I guess someone couldn't find the songs on a P2P service and wanted them so badly they stole the servers.

Just goes to show that P2P decreases crime.

quoted on the ISP's network status as 'suffered a security incident in our High Wycombe facility '

http://www.opal-solutions.com/support/network-status/report/?reportid=289

no more information as of yet from them

Being in the industry I visit a fair few data centres each year. Is it just me or do all data centres have deliberately misleading postcode location data?

Typical scenario is: follow sat nav for 250 miles, get to industrial estate in the AEOK, drive around for 30 minutes in the general location of point on sat nave before giving up and phoning the client to ask where I am meant to be.

For those not in the know, typically such places have no signage and a locked steel gate.

I was thinking datacenters were really secure, obviously not...

They must have used a sledgehammer to get in.

Mine is they one with the cassette tapes in the pockets.

I've not yet seen a proper data center where nicking servers (worth what, a few grand?) would be a worthwhile task - proper data centers tend to be better secured than the average bank.

I'm guessing by "data center", they mean "the closet at the back of the design agency's high street office with the extra DSL line"?

Presumably El Reg will blame the Freetards for not just stealing the music but taking the whole caboodle ?

Mine's the one with the 19" pockets.

Must be really tight at this place,

suppose it's better than phorm stealing data

It's not just you. I've seen plenty of "data-centres" that are cow sheds on industrial estates or office buildings with a gated generator outside (zero downtime network that is) and a few air con units on the roof (ultra modern HVAC).

This apparently constitutes world class facilities. Not to mention the multiple routes to upstream providers that guarantees robust connectivity (only one fibre to the outside world then).

One data centre told me that because they had their own fibre optic connection to a BT point of presence only 1 mile away, there was no requirement for a secondary fibre that other colo's may need. 3 months later the water board cut their fibre in half by accident. I laughed until I remembered that I had a server hosted with them. :(

I know that you've got to start somewhere, but seriously I have been inside some experienced and widely advertised company's "data-centres" and quite a few are barely deserved of the term.

Yarrr! Bulldozer v's Cow Shed = Epic Win.

I once walked in and out of one of the more secure datacentres in London, and all they had in their logs was the name of a comic character. It was an inspiration at the time, but turned into a good joke when we had an irritating sales director visit the week after who tried to sell us space we didn't need, so I updated him on some facts. Apparently a board meeting got a bit stormy when he got back to base :-).

In their defence, they're not the only ones. I walked in and out of the LSE building at St Katherine's Dock, tailgating for a full 2 weeks before security decided to challenge me for my badge (which I had kept in my pocket for all that time to see how long it would take). Unfortunately for security Iwas doing an access control survey (very evil grin). This was a while back, so maybe it's time to shake them up again..

I can beat that. I once worked in a place one might expect to have quite high levels of security that required me to sign in a ledger and get a temp sticky-backed badge.

This went on for three months, during which I got bored, so began signing the book "Meek and Mild Peter Parker" and the badge "The Amazing Spider Man". "Quiet and Studious Clark Kent" was badged up as "Superman". "Millionare Bruce Wayne" badged up as "Batman, The Dark Knight". It was great fun.

Until about the third week, when I got called on the carpet by the head of security, who was very upset.

Not because I had signed a false name on the security documents.

Because the name in the book and the name on the badge didn't match.

Absolutely true story.

most security guards get paid less than cleaners - the latter, after all, have to put in some effort, the former just laze around in uniforms sometimes getting use of a car.

of course, the time when having trained and motivated guards is important is when the guard is most likely to be thinking "I'm not paid enough to try and stop this robbery".

The only data centres i've been in required written authorised access to be raised by someone inside the "secure area" before security would let me through the barrier, I then had to use my company key card, an additional key card issued by security (allocated to me and to match my key card) then had to punch in a alpha-numeric which changed per room per visit (again tied to my card and the security card) - was ballesd if I had to visit more than one room as I have the memory of a goldfish - patted down on the way in to ensure I wasn't taking anything in that could break the system (such as my mobile, had to be surrendered at the front desk) and on the way out to make sure I wasn't taking anything with me. Everything was on CCTV, my first visit I got lost and a voice came from nowhere re-directing back to where I should be.

