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Datacenter Robbed for the Fourth Time in Two Years
mariushm writes "According to the Register, the Chicago-based colocation datacenter C I Host was attacked by armed intruders recently, making it the the fourth time in two years that armed thugs have made off with data. According to a letter C I Host officials sent customers, 'At least two masked intruders entered the suite after cutting into the reinforced walls with a power saw ... During the robbery, C I Host's night manager was repeatedly tazered and struck with a blunt instrument. After violently attacking the manager, the intruders stole equipment belonging to C I Host and its customers.' Aggravating the situation, C I Host representatives took several days to admit the most recent breach, according to several customers who said they lost equipment, all the while reporting the problems as 'router failures'."
And if they have been robbed before - why not increase the security? Four times? - That's some kind of record. Maybe it's time to check if the localization of the whole thing is incorrect and move it to a better location where it's less likely to suffer from this kind of incident?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
It turns out the router was unable to route wherever the thieves had taken it.
No, it sounds like something out of a ridiculously popular A-movie that makes 100s of millions of dollars. You underestimate the american public's willingness to watch total crap.
After the first robbery, I'd seriously consider moving my data. If my data is still there after the second robbery, I feel stupid. If my data is still there after the third robbery, I should lose my job. If my data is still there after the fourth robbery, I need to promoted to executive management.
The entire purpose of off-site storage is disaster recovery, and prevention of major disasters like this. Why are these guys still in business?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
shame on you. Fool me four or more times shame on me!
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
I've used them for years, and was an avid supporter of CI Host even while they were enduring constant negative publicity.. I was initially a client of their shared hosting, then upgraded to a dedicated hosting package, and never had an issue aside from the typical short downtime every now and then.. nothing crazy.. so a startup I was working with put a colocated server with them earlier this year and in around 6 months we endure an outage for numerous days, numerous BS excuses, then one day "Oh yeah by the way your server was actually stolen, and good luck finding the real thieves!" So now we come to find that this has happened 3-4 times in the past 2 years, the detective (and even a worker there I talked with) told me they believed it was an inside job. Obviously I am cancelling all of my accounts and taking my business elsewhere. I will proudly do my best to spread the word and tell EVERYONE I know to NEVER use CI Host for *ANYTHING*
Last November I had ALL my servers stolen there. Now over all the years I have had servers I have backed up data, upgraded servers, clean installed servers, etc., then that fateful day in November after being stonewalled for days I finally went over to the data center only to find ALL my servers stolen. All my data. Yea I had some offsite backups, etc, but .... stolen. I guess they thieves really liked my XServes. They were nice and shiny in a sea of beige and black.
Anyway, they gave me some free hosting after that, so, I said ok.. big mistake... about a month ago two of my three servers were stolen. Thankfully I had them a bit spread at the datacenter.
Well, can I sue? What can I do now? Same bs, promising me servers and nothing.
Last year I lost a lot of clients,,, granted all but two were mostly very small time hosting accounts. This time I now lost a big client even though I got them back up and running asap... get a server, install configure, read the files from the backup server, etc.
Anyway it was truly the worst feeling I have had in many a year.
It is definitely bs. And what do the Chicago PD do? Well your guess is as good as mine.. maybe they are out ticketing the thieves truck as their meter runs out.
Any lawyers out there that can help?
Mind | Body | Spirit | Cash
I actually had a server hosted in that very Chicago facility. (I actually got referred to it by clicking a "$75 a month colocation" advertisement link on slashdot)
The datacenter in question is in a terrible neighborhood, and I can't see anyone bothering a truck there in the dead of night.
There was no man trap, and no security of any sort, just a tech guy who let me in and opened the glass datacenter door for me.
I doubt they have a panic button of any sort either.
You disable the one guy on call and there would be no police coming, period.
down at the pawn shop!
It most likely was an inside job. A little while back, I was working for a company that was installing some VoIP phones for CI Host and the list of employee phone numbers kept changing from visit to visit - "Oh that guy? No, he doesn't work here any more."
A friend of mine that used to work there said that "being in jail was a fairly common excuse for missing work there". The employees seemed to hate working there, to put it mildly.
And the cokehead that owned the company loved to fire employees at a moment's notice, left and right. I highly doubt there's any employee loyalty there.
So in short, you've got highly unhappy employees that get fired at an amazing rate, with some seriously negative employee loyalty and they're surprised when stuff gets stolen?
I found these links to the report from a post on theregister.co.uk
Report 1 Page 1
Report 1 Page 2
Report 2 Page 1
Report 2 Page 2
Report 3 Page 1
Report 3 Page 2
The guy says that $50,000 worth of stuff was stolen...not only servers, but misc crap like routers, and battery chargers for Black Berry units.
I'd say either look for a new web host startup in the Chicago area in the next year, or a lot of stuff going cheap on Ebay.
The saddest part about this is that the crims clubbed and zapped some innocent guy that would have offered zero resistance. For this, I hope they thieves go to jail for a long time.
replaced the servers with an IBM BladeCenter.
I couldn't make this stuff up. They're advertising for a security guard,
"We are seeking motivated individuals" ... translation: work cheap.
"Prior security experience preferred." ... translation: not really a requirement, but if we can get it at no extra cost ...
"Some College is also preferred." ... if you managed to drop out of college instead of high school, you're more "presentable" to our insurers, who are now royally pissed at us ...
"Armed Hand-gun license/permit and ability to supply own weapon a Huge Plus! : translation: "we're cheap! You're desperate AND stupid! Let's talk!"