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

[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.