UK Servers Humming In Former Nuclear Bunker

JournalistGuy writes: "The Independent wrote today about firms moving their hardware underground into a cold war nuclear bunker. Apparently they're worried about theft by criminals and attacks from anarchists." I wonder what's now become of the U.S.'s Y2K command center -- wish that would go on Ebay. One of those abandoned missile silos would make a nice hosting site, too.

Comments

Looks like it is a Command centre

[Anonymous Coward]

not a silo.

Actualy, I'd guess it's a 'regional seat of government'

So it would make a very good server facility. The one nearest London is now a museum, so if this one is similar, it has everything you need. The London one is built into a hill, so there wouldn't be a problem with water leaks. (They basicaly removed a small hill, built the bunker, and then put the hill back). It's got deep-level wires going to useful telecoms places and a big microwave dish on top, so in prinicple connectivity should be good.

It's overkill of course, but you can never have too much overkill.

(I visited the London one as I was driving in the essex coutryside when I found a sign saying 'Secret Nuclear Bunker', and I had to follow it. Someone had a good sense of humour)

crackers = "militant luddites"?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article... "This isn't paranoia or fantasy, this is the future," said Dr Ian Angell, professor of information systems at the London School of Economics and author of The New Barbarian Manifesto. "There are sophisticated anti-capitalists out there who feel a great deal of resentment against the business world. These are the new Luddites and, given half a chance, they would smash the machine to pieces."

Has anybody read this guy? Is he actually trying to talk about script kiddies here (who, the last time I looked, were the #1 enemy of a public box) or is he on about something else? I mean, yes, there is definitly an anti-corporate movement, especially in Europe (witness the "anti Mc-Globalization" protests, etc), but who does he think folks worry more about their servers getting hit by?

Network Security

[The Qube]

This, and I guess the similar setup in the Sealand are all fine as far as the physical security of the systems is concerned.
However, as far as the protection of the servers is concerned, shouldn't they be worried more about the network security? After all, what good is is to lock the server in a nuclear bunker and then forget about keeping up to date with software patches?

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Silos in the US

[Wyatt Earp]

The Command and Control complexes would be good for data warehousing and other secure storage. Metal/pressure rated concreate about 60 feet down, with emergency escape route and it's isolated inside another structure so blasts and earthquakes won't disrupt it too much.

But silos wouldn't be. Most of the old silos in the US and Former Soviet Republics had thier lids removed for a spell (18 monthes) I think so that spy sats and "Open Sky" recon planes could fly over and make sure there were no missiles in there. The Russian flights over the US were conducted by Polish registered EC-135s and E-8s (Boeing 707s). Then the silos were blown up.

Some of the old silos (Titan IIs, and Minuteman I & IIs) were de-militarized before the START I treaty called for the measures listed above.

Some of the posters talked about the silos being below the water table. In western South Dakota, where I lived half a mile from a Minuteman II (that's 3 150 kiloton warheads and at least 5 Soviet warheads aimed at it) the watertable was at 330 feet down. Alot deeper than the silo was.

Of course your milage might vary on water table...but in the Dakotas and eastern Wyoming...those silos and Command and Control centers should be nice and dry.

Cryponomicon

[SpringRevolt]

sounds a bit like Neal Stephenson's cryptonomicon (except for the UK government's tendency to leave their subjects with no privicy whatsoever :( ).

The book is good, btw.

Re:Slashdotted

[jjr]

Thank you

watch that basket

[trb]

This is the "keep all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket" approach. The article mentioned co-location only in passing, but I think that's a wiser focus. Geographic mirroring can protect systems from hostile forces and other surprises, more sensibly than a bunker can.

Anarchist Attack?

[ansible]

If I was an anarchist, I wouldn't bother with the computer center itself. I'd just attack the fiber optic cables running to it.

What good is the world's most secure data center if you can't talk to it?

