The Nuclear Bunker Where Wikileaks Will Be Located 187
An anonymous reader writes "Engadget has photos of 'Pionen White Mountains, the nuclear bunker in which Wikileaks will locate some of its servers. It was excavated 98 feet underground, in a rock hill in the center of Stockholm, Sweden, during the Cold War.' It looks like they hired the same interior designer who decorated Batman's lair."
Looks familiar (Score:5, Informative)
I'm reasonably sure Slashdot did a story on this underground data center about a year ago, maybe a bit more. I know I've seen these photos before.
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True. Summary sounds like wikileaks is going to use some kind of lost and forgotten vault...uh I mean bunker.
Re:Looks familiar (Score:5, Informative)
Yep ... November 2008:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/14/2138205 [slashdot.org]
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Is it bad that I'm complaining about this at 25?
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Chuck?
Nuke It From Orbit (Score:2)
no a bunker makes it easy to cut the data / power (Score:4, Insightful)
no a bunker makes it easy to cut the data / power cable!
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Not necessary. We'll just send Hillary Clinton in there armed with a spatula, an umbrella, and a 28oz can of SpaghettiOs.
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I'm not part of the "political right" nor am I part of the "political left"... But I am able to make a joke about someone in the political world without the joke being politically slanted. Honest. Read it again and substitute anyone else's name in there. :p
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Maybe you didn't intend this to be trollish, but you were if odd.
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So a joke with a political figure in it is automatically trollish? Why has everyone lost their sense of humor when it comes to anything remotely, and even indirectly, political?
If I had chosen GWB (or Dick Cheney) then the AC probably would have found it funny. /sigh
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Won't somebody please think of the hot Swedish women!
Oh wait, this is Slashdot... don't think about it! Get back to work!
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Nah, 98 ft is just right for a GBU-28 [wikipedia.org]. No need for a nuke.
"It proved capable of penetrating over 30 metres (100 ft) of earth or 6 metres (20 ft) of solid concrete."
This is 30 meters of granite, not earth. Still, I wouldn't want to be underneath it.
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30 meters of granite is approximately equivalent to 30 meters of concrete. I'd say you'd be dusty and a bit banged up but otherwise absolutely fine.
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I can't see that much spalling happening considering everything is being stabilized by the surrounding mountainside and its only rated for 6 meter penetration which should contain the blasts damage to within the first 20m probably. 10m of granite is still a lot of granite.
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
What benefit is there to using these bunkers? If Wikileaks is shut down it will be by court order, not by nuclear missile. I don't see the purpose of paying for their fancy fountain/lighting set up with your server maintenance fees.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Although some of it is frills, doing it underground does largely eliminate seasonal variation and might make security and general environmental control easier. For ordinary server rooms that can be a big expense.
two words: "heat dissipation" (Score:4, Insightful)
bunkers or caves usually ARE cool and don't swing radically up or down in temperature...
until you put a bunch of servers in them
then they heat up, and STAY hot, and are harder to cool than on the surface because there is nowhere to dissipate the heat
also: they are hard to get supplies to and build in, they have air quality issues, etc
yeah: they look really cool and they sound really cool, but in actual practicality, the idea of servers in caves or bunkers sucks
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Nowhere to dissipate the heat? I'm not a scientician, but I swear I've heard somewhere that heat rises. It seems to make sense that you push cold air in under the floor, and let the warm air move up on its own accord. Much like it happens everywhere else, except the ambient temperature is lower and fairly steady.
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Re:two words: "heat dissipation" (Score:4, Funny)
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....You know, that really would work!
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Yeah it sounds a bit over top. Like maybe someone is paranoid or just into fantasy.
Besides the weak link is the internet connection.
Because they can (Score:3, Insightful)
That is enough.
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Maybe they are planning a world "undernet"?
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The US would shut it down by Court order. Countries like Kenya have been embarrassed by WikiLeaks in the past and maybe North Korea and China and South American drug cartels will be the same some day. They could be more likely to send some mercenaries etc. The Mafia in America tried sending car and even boat bombs to silence witnesses.
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In one of the comments from TFA.
The bunkers are great for these kinds of facilities; cool, easy to control the climate/moisture etc and above all untouchable from the outside.
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My initial reaction was that it looked like an awfully expensive place to host a website financed through donations, probably based on considerations involving no small measure of publicity and grandstanding. But, it occurs to me that a coloc taking these physical security measures are probably operating in a niche market which also requires various other controls more relevant to Wikileaks. Maybe they have a specialised legal team in place enabling a much more aggressive approach to legal risks, for exampl
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If Wikileaks is shut down it will be by court order, not by nuclear missile.
