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Nuclear Bunker Houses World's Toughest Server Farm

Lanxon writes "Deep inside the Swiss Alps, a former nuclear bunker is now the ultimate hiding place for the world's most sensitive secrets — the Swiss Fort Knox. In a lengthy feature, Wired gains access to the server farm designed to survive a full-scale military attack. From the article: 'As we punch our codes at the checkpoint, the yellow door opens into what looks like a city of server towers, their green LEDs flickering as a technician in a white jumpsuit runs diagnostic checks. [Later], we are in a dimly lit tunnel next to what looks like a metal oven door carved into the side of the rock. "These are expansion rooms in case you have an atomic explosion outside," Christoph Oschwald, a retired Swiss paratrooper turned contractor, says. The thinking behind the rooms, he explains, is that if there were a nuclear explosion, the rush of high-pressure air would fill them through vents in the opposite side. Then, the vents would snap shut, trapping the air before it had a chance of damaging the fortress. "There is a lot of protection you can't see," he says. We stroll past an intricate network of insulated pipelines that carry water up from the underground glacial lake to the cooling system.'"

2 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Exactly how often are we going to hear this? by cheros · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is deja vu all over again. First off, if it's not a chain of similar setups you have a single site problem - BLAM goes your redundancy. Secondly, define "nuclear attack". If that means "survive the EMP from a nuclear blast" there would be some value in it, but that's going to be a tad hard to prove without seriously upsetting neighboring Gstaad with radiation :-).

    However, most importantly, this stopped being news several years ago - if this is a new setup it's just yet-another-one, if it's not it's not news either. Some of these setups are quite cute, but the idea isn't exactly novel.

    Ah, got it. The hint is in the article: "Rauber and his team, a public-relations representative" - who paid who for what here?

    Yawn.

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  2. Way down on my list by paiute · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If things get so bad that Switzerland is getting nuked, then my data will be one of the least of my worries.

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