UK has very real needs

[rleyton]

One of the quoted reasons is the fact that terrorism was, thanks to Irish terrorism and others, far more of a threat to banks and institutions in the UK. Just look at the "work" of Irish terrorists over the last 25 years, according to the BBC

I worked for a major investment bank in London, and we suffered a couple of very real security threats (to the extent of having sniffer dogs running around our feet as we worked) - in each case we were ready to "invoke contingency", and move trading operations to our backup data centre, some miles away (thankfully it never actually happened for real, but we did a number of tests, and were ready).

Whilst the costs of such an installation would clearly be high, there is a definate need for such offerings, and I suspect we'll see them increase in number, especially with the activities of the "Real IRA" recently.

Re:UK has very real needs

[CAIMLAS]

Neither does the average American. Your point?

The idea is that the potential of a firearm can deter a potential offender. Which is more likely to be violated: a woman getting into a car with an American Rifle Association sticker on her window, or a woman getting into a car with a PETA sticker? (provided the violator saw the stickers, ) the PETA woman, of course. No manwants to risk having their pills shot off.

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CAIMLAS

Problem with US missile silos.

[Neon Spiral Injector]

I've seen several specials on the old silos on TV. I've thought about how cool it would be to live in one. But just about every show I see mentions how they leak water.

When I was at ISPCon in Orlando last year I was talking to a guy who said he knew someone who had bought one. He said, yes, they do leak, and pointed out, of course they do, they are below the water table.

That is a lot of basement sealer. I chuckled to myself, thinking about those basement sealing scams, where the people call your house and ask if your basement leaks, and then offer to come over for a no obligation inspection. If I lived in one of those leaky silos, I might just have to invite them over, just to get the estimate.

--

Re:Problem with US missile silos.

[CAIMLAS]

Not really. It is quite dangerous. You said so yourself:

Except for airborne particles, asbestos is mostly not a risk. Stabilize the asbestos somehow and there's no problem.

However, your mistake happened when you said, "it's not hard to stabilize it," which is completely false.

Have you ever seen aspestos before? It looks like fiberglass insulation. Like such insulation, it deterorates with age. Thus, it becomes airborn. There is no way to 'stabalize' it without moisture, removal, and cleansing of the area.

As far as the dust is concerned, it doesn't just cause cancer. It can cause many other things. As fiberglass insulation, it can inflame skin, etc. However, it's a carcegenic. Like lead pipes or pain - dangerous to have around.

Know your facts before you post, please, Mr. Anon.

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CAIMLAS

Re:Problem with US missile silos.

[Feren]

The water leaking in and flooding the place (through seeping walls, half-open missle doors or what have you) isn't what bothers me. The potential for radiation contamination does, however. Someone has already posted a link to the now-infamous Abandoned Missle Base VR Tour. I suggest people take the time to go and read it. It is very neat (I have an affinity for exploring old buildings/etc, they provide a neat window into the past). At one point not long after "entering" the VR tour you will see the author's comment that even though there were lots of ways for things (wildlife, people) to get in, there didn't seem to be ANYTHING living down there (spiders, rats, etc). That is just a little creepy, to me. The person who explored the missle site (and got caught doing so) also remarked on the immense piles of asbestos laying around the place, the stagnant flooded water and the sharp pieces of rusted metal waiting to cut you and give you tetnus (or more). Not exactly a healthy place to be poking around.

I can see how this place MIGHT be okay if a huge amount of money was sunk into it for reconditioning; if you pump out all the water, seal the walls, decontaminate (radiation AND asbestos), remove all the rusted metal, remove all the abandoned/vandalized/destroyed/obsolete equipment, scrape the lead-based paint off the walls, repaint it, repair the spring-mounted floors (to absorb the shock of nuclear blast), put lighting in and in general spend an exorbiant amount of cash you could have something that would serve passably well as a hidey-hole for a group of "survivalists". But the rooms in these places don't seem very large, and they weren't meant to be... they were meant to protect the missle crew in the event of nuclear attack long enough to let them launch their missles in a counterstrike. No thought was given beyond that point, and the design shows. I would NOT want to live in there, and frankly I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in one basket by hosting all my machines there without having some sort of redundant backup located somewhere else geographically. If you're going to spend the money to have machines placed there, you must have enough money to have a redundant site, I would think....