Or they could just cut the network cable. No use running a web server that's not connected to a network.
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Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
This "bunker" is actually just a regular ISP/hosting provider that happens to have their operation running out of a badass-looking bunker. Wikileaks probably wanted to move to these guys because they do have a good reputation as a hosting provider. The hosting provider likes this because they get another opportunity to do their supervillain act in front of the media, giving them more free advertising.
Actually I wouldn't be surprised if the hosting co. called up Wikileaks and said "Hey, we'll host your site for free/at a discount if you give us permission to gloat about it publically." And Wikileaks cuts down on their bills. Everyone wins.
Servers? What servers? (Score:2, Insightful)
We ain't got no steenkin' servers. We spent all our money with Gary, our Designer.
and you can have your own! (Score:5, Informative)
anyone with enough tin foil and a couple million $ can have their very own underground fortress!
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there are some decommissioned missile sites out there for sale. here [missilebases.com] is one site with listings.
anyone with enough tin foil and a couple million $ can have their very own underground fortress!
Are you crazy?! That's exactly what the government wants you to do! When all of us who know the truth have finally situated ourselves all locked up tight in these bunkers they'll open the doors to the real missile bunker right beneath us - and then nuke us, minimizing collateral damage. That's why those bunkers are built so strong - not to prevent attacks from the outside getting in, but to prevent fallout/etc from the inside getting out!
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The difference between a fortress and a prison is whether the weapons point in or out.
Seriously. Ever notice how many prisons in Europe were converted fortresses?
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What? No that's crazy. They used these bunkers to store the mind-control chemicals that airliners release into the atmosphere, back before they stored them in their secret space base stuck to the outside of the Earth's ice wall. These bunkers had to be built with thick walls infused with a top-secret material found in UFO hulls to cloak the facilities from being detected by dowsing rods. By selling these bunkers to those of us who know the truth, they hope to expose us to an extremely high dose of chemtrail
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I was with you until "dowsing rods". What kind of looney believes in dowsing rods!?! You're obviously a mole for the Illuminati/IMF, just trying to earn our trust, so you can steal our gold, and replace us with vat-grown clones! Did you think we'd be so easily taken!? What kind of gullible morons do you take us for!? Hah!
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Are you trying to tell me that if you had the cash you wouldn't buy one?
Cooling? (Score:2)
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Who's got the breakdown on the cooling strategy for the batcave?
Alfred Pennyworth.
What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
The survivability of Wikileaks in Sweden is entirely dependent on the Swedish government's willingness to let them be there, and nothing else. The servers could exist in a cave underground or a data center with a big sign that says "Wikileaks is here" in downtown Stockholm. Either way, if the Swedish governments decides they want it gone, it's going to be gone.
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I agree. But I think this is a ruse/diversion/etc. My guess is that the real servers will be located elsewhere. Security by obscurity.
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Your contention is that people will side with Wikileaks if they get caught up in a dragnet approach by the government. Country point: it is at least equally likely that people affected by such a move would side against Wikileaks, blaming Wikileaks for putting them (Johan Six-Herring) in such a position and wish them gone so as to stop inconveniencing everyone else.
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Oh, that should have read contrary point, not country point. doh.
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I didn't make myself clear. I should have said the "real data servers will be located elsewhere." So the police would be able to come in and shut down the net server and take away all the servers. But Wikileaks will be able to get the data back online within minutes from their hidden data server. That starts the police process all over again in different jurisdiction.
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The servers should be replicated in many different jurisdictions, including the USA.
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Sweden (Score:3, Informative)
Has shown that they are willing to do the xxAA's bidding. Ask DVD-Jon.
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Has shown that they are willing to do the xxAA's bidding. Ask DVD-Jon.
Yes, they have shown that they are willing to do the xxAA's bidding. DVD-Jon is unrelated, he is from Norway and has as far as I know never had any kind of interaction with neither Swedish government nor Swedish press.
weakest link is the external data cable (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the Nuclear Option (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's assume, just assume, that Wikileaks has some more juicy tidbits it hasn't been sharing.
Now if they have a location that cannot be broken into physically, and if they have a satellite upload rig, HAM radio, or a similar guaranteed-broadcast failsafe, then there is no way short of abject violence (bombs or similar) to stop them from spreading the dirtiest secrets they have should any determined foe show up at their door and demand that they turn over servers.
Now, given time or the right equipment, an agency can get through even a nuclear bunker, but if they need time, the broadcast capability becomes a serious threat, and if they need equipment, there's most likely going to be... well, leaks that it's getting ready to be mobilized, and then we come to the time issue again. Setting things up to get into a hardened facility without tripping a safeguard like that is tricky.