Pain in the ass working on servers in there as you can't call anyone for help and not having access to a terminal (not allowed to login to the machines, only the remote admins could do that) you had to leave if you wanted to google or call about the hardware issue you were looking at - and then start the whole procedure again.

The really unnerving part was the box of latex gloves in securities office, not sure if it was just there sense of humour as I never heard anyone getting *that* well frisked but it did make sure I towed the line...

When I used to work for them, their "datacentre" was a partitioned area of office space. They were continually having power outages due to the office having not been provisioned for the ammount of servers they had running. During the summer, the "server room", as it was called, would overheat and cause more problems.

Their first elementary mistake was siting anything of any value or consequence in High Wycombe - what a shit hole - if its not nicked there it'll soon get trashed by the low-life.

I've both lived and worked there and witnessed first hand, world class looting in action. In reality, building security is merely a challenge, a blatant advertisement that there must be something, anything, somewhere inside worth stealing. Mind you, the same could be said about Slough, Reading and Oxford. Grief the Home Counties are becoming the clepto version of Dawn of the Dead.

Roll on the luna Botany Bay!

I'm only surprised by the fact that they didn't torch the place on the way out - I wonder how much smack they got for all the hardware?

Bastards!

They even stole my bloody dreams in High Wycombe ....

If you want to be taken seriously as an ISP, hosting service, colo, or whatever, you must surely have a hot site that's not too close to the prime site. All manner of weirdness can happen after all: natural disasters, power outages, backbone connection failures, you-name-it. If it can't happen, it will. Gabriel and all others hit by this should look for another service and check that they have a hot site.

I wholeheartedly agree that security employees at data centers/museums/banks/etc should be paid far more. If Hollywood has taught me anything, it's that those poor bastards are the first to be silencer'd to the chest (usually without even having time to jump out of their chairs) when a group of ruthlessly efficient criminals rolls over the joint.

With that kind of risk, minimum wage just doesn't seem fair.

I am always in data centers and comms rooms belonging to banks, The security in these places is bloody awful at best, i can wander around as i choose, i get given a pass by security, with a 4 digit code, once inside i can do what i want, never see a soul once in there. Some times i spend days in the in the comms rooms etc, no question. but if i want to go in a plant room i get the third degree. working in the offices i need a permit and they want to know what i am doing and where...

Have i missed somthing...

Server REALLY not found?

I bet they used .....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqyc37aOqT0

If we're going to quote from PG songs :-)

Yeah!

I know how to move quietly, to creep across creaky data-center floors...

If someone could have shut him up in about 1972 it would have saved us all a lot of pain.

...so he's gone to Salisbury Hill to regain his Self Control.

and from the inside - apparently quite a lot of shiny Cisco kit was taken too.

and only the "good stuff," which surprises me, as I didn't think they had any good stuff.

my 2 €c... interxion. they have actually security that makes me want to kill them from time to time... :)

Denis Leary FTW!!!!

/im on my way

On the subject of file backup, sharing and storage ...

Online backup is becoming common these days. It is estimated that 70-75% of all PC's will be connected to online backup services with in the next decade.

Thousands of online backup companies exist, from one guy operating in his apartment to fortune 500 companies.

Choosing the best online backup company will be very confusing and difficult. One website I find very helpful in making a decision to pick an online backup company is:

http://www.BackupReview.info

This site lists more than 400 online backup companies in its directory and ranks the top 25 on a monthly basis.

To rob a data centre is easy, simply pretend to be the police.

I believe that ruse was used about 18 months ago to steal a few cages worth of kit from a london data centre.

According to an account manager at Opal Solutions a window was left open at the Opal data centre in high wycombe on the Sunday. Great security! I know for a fact that the security at the other Opal centres is not much better and note that another comment added about leaving windows open in the summer to help cooling is correct at one of their other Newbury sites.

The security cameras at Newbury are not much better and are hardly monitored - they are basically web cams and none of the racks are locked anyone can just walk in and take what they want. Opal are going down hill fast...