Final analysis: As a data center it's high on the novelty scale, but on the usability factor (cost of implementing/maintaining versus actual usefulness/probability your work is justified) it's mighty low. As a home? No thanks. I can think of better ways to spend half a million dollars (minimum) on my house.

-Da cat

Re:Problem with US missile silos.

[The Troll Catcher]

And just think of the money you could make from selling that on the black market!

Certainly enough to get a whole silo sealed against leakage. :-D

Re:Problem with US missile silos.

[NickFusion]

No kidding.
Take a tour:
http://www.triggur.org/silo/silo.html
Not exactly home sweet home.

Re:Well ...

[CAIMLAS]

... not to mention the Pentagon. You get a large enough nuke fired up and burning hard.... *g*

Shoo! Leave me alone! It's 5:12 in the morning, for crying out loud...

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CAIMLAS

Re:Problem with US missile silos - Some Work Fine

[superid]

I guess not all the silos leak. There is a company in my town (Data Vault) that provides offsite data storage using the old NIKE missile bunkers. These were just short range costal defense weapons, so the silos aren't as deep as an ICBM bunker :)

SuperID
Free Database Hosting for Developers

This plan will backfire

[Ukab the Great]

Now instead of using crowbars are molotov cocktails, the thieves and anarchists will use ICBM's.

The Bunker Does Not Leak!

[BenL]

OK, so I'm seeing a lot of comments that entirely miss the point.

The Bunker is about protecting the security of data, not withstanding nuclear attacks.

It doesn't leak. Neither water nor data.

Yeah, if the Internet connections get cut, then we're not connected to the Internet. What's new? How does this affect the security of the data?

And as for overkill, what can I say? Should we skim a few feet off the concrete? Shave down the steel doors? Destroy a few redundant aircon units? What would you suggest?

If anyone has any sensible points, I'd be happy to address them.

Re:Slashdotted

[dazed-n-confused]

Top firms retreat into bunker to ward off anarchists
By Steve Boggan
11 June 2001

Some of Britain's biggest companies are running their internet operations on systems installed in a 300ft-deep nuclear blast-proof bunker to protect customers from violent anti-capitalist campaigners.

They are renting space in hermetically sealed rooms capable of withstanding a one Kiloton explosion, electro-magnetic "pulse bombs", electronic eavesdropping and chemical and biological warfare.

Hundreds of companies have already installed systems in The Bunker formerly known as RAF Ash, outside Sandwich in Kent and dozens more are understood to be queuing up for space. They have been driven underground by the IRA bombings of Canary Wharf and Bishopsgate in London and, increasingly, by concerns over the operations of anarchists behind sophisticated protests such as the May Day anti-capitalist rallies.

At stake is billions of pounds worth of business conducted over the internet. Companies are concerned that while electronic security using increasingly sophisticated encryption codes is gradually making customers feel more confident about conducting credit-card transactions over the internet, the physical side of e-business is still vulnerable. The fear is that servers, the small electronic boxes through which customer traffic and business transactions on the web are channelled, could be physically vulnerable to theft, damage or sabotage.

For companies conducting business solely over the internet, the loss of a server could be catastrophic; while offline there can be no sales and no income, and customers will go elsewhere. Records, too, are vulnerable to attack, hacking or simple damage, resulting in shut-downs that could cost even traditional companies millions of pounds.

Now organisations such as Scottish Widows, BTCellnet, Richer Sounds and the Bank Automated Clearance System which deals with inter-bank transactions have acted, putting their e-business and confidential dealings out of harm's way behind guards, barbed wire, dogs, electronic detection systems, millions of tons of earth, 4m of concrete, pressurised air locks and rows of steel doors up to 18in thick.