Or maybe not, but it's food for thought.
Yea.. (Score:2)
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Sure they could have paid interns to help them redact out civilian informants name/information to prevent any retribution when they leak classified military documents, but DID YOU SEE THAT FOUNTAIN!?! IT HAZ COLOR!
A bunker? Makes a lot of sense (Score:2)
Here's why:
It's pretty cool at those depths so simply pumping air around can save in air conditioning utility bills. On the other hand, dealing with human waste often needs additional equipment though not expensive.
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Mostly because there is very little generation of heat underground so the air takes roughly the same temperature as the surrounding rock.
Unfortunately when you're dealing with dozens of servers that's going to generate a _great_ deal more heat than can be dissipated, so unless you have A/C or great ven
Um, which site again? (Score:3, Informative)
Engadget has photos of 'Pionen White Mountains, the nuclear bunker in which Wikileaks will locate some of its servers. It was excavated 98 feet underground, in a rock hill in the center of Stockholm, Sweden, during the Cold War.' It looks like they hired the same interior designer who decorated Batman's lair
Even though the summary mentions Engadget as the source, the TFA links to Gizmodo and as far as I know Engadget has nothing about this on their homepage.
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Engadget, Gizmodo, what's the difference? If I wanted properly edited stories I'd go to a decent tech news aggregator, like Slashdot.
Fake photos? (Score:2)
Either the photos are fake, or that place [gawkerassets.com] keeps changing hands.
Seriously that's like the third if not fourth time I've seen this exact photo used over the last two or three years of Slashdot news.
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It's a colo facility. Most likely there's been another story or two about for the "cool factor". Seriously I don't think they're down there for the "bunker". If the Swedish government is like most other governments when they sell off useless Cold War bunkers, the colo people probably got it for and song and realized it was perfect for servers. Since it was intended for medium to long term human habitation in the event of a total infrastructure failure, it's got built in pretty much everything you need,
Seriously? (Score:2)
The data's got to come out of a hole somewhere.
Wikileaks can be defeated with a pair of dykes.
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Down the rabbit hole and back again.
I doubt think this is to protect the servers against military/police action by legitimate authorities. This is probably the DR site they forgot to build.
They need to bolster security, because Wikileaks might have information that bad actors would love to get their hands on in uncensored form.
If the military wanted to blow up servers, they could simply secure cooperation from the operators of the datacenter, and force their way in, less collataral damage that way
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are probably some European countries where they could be prosecuted but they have not violated any USA law.
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I'm pretty sure stealing secrets or conspiring to steal secrets is against the law no matter who you are or who you do it to.
I'm completely certain (because I've seen the law) that they broke Australian law by stealing America's secrets.
And it's a given that they're not going to live peaceful lives ever again, nor have they done a thing to make anyone else safer.
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I don't see why Wikileaks needs to have any centralized physical presence at all. Black hats manage to run their "businesses" without any. In fact showing their faces was the dumbest thing they ever did.
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Second dumbest.
The less anonymous they are, the harder it is to disappear them.
2 Dykes you say? (Score:5, Funny)
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pretty normal (Score:2)
when i worked at www.iol.unh.edu, networkworld or someone like that did an article about us. since we were just a bunch of server racks, they brought in all these stupid colored lights, killed the main lights.. all the kids working there got hollywood concealer jobs. they ended up looking like mimes, covering the nerd complexion. and of course, the place is 120 kids, 8 females... after 16 kids had photos taken, it looked like a 50% ratio. go figure. photography is a quick and easy way to stretch the tr
Structurally sound? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm looking at this photo of one of the rooms [gawkerassets.com]. Is having a glass room suspended from the ceiling really such a good idea for a bunker designed to withstand blasts? It seems like a very bad idea to make a structurally sound bunker with that kind of room. Unless you want your manager to be the first one to die in his office
Must be kind of depressive... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I spent 6 months, working in a bunker (Score:2)
and I have to agree. It was only a Canadian Dieffenbunker (http://www.diefenbunker.ca/ ) in Alberta, but it was underground, under concrete and steel and it got a bit depressing. After a 12 hour shift it was really quite shocking to exit the bank-vault doors and return to the real world :P
It was also kinda cool in a way :P
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... to work there. Just imagine growing up programming in your parents basement, and when you finally get a real job, it's in a cave.
On the bright side, they have a lot of room to move up. Through solid rock. Yeah, it's like a career ladder, but you have to dig your way up it. And there's bats.
