[Pigdog] Freenet v. Bunkernet (Was: [EWAR] Top firms retreat intobunker toward off anarchists (fwd)

[Eugene Leitl]

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a>
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2001 15:12:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: George J.P. Perry <geoperry at iww.org>
Reply-To: pigdog-l at bearfountain.com
To: Character References <pigdog-l at bearfountain.com>
Subject: [Pigdog] Freenet v. Bunkernet (Was: [EWAR]  Top firms retreat into
    bunker toward off anarchists (fwd)

Old news, yes, but I was thinking about models for durability...

... inocculation... v. quarantine... glasnost v. black ops... and I remembered
this:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 20:08:22 -0700
From: MIKE SPITZER <mrufomn at aztec.asu.edu>
To: ewar at topica.com
Subject: [EWAR]  Top firms retreat into bunker to ward off anarchists

"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."

http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/update/story.jsp?story=77374

13 June 2001

  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 pounds 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."

=======================================================
                      Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT

          FROM THE DESK OF:

                    *Michael Spitzer*    <drofufos at aztec.asu.edu>

    The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
=======================================================

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