"This isn't paranoia or fantasy, this is the future," said Dr Ian Angell, professor of information systems at the London School of Economics and author of The New Barbarian Manifesto. "There are sophisticated anti-capitalists out there who feel a great deal of resentment against the business world. These are the new Luddites and, given half a chance, they would smash the machine to pieces."

Behind The Bunker is a company called AL Digital Communications, established by the brothers Adam and Ben Laurie and Dominic Hawken. Ben Laurie is already revered in the computing world as the man who co-wrote Apache-SSL, perhaps the best-known encryption technology available over the internet a tool used by some anti-capitalists when arranging demonstrations.

Three years ago, AL Digital heard that an RAF facility with state-of-the art electronics and communications systems was to be auctioned off. RAF Ash was one of four underground command and control centres at the heart of Britain's national air defence system. As part of a cost-cutting exercise, it was to be mothballed only seven years after undergoing a complete overhaul and upgrade.

The AL Digital team made a sealed bid still secret, according to the Ministry of Defence and the 60,000sq ft bunker with 18 acres of land was theirs. "The facility was designed to withstand a nuclear attack without disrupting RAF computer systems," Dominic Hawken said. "Their computers were about radar, but there is little difference between that and hosting a website. Some people have argued that our defences are a little over the top, but they're here now what can we do, shave a little off the walls?"

To enter, visitors must pass through security checks before being allowed through layer after layer of restricted access; of the 49 employees on site, only a handful are allowed into the bowels of the structure. Here, one finds doors that take two people to open and concrete grottoes called Faraday cages that act as electric buffers between the hostile outside and the environmentally pure, air-filtered inside.

There are three back-up power systems big enough to fire up a small town when busy, the National Grid buys energy from The Bunker's four turbines. There are dedicated telecommunications lines installed for the RAF but now available to customers at between £250 a month for a single server on a shelf, to "several millions" of pounds a year for the kind of huge space being rented by a large and unnamed international computer company already inside The Bunker.

There is also a fire station, vast underground fuel and water tanks and an array of cameras on corridors and servers you can even have a camera pointed permanently at your little box to make sure no one tampers with it.

Mr Hawken added: "Co-location is now the buzzword; if your records are destroyed, you want at least one back-up in another place so your business can keep operating. There are many reasons why companies are choosing the safety of a nuclear bunker, but I think the anti-capitalist threat is the most compelling.

"That whole thing is about bringing down large companies and the weakest link is to get to where their information is stored and destroy it. Because of encryption, they can no longer interfere with data, so they may try to damage the hardware that physically contains or controls it. For companies operating over the internet, that means targeting their servers."

None of The Bunker's customers contacted by The Independent would comment for security reasons. However, one, a large multinational computer corporation, said: "The Bunker provides us with a level of physical security and reliability unobtainable in the US. Experience taught us that digital security unaccompanied by physical security is worthless. The Bunker provides us with the highest levels of both."

Other companies said they simply felt they could relax knowing their internet operations were physically safe from attack.

Professor Angell said: "You have to understand. Future wars will be fought by capitalists and anti-capitalists as society polarises. When that happens, control of information will be as important as control of territory used to be in conventional conflicts. If you can stop your enemy from destroying your information, then you have a good chance of winning the war."

Re:Overkill?

[AndyChrist]

Are you even ALLOWED to have a PhD if you've seen Johnny Mnemonic?

Nothing new

[duvel]

There's nothing new in 'going underground' to enforce the safety of a computerpark. My company - a large european bank - has had similar facilities for the last decade. To be exact: we have one computer centre that is built intirely under the ground, and a second (a complete copy of the first) that sits on the second floor of another building. Both sites are complete copies, so if one goes down, the idea is that the other should be able to take over all the work. To give an idea of the scrutiny which we use to make sure that the two sites are fully redundant: The sites are connected only by fiber (no copper) to make sure that for instance a lightning blast cannot be propagated through the network from one site to the other.

