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Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers
- TomK32 8y ago"Top 10 most boring building in the most boring part of town with no food truck for miles." https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/amazon-web-services-data-center/423147/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/amazo... Seriously, besides the DoD contract angle, what's the point in publishing this data?
- mtmail 8y agoThe address in Palo Alto is right off University Avenue behind the Walgreens. The one in Luxembourg is an office building as well. I don't see much value unless one wants to destabilize internet infrastructure.
- devoply 8y ago1 day of destabilization = 10 years in jail. It will quickly recover, you however will not.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIt is somewhat humorous you would assume a determined attacker would be apprehended, or dissuaded by jail time. Poor threat modeling. It's difficult enough to defend against wild backhoes.
- drharby 8y agoYou give actors too much credit
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- dekhn 8y agoSo, basically, it's at PAIX/Equinix.
- halbritt 8y agoThose have been vacated by AWS for quite a while.
- stereo 8y agoThe Luxembourg ones are perfectly well-known data centres.
- halbritt 8y agoMost of the ones in the Bay Area are, to my knowledge relatively small "retail" colo spaces. 200 Paul, 528 Bryant is PAIX, 11 Great Oaks is Equinix. SV2 got shut down years ago. I don't remember AWS ever being in 3000 Corvin, which is a tiny, poorly powered data center. As an example of how old this data is, I reported to someone in 2014 time frame that led data center operations for some AWS regions including North America. He told stories of vacating 200 Paul, I'm guessing in the pre-2010 timeframe. In any case, none of this information is that big of a secret. It's all in the public record. It's pretty hard to build something that size and with that degree of power consumption without others noticing. There's generally plenty of news media about such things: http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/local-news/20170317/amazon-keeps-building-data-centers-in-umatilla-morrow-counties http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/local-news/20170317/amazon-k...
- rconti 8y agoI thought the datacenters on Corvin were newer; I've spent a lot of time at the Walsh Ave ones next to Nvidia and Corvin stuff looked new.
- halbritt 8y agoI just checked and you are correct. I guess they probably leveled the old building, which was 3030 Corvin. Anyone that was there in the mid 2000s remembers when Facebook heated the place up and they had box fans every where, an extra generator parked in the parking lot, etc.
- rconti 8y agoMakes sense, I never visited that area until a job I started in 2011.
- bogomipz 8y ago>"In some cases, Amazon uses pseudonyms to obscure its presence. For example, at its IAD77 data center, the document states that “Amazon is known as ‘Vandalay Industries’ on badges and all correspondence with building manager”." This made me laugh. Vandalay Industries is a reference to a very funny Seinfeld episode. Someone at AWS has a good sense of humor: http://seinfeld.wikia.com/wiki/Vandelay_Industries http://seinfeld.wikia.com/wiki/Vandelay_Industries
- blakesterz 8y agoSeems like using ‘Vandalay Industries’ is a terrible idea. Doesn't everyone* know that anything called ‘Vandalay Industries’ is an obvious fake? * Maybe anyone over a certain age? Do people under... I dunno, 40? 30?... watch much Seinfeld? Seems like TV shows are largely generational things... I'm aware of MASH and Dick Van Dyke, but I wouldn't get the semi obscure jokes from those shows since they were on when I was super young.
- SpicyLemonZest 8y agoI'd guess the goal is more to keep this list from coming up in public records searches than to serve as a truly effective disguise. I can't imagine the datacenter employees are expected to lie to everyone about where they work.
- saalweachter 8y agoWhich reminds me of the article on HN a few months/years back about how you could identify most spies because they all appeared the same way in embassy listings (which was all public information). With a lot of things like this, you're really squatting at a particular point in the effort-reward curve. You're not going to make something of this scale absolutely secret; there are hundreds of people involved, deliveries of material over years, and ongoing services. It's not like Amazon can bury the workers on site after they finish their work, like people always claim the pharaohs of old did but probably didn't. But being a little secret might solve some problems, so if there are low-effort ways to make it a little secret, you go ahead and do those. You make a shell company, even if it has a stupid name. You don't tell contractors or delivery people who the real owner is. You don't drive up to the building in a car that says "AMAZON1" on the license plate. It's not going to keep the place totally secret, but if it makes a few things easier - you get fewer break-ins, you have fewer troubles with the local planning boards, whatever - it's probably worth the tiny bit of effort. (Also, did you know that Dick Van Dyke is still alive and active? He's in the new Mary Poppins.)
