UH-Matt

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...le1496831.ece#

Quite an interesting read, even if The Times get a lot of important facts wrong, the best being:

Try tens of thousands, not dozens....

*sigh*

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Matt
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percepts

I thought one of the main strengths of the web was that taking out one or several hubs wouldn't cause it to fail. I'm sure UH has emergency provision elsewhere

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knapper

Seems typical of a lot of reports on terrorism these days, highly questionable. If the reporter can’t be bothered to check the basic IT facts or get them reveiwed what makes you think the rest of the story is any more accurate?

CSNM-Carl

I'd imagine the threat to data centres is very big. Many of them now search your car boot etc.

UH-Matt

Yes and no. Many many providers have redundancy in place in every aspect of the infrastructure, but the use of multiple datacenters likely is not one of those things. having multiple power feeds, multiple bandwidth providers, generator backup etc etc keeps you online in most events but should an entire DC be blown up you can expect a huge amount of disruption. Tens of thousands of businesses rely on DC's like Telehouse, including financial institutions, ISP and many many others.

We run remote backups of all our data twice a day from our DC over TO Telehouse, so this wouldnt have effected us other than destroying our daily backups.... but many others wouldnt have been so lucky if anything had occured. It would have been a huge deal.

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Matt
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Adam

let's hope it never happens eh? We can't deny that our Secuirty Services must be working hard to stop things like this happening.

MrBen

LINX have a lot of kit in Telehouse so it would have a big impact no doubt on the ability of ISP to interconnect. All the DCs are fairly close in the Docklands too so if they did it right, they might take out an extra on or two

To be honest though, if one of these DCs were to go pop I think we've got slightly more to worry about!!

Ben

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Vger

Today all of the media were pontificating and whining on about the soldiers who are being acquitted by Military Courts Martials over charges of behaving in a brutal way towards people they took into custody in Iraq.

Maybe it's because the Military Courts are more realistic than our media? You can't train people to kill without compunction and to risk their own life in the process and then expect them to behave like a bunch of Sunday School teachers on a picnic when they are in the thick of the action.

I personally don't think that we have the right to send people into action in places like that and then expect them to behave according to some rules written down on a card as the result of some committee sitting in safety and luxury somewhere.

Vger

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UH-Matt

Completely agree.... sending people to prison for abusing people in custody when they were intentionally trained to kill, it doesnt make sense.

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Matt
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Adam

surely they are intentionally trained to kill in a combat situation. Not when someone is in custody and (assumably) no longer a threat ?

percepts

so it'll be alright for the enemy to torture the british soldiers when they capture them...

its a dirty world we live in and its getting worse as the proponents of war get more sophisticated at extracting information from prisoners. The US and Britain are leading the way. Lets face it, we invented chemical weapons and nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction and we like to accuse others of it. Its a fact of human nature that we judge others by our own standards so you can bet those who fear something do so because they are doing it themselves and expect others to do the same to them.

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Vger

Given that they do torture and kill British soldiers after they have captured them - what point is it that you are making exactly??

Vger

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Adam

So we should do the same thing?

percepts

if you reduce your standards of humanity to the lowest denominator with the excuse that others are doing it, you do yourself and humanity a dis-service.

And if your argument is that they are doing it so its alright for us to do it then what moral justification do you have for your argument, and indeed for the justification of taking out the regime that existed before it was obliterated by the supossedly moral high ground?

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desquinn

Not to mention there is UK Law (including military), Iraqi Law, and the Geneva Convention to abide by, as well as common decency. Lets not forget what other soldiers have carried out with the justification of only following orders. The induction in to the armed forces does not confer the right not to be bound by law or decency.

But lets not forget the difficult situation that soldiers are in either. The mental and physical demands they are under may be beyond the majority of us... and sometimes their decisions are not made with a full possesion of the facts or the time in which to consider them. Also we do not always hear the full facts either ......

Vger

People, I don't believe you are talking about "morality" and "standards of common decency" when talking about war. As for "moral justification" - what matters when you go to war is that you win it, not that you can justify it on moral grounds. The time to debate the morality of it is before you commit to going to war.

War, the taking of human life, for whatever reason, is fundamentally immoral and indecent. Should we get involved in wars? Should we go about killing people? The answer should be "No". Each human life is unique and we are all dimished by the loss of it, but this is a very imperfect world we live in.

Please don't make the mistake of thinking that we abided by the Geneva Convention during WW2, because if we had we'd be living under the Nazi jackboot now and the Jewish race would be a footnote in history.

Vger

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percepts

So what was the justification for going to war with Iraq?

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Vger

You're asking me?? Ask Tony Blair or George Bush - damned if I know. What I do know is - soldiers go to where they are sent to go - and once there we can't expect them to behave all "nicely, nicely".

Vger

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knapper

Who does? No British soldiers have been captured in Iraq.

Certainly at times we did not, but in general we did. When we did not those breaches did nothing to influence the outcome of the war.

Vger I find it rather disturbing that you think we should allow people to commit torture in our name simply because other people do it. The logic of your arguement implies that we should allow the police to torture poeple they arrest if they are arrested for violent crimes.

desquinn

To win at all costs is acceptable then in your opinion? So the Srebrenica Massacre was acceptable since it was carried out in time of war. What I think you are missing is that a country may go to war but it is the responsibility of the governments involved and those outside the conflict to judge the behaviour of those involved.
This seems to be at odds with your jack boot quote later, as the sanctity of lives already lost should not have motivated or justified allied forces to confront Germany and unlitmately prevent the extermination of the jewisih race from Europe.
I honestly do not know if you are trolling or not but your opinions seem off the wall to me. The politics of going to war may be suspect but the support of the soldiers involved and risking their lives should be commended. The human element means thatr there will always be stories that are less palatable than we would like. This does not change the fact that the majority of soldiers both past and present are decent human beings that have done their "duty" with sincerity, and without breaking the geneva convention or any laws. If it is good enough for one soldier to held to that standard then it is good enough for all........

No but we can expect them to follow orders as they are soldiers after all. I honestly feel it is morally and ethically indefensible to support a position that says since we sent them to war then they can become a monster.