Instead, it’s always the US that’s been the bad guy, and now it’s not even really the government directly. There’s no cultural suppression or a larger public benefit from knowing where amazon data centers are located. What a joke.

If you give those to wikileaks, they will publish them, I’m sure. So go ahead!

Re: Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

#50

Post by Latteland »

nabla9 wrote: post #24
morpheuskafka wrote: post #6

How come WikiLeaks is distributing this? I don't see any meaningful connection to government transparency or even corporate transparency... this has nothing to do with abuse of power, it is completely normal and rightful for a company to keep its infrastructure locations secret. Some of this could be found through public records, etc. and that fine to post, but internal operating procedures are not. Sure, it's fun to…

Amazon is making local governments to compete against each others for data center locations, so it's in the public interest to know the locations. For example, you can compare at the location, electricity cost, infrastructure, tax schemes and tax revenue etc. in local level and see how important they are for Amazon and maybe even estimate the benefit of having Amazon. The location of Amazon data centers is not hidden…

Another perhaps less known aspect of these tax giveaways is that the details are kept secret. They are often embarrassingly huge giveaways, that's one of the reasons they aren't public [1]. I wish we could stop corporate giveaways. I love the software work that amazon is pioneering, they are pushing the envelope, doing great work, enabling companies to grow and do new things. But they are one of the richest companies in the world, they shouldn't get tax credits, imho. I don't think this location info should make it risky.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hq2-candidates-keep-p...

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