Been there (Score:3, Informative)
I've been down there on a tour once. It's quite a cool place as you can see from the pictures, with its humidifiers, plants, lighting and floating island landscape. Although as others have pointed out, none of this protects against any real threat.
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It protects against the threat of being square! Consider it Apple Care for your Colo.
More convenient (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like a great place for Assange to stash the women. Be a lot harder for them to run to the police.
Ego? (Score:2)
Looks to me like it's being done more for show, and perhaps ego, than for any practical reason. I certainly don't see it being any cheaper than just having the servers in some office building somewhere.
Mobility Is Better (Score:2)
I fear for the safety of those at WikiLeaks as well as their gear and data. The best security might be to have quite a bit of their data and personnel in a highly mobile, very covert, posture. Various governments can not be trusted and murder is not an unknown event.
Sure, but can it withstand... (Score:5, Funny)
The natural enemy of fiber... a backhoe?
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Ah, the backhoe, with its powerful metal proboscis, always seeking to dig up the soft flesh of the fiberopticus expensivus and feed on its sweet photons. A battle as old as time itself that wages on in spite of man's technological advancements.
Good sense for Wikileaks (Score:2)
This makes good sense for Wikileaks. It gives them protection against any "accidents". The US government can ask the Swedish government to shut down Wikileaks, but that will be public, highly visible, controversial, argued in the press, and decided by Swedish courts.
Irrefutable evidence of Assange being w/Illuminati (Score:2)
And that's just days after having been implicated in the destruction of Alderaan [imgur.com]...
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What is the point of it being underground like this?
To survive some kind of explosive attack?
Anybody that is at all determined to disable access to this server would just need to snip the internet cable running into this bunker (and yes, jam/intercept any wireless connection it may have) and then prevent WikiLeaks from fixing it.
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It's there:
1. To make the servers physically safer
2. Because it impresses investors
It's not in a bunker to ensure uptime, but to ensure istime.
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If the Swedish Police, or US government, for some reason decides that Wikileaks must be shut down an underground bunker won't help at all. It seems pointless, but then Wikileaks is all about the drama.
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I think the "drama" as you put it is more about survival than anything else. By being very public and getting in the news a lot, they make it a lot harder for the people who don't like having their dirty secrets aired to make Wikileaks disappear.
If Assange wasn't such a visible self-promoter, he'd have been fish food a long time ago.
As a contributor (financial) to Wikileaks, I'm plenty glad that they exist. Is Assange Albert Schweitzer? No, bu
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Someone should tag it pionenforthefjords, though.
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It will also be much easier to control access.
Meh, someone's probably already installed a back door.
Blakes 7 - Pressure Point (Score:2)
I doubt Wikileaks "central control" is in that bunker any more than Federation Central Control "was" [epguides.info]
Is there a self-repairing energy grid protecting the complex? If so, look somewhere else.
Re:Disappointed (Score:4, Interesting)
For bunker busters, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bunker_buster [wikipedia.org]
Altering the shape of the projectile to incorporate an ogive shape has yielded substantial results. Rocket sled testing at Eglin Air Force Base has demonstrated penetrations of 100 to 150 feet (46 m) in concrete[citation needed] when traveling at 4,000 ft/s (1,200 m/s). The reason for this is liquefaction of the concrete in the target, which tends to flow over the projectile. Variation in the speed of the penetrator can either cause it to be vaporized on impact (in the case of traveling too fast), or to not penetrate far enough (in the case of traveling too slow). An approximation for the penetration depth is obtained with an impact depth formula derived by Sir Isaac Newton.
So, it still depends. What material is between the surface and this bunker? I'd imagine a hard rock would have a lot more stopping power than concrete (due to how they penetrated the concrete). Either way, it sounds like if you would line the bunker with a pretty thick layer of steel in addition, you'd probably turn out OK.
Someone in the know correct me on this.
Re:Disappointed (Score:4, Informative)
Unrelated to the rest of the post, this whole bunker business may be unnecessary, but you can't deny they've got style.
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Seriously. I'd have expected Wikileaks to be on a shoestring budget -- and even if its budget is generous, I'd be expecting them to be very prudent about their use of resources. Why would they be using this over-the-top interior decoration?
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They're buying space in an existing colo facility with probably hundreds of other paying customers. Probably just a couple of cabinets. They're not building the thing.
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Somehow I can see the US being more interested on taking out Wikileaks that Osama or the-like.
Why? Security theatre must be protected so that draconian laws can stay on the books.
The irony is:
-if they get Osama, Joe-six-pack will think that 9/11 is finally over and things can go back to normal.
-If they take out Wikileaks, the world stays in the dark (OMG, new dark ages?) and the truth is what the USA says it is.