Interesting Links for 06-10-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Scientists Reveal Biological Basis of Long Covid Brain Fog

(tags:Pandemic brain disease )

2. Fire destroys Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

(tags:Korea data epicfail backup )

3. Disastrous South Korean data centre fire is connected to North Korean hacking

(tags:NorthKorea korea hacking sabotage )

Comments

[channelpenguin]

Ok. Sure. I get you. I stand corrected.

It was a data centre. A private one, it seems. With no off-site backups. For gov, that's kinda unbelievable, but hey. Back in my days at BR, we had 2 data centre sites, pretty much hot swappable and a 3rd "secret" site (rumoured to be in Wales).

To me, "Cloud" implies one of the big players with all that offers. But yeah I'm sure there's ways to fuck that up too.

And too many people back in the day never tried actually restoring their backups from time to time...

[andrewducker]

It's definitely a giant fuck up/sabotage in any case. Probably both.

[bens_dad]

Network rather than storage; the story I heard was that some time (last century, I believe) Cambridge had problems with the link to JaNET, the nation university network and eventually achieved redundant links with two different suppliers.

A JCB (backhoe?) managed to break both links, because the two suppliers were using the same trench !

The entertaining part was that the break was in Bury-St-Edmunds, tens of miles in the wrong direction from the direct route.

[andrewducker]

Ouch! I wonder why the "wrong" direction was easier. I assume historical reasons of some kind!

[bens_dad]

I didn't get to ask that.

I don't know the telecom map of the UK, but I wonder whether the BT research labs at Martlesham Heath, Ipswich are relevant ?

[redbird]

After the 9/11 attacks, it was discovered that some computer communication systems that should have been triply-redundant, from different suppliers, all used cables that went under the World Trade Center. I think that was a combination of the people who paid for that should-be-redundant system not having checked that companies A, B, and C weren't using any shared cables (possibly owned by D), and not having checked the physical locations of the cables.

[andrewducker]

Oh dear.

I do think that most people are terrible at thinking things through.

[bens_dad]

Ah, the reverse of the 1996 Manchester bombing.

Some servers in buildings demolished by the bomb were still running and there was a rush to copy the data before the emergency services switched the power off.