Having a site on a second floor protects against floods. Having an underground site should protect against plane crashes (although we haven't really tested that, perhaps we should ask that Richard Branson guy if he could help us out with that).

I just mean to say: if my company could have reused an existing safe cellar for their underground location, they probably would have too. That has got to be cheaper than what we're doing now.

by coincidence

[Alien54]

By coincidence, today's (11.june.2001) User Friendly comic has a similar item about a company needing more office space.

makes sense to me.

;-)

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

US silo for sale

[demon93]

There is already at least one silo for sale in the US... Silohome

Re:Not worth it

[mrbester]

Now they'll have to worry about someone cutting off their power

They make their own.

their data lines

Yeah, us Brits are so dumb we didn't think of that one. This is a MILITARY bunker not some "lets keep the bureaucrats safe" hole. Communications are paramount.

their cable TV

Now you're trolling deliberately

their phones

See above

and they'll also have to worry about Islamic militants hired to work on the plumbing and flooding them out

Or maybe the contractors who built the thing would have been checked out by MoD before they were allowed within 5 miles of the place...

Modding this "Insightful" is like calling Houston dry.

The Bunker Guided Tour

[Steve Cox]

The Bunker has its website at http://www.thebunker.net. It has a number of good photos of the place.

Steve.

Re:Overkill?

[Deadplant]

I particularly liked the pessimistic quote they had from Dr Ian Angell (professor of information systems at the London School of Economics) ...

"You have to understand. Future wars will be fought by capitalists and anti-capitalists as society polarises. When that happens, control of information will be as important as control of territory used to be in conventional conflicts."

grim predictions coming from across the pond...

Re:Overkill?

[hillct]

First let me point out that this is rather old news. There have been articles about this sort of thing, floating around for several years

That said, it's still an interesting application for military installalations that would otherwise fall into neglect and disrepair (or cost their respective governments, big $$$ to maintain). These sorts of facilities are perfectly suited to such a use. Power requirements, independant generators, climate control, all are already in place, (as I presume the article pointed out, although when I tried to read it it had already been /.'ed).

Also, The fear-mongering mentioned by previous posters is nothing more than good business, and let's face it, there are some applications where the physical invulnerability of the facilities is a big attraction as well, but my point here is the majority of customers will be atracted to this sort of facility, not by the 6 feet of concrete surrounding their servers, but the relitive low cost and treditional data center style precausions and security service, provided at relitively low cost.

No, I havn't priced out a missile silo or abandoned sub base recently...

--CTH

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I wonder if...

[tonywestonuk]

Someone high up requested a 'Bomb proof server' farm (as in, free from BSOD...).

Unfortunetly - The request was just slightly misinterperated..... aw well!

Flooding?

[espo812]

Is the second floor of that building the top floor? Last year my company had a significant network hiccup. Somehow the sprinkler system from a floor above our company's headquarters went off. All weekend I believe. Anyway, the HQ got flooded from above, and a lot of stuff (PBX, personal records) were down. This kinda sucked since it was like my second day, and I needed to take to them about something. But I digress.


espo
--

Hmm...

[Scoria]

If there was a nuclear war, what major routers would be left? Would the root DNSes be unaffected?

The Internet isn't as redundant as it was when it was called ARPANET. Sorry, but a nuclear war would probably render having your server in the bunker useless...

Now there's a place...

[Powercntrl]

...to get rid of all those useless Cue Cats and AOL CDs. Dump 'em all in to an empty missle silo, seal it with TNT and pray to God no one ever opens it back up.

Uh oh

[return 42]

One of those abandoned missile silos would make a nice hosting site, too.

"So there I was, hacking away on a tax reporting program...and suddenly my computer says, 'Would you like to play a game?'"