What Buisnesses Waste there Money on

[BirdofPrey]

After reading this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3498199.stm) article, that says that a car park in Derby is the 10th safest place in the world (which i think is quite impressive!) I started Gooling the people listed. I came up with Cheyenne Mountain (https://www.cheyennemountain.af.mil/cmocindex.html) (the links got a dodgey security cert,) Airforce 1 (http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/af1/flash.html) and the Mormon Data Store (http://www.ancestry-and-genealogy.com/ChurchRecords/latterdaysaints.html) (what the hell does genalogy data nees to so secure!) But also i found this (http://www.havenco.com/). Basically its a data storage company, whos servers are in one of the most secure building in the world. Its in an anti aircraft battery in the north sea! Now being out here the servers need to be registered in any countries name. The thing is this its still got an internet connection. All this fancy security, isnt gonna stop a good hacker taking down your servers. This is discussed in this commentry (http://www.circleid.com/article/452_0_1_0_C/) on an article that i cant find! To be quite frank any buisness who thinks there data will be secure here, needs a new IT manager!

[tuBBymAN]

technically where the "principality" where they have based their servers is in the UK. It all came about when i think it was in the 50's or 60's someone bought the gun placement in the north sea which is a 3 story building with helipad on the roof. This was back in the days when the UK's territorial waters only extended to 3 miles out to sea. Soon after the purchase of the newly formed principality of Sealand the UK extended the territorial waters to 12 miles out to sea which is where it remains today. They originally tried to reclaim Sealand through the courts but as it was already there they could not thus the worlds smallest prinicipality was formed and its even smaller than petoria! lol

Anyway from the point that BOP is making on security, i think what they are trying to say is that because of its remote location it isn't going to be a victim of a 9/11 style attack when lots of business lost lots of information as they had servers in the trade centre. Tis also y on 9/11 the internet was nigh on useless as some of the major servers where based within the effected area.

Well thats my understanding any way

[BirdofPrey]

Did u read the other article though. Alot of the root servers are just hidden behind a few locks in the middle of surbibia, as they can still be hit by a soft attack. But yes if theres a 9/11 style attack this island isnt gonna be affeted (dont get me started about of site backups, ill go a little crazy.) But most of the 9/11 servers were (or should of been) subject to an off site backup (and if the backup was in the world trade center, that was a bad idea!) Also its reliant on access to London. If London (God forbid) had its own 9/11 which affected comms lines this company could be slightly stuck.

The service is pitched as secure data storage, which isnt subject to any data laws of any country, which very few companies need (unless there doing something illegal, but spam isnt allowed.) Ill be interested to see if the company lasts as basic packages are between $7,50 and $6,900 a month, with upto 240gb of space and a 1 meg line. I wouldnt like to see what a large scale storage server costs!

[putty_thing]

you can never completely ensure the reliablilty of your data, or your data connection - so don't get too anal about it :)

and btw, what do businesses waste their money on? rubbish advertising. why advertise anywhere else, when you can sponsor the BIG GAME? ;)

[SlyDave]

Heh, there is something to be said for pysical protection, Militiray Data, Bank Data etc. whilst possible to go over the phone lines to get this type of data, it'll about a million times easy to just bust in and take the whole server...

This is where the princible of plusable deniability comes in, not knowing who or where something is, is better protection that any number of guards can provide.

Also in the case of ultra sensitive data, that is only connected to the Inet when needed, pysicaly detached at all other times, such as the US.mil Research Valut in Norad, they need safe Pysical places too.

Many reasons :) but as for the Geno Stuff, its the latter saints church, which I think is "enough said", modern day KKK type of organisation, Die hard's that would wipe out the "inpure" if they could.

[putty_thing]

The service is pitched as secure data storage, which isnt subject to any data laws of any country, which very few companies need

i'd disagree - speak to any company director about what they think about the security of their data, its really very important.

[tuBBymAN]

its cuts down on red tape so even legfit companies would be intrested as its cheaper

[gump]

despite the 9/11 scaremongering, havenco's prices have always been completely unreasonable and its current financial state questionable (http://www.carrierhotels.com/wiredspace/archives/000156.html). The original wired artical (writen during the construction of the datacenter facility) tells of 155mbit microwave links to both the english and dutch coast (presumably with backhaul fiber to docklands + amsterdamn science park) with satalite backup. By locating routing equpiment in these facilities it gives them the opertunity to take on conectivity from many isp's (however they seem to only utilise bbc internet services and level3). I can find no evidance of any kind of amsterdamn conectivity for havenco, so im going to presume that bit of the plan never happened. Point being with satalite uplink they can get connectivity prob from anywhere in europe, and should london/the fiber get blown up/cut then properly configured routers should divert the traffic over the other avaible links.

There are many uses for data storage and internet serivces located beyond the reach of governments, porn isnt one of them (kiddie porn is the only realy illegal porn, and i would expect encryption is far better suited for them than a server in the north sea. Online betting and data security are the two most obvious ones, with gambling its the lack of taxation that attracts them to host their servers afar.

For large organisations data backup and security is a major concern, I cant remember the exact statistic but a large percentage of bussines who lose all their data go under within a year. Obviously large companys will already have disaster recovery plans but for total peace of mind there are anumber of higly secure datacenter locations. Havenco being one of them however close(ish) to sealand but a bit more inland is thebunker.net . Its a former RAF bunker with full EM protection (radar station irc), now owned and operated by aldigital (whoe are involved in the consume.net wireless project) who provide secure colocation and managed services. Rack prices are suprisingly affordable at ?615 per month for a 47U rack, a mere 25% more than telehouse and probably about double the current pricing of datacenters-built-by-criminals (redbus). Bandwidth is a lot more expensive than docklands however their conectivity is a bit better than sealand's. With fiber from bt and global crossings (both of whom run self-healing fiber ring netowrks without a single point of failure.. like london), as well as a radio link direct to telehouse roof (actualy they needed a repeater despite the gear being rated for longer distances, thou im told its due to the london smog).

Anyway, bit of a rant (complete with pointless interuptions) and I cba anymore.. but secure data centers are an intersting topic.. as a lot of people could put a very high price on their data and take measures to secure it apropriatly

[tuBBymAN]

Online betting and data security are the two most obvious ones, with gambling its the lack of taxation that attracts them to host their servers afar.


I think if i remember rightly they stopped taxing gambling in this country in either the last budget or the one before that so thats not really an issue.

[gump]

I think if i remember rightly they stopped taxing gambling in this country in either the last budget or the one before that so thats not really an issue.

If you started a betting website, covering american events and bets in $$'s hosted in uk.. im pretty sure you would have some upset fed's and a case of unlicenced betting.. usualy more than enought to coninve an isp to pull the plug.

[SlyDave]

The other advantage is of course, insurance, if a compnay hosts there servers/data them selfs they have to pay every penny of there insurance and thats generaly a shitload, hosting your servers in a purpose built datacenter will lower the insurance premiune and most of the datacenters offer datalose/damage costs, suited to your needs (so anything from a few thousand to millions), Its like just with cars in that respect, if you park your car on the street side your insurance will be more than if you park your car in a garage.

High speed sat connections are great - one way, As only a small reciver is needed to pick the data up, sending it is a problem, if you want high speed you are gonna need a large transmitter running on some serious frequenzes, or a micowave dish of some sort - both options bloody expensive :) And its a known fact all copmanies will get as much as they can as cheaply as they can - and rightly so.