Re: Backbone Infrastructure and Secrecy

[Charles Sprickman <spork () inch com>]

On Wed, 9 Jul 2003, Eric Kuhnke wrote:

> I recall reading, last year, about a "Cyber Bunker" outside London UK
> which is being offered as colo to major banks.  The banks were raving
> praise about it.  This facility is an ex-RAF centralized radar control
> site, buried dozens of feet underground w/ thick concrete and designed
> to withstand nuclear weapon overpressure.  Blast doors, EMF shielding,
> dual-redundant air filtered generators, the works.

In the US, American Tower is/was liquidating a number of cold war era
ex-AT&T blast-proof sites.  They are all in need of an upgrade, but the
basics are there (underground, multiple layers of concrete, blast doors,
etc.  Even "blast toilets".  I'm surprised some enterprising/paranoid soul
has not snatched a few of these up and converted them into secure offsite
storage.  Even without diverse routes, you can ensure safe data storage.

Charles

> The people who bought it and turned it into a colo neglected to mention
> one thing:  It's in the middle of a farm field with a single homed fiber
> route to Telehouse Docklands.
>
> Anyone have a backhoe?  *snip*
>
> DIVERSE ROUTES, people!
>
> At 05:30 PM 7/9/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>
> > Michael.Dillon () radianz com wrote:
> > > However we can work to spread out the infrastructure more so that it
> > > is harder for terrorists to find a single point of failure to attack.
> > > If they have to coordinate an attack on 3 or 4 locations, there is an
> > > increased probability that something will go wrong (as on 9/11) and
> > > one or more of their targets will escape total destruction.
> >
> > I hate to be a doom sayer, but any chump with a couple of tools and
> > rudimentary knowledge can lift manholes, cut cables and jump to another
> > location in minutes. No amount of diversity could defend against a concerted
> > attack like that unless you start installing very special low-level routes
> > away from street level into many many buildings. Maybe you guys in the US
> > are historically more paranoid, but London is just covered in single points
> > of major failure for telecoms.
> >
> > Protecting the switching centres (IP or voice) looks great, but walk a few
> > hundred feet and all senblence of physical security breaks.
> >
> > Peter