- morpheuskafka 8y agoHow come WikiLeaks is distributing this? I don't see any meaningful connection to government transparency or even corporate transparency... this has nothing to do with abuse of power, it is completely normal and rightful for a company to keep its infrastructure locations secret. Some of this could be found through public records, etc. and that fine to post, but internal operating procedures are not. Sure, it's fun to look at. But the only people who will really benefit from this being leaked are AWS competitors and malicious actors intending to disrupt international communications.
- mey 8y agoWikiLeaks may not have the mission statement you think it does.
- AsyncAwait 8y agoInsert some bullshit about working with Russia, bla, bla, bla, China, Iran, any country the U.S. doesn't like? If so, I don't think that's it, as much as the DNC would like to detract from conspiring against Sanders. WikiLeaks does have biases, sure, like Assange not liking Clinton, since she called for his droning, however if you actually read more about WikiLeaks than the surface reports, it is simply that they believe in complete transparency of powerful actors to hold them to account. Amazon currently bids for CIA contracts and runs most of the popular internet, so I guess they'd fit that definition. Remember, Wikileaks was loved by Democrats in the Bush era and hated by Republicans, now it sort of reversed due to Trump. I presume it will switch again in 2020. I just wish people would be a bit more honest about this.
- wstuartcl 8y ago... It is not about Republicans or Democrats -- the reality is that it is operating in a way where we can all be assured it is not doing so in "our" best interest, but instead for some other nation-states purpose. Just because the party you identify with seems to be helped by something they have done recently does not mean you should take them as being honest actors.
- ubersoldat2k7 8y agoGreat! Now I'll know where to go when I need to restart my EC2 instance.
- hacknat 8y agoTheir justification for releasing this is crap.
- giarc 8y agoBut they made a 'game' of it! /s
- azinman2 8y agoI’ve lost all respect for Wikileaks. How about actually leaking documents on day, I dunno, how the Chinese government is trying to brainwash Uighurs and erase their culture and religion? Instead, it’s always the US that’s been the bad guy, and now it’s not even really the government directly. There’s no cultural suppression or a larger public benefit from knowing where amazon data centers are located. What a joke.
- 394549 8y ago> How about actually leaking documents on day, I dunno, how the Chinese government is trying to brainwash Uighurs and erase their culture and religion? Wikileaks legitimately may not be in a position to acquire such documents to leak. My understanding is that they mainly distribute documents provided to them by others, and has never exercised much editorial discretion. If Wikileaks is best known in the US/Western Europe, it'll likely only acquire documents related to those regions. For a Chinese person to leak documents about Xinjiang to Wikileaks, that person must first know about them, then be able to contact them, then be able to send the documents to them. I wouldn't be surprised if Wikileaks itself is blocked by the Great Firewall, and that its typical communication channels for leakers are blocked and/or difficult to use from the PRC, which makes the whole process doubtful.
- sudosteph 8y agoWe'll never know how much "editorial discretion" they exercise by just not releasing things that don't suit the narrative they're building. And I'm guessing it's actually a whole lot. During the 2016 US election, they implied often on twitter that they were sitting on more information about all parties, constantly hyping up more bombshells and then only releasing some one-sided nothingness. It was such an obvious attempt to destabilize the discourse, it's hard to imagine their motives were driven by anything other than the interests of a certain foreign government.
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- Apfel 8y ago
- have_faith 8y agoLike others, I'm confused to the reasoning of the leak. What public good does it promote? What can anyone do with this information that is productive?
- hkai 8y agoSeems to be outdated. One of the folks named in the document as responsible for a China site is not working for Amazon since a few years ago and is now at Google Cloud, according to his linkedin.
- N0RMAN 8y agoAgain you can clearly see WikiLeaka mission: Randomly attacking and potentially damaging businesse.
- ucaetano 8y agoA lot of the locations look more like POPs, not data centers. The multiple in Brazil are just coloc and meet-me sites run by local companies (UOL, Algar, TIVIT). What a shitty service, WikiLeaks...
- patrickg_zill 8y agoThis in no way harms Amazon in terms of security, though it may have a PR implication or possibly allow others to take Amazon to task in some way. Security by obscurity cannot be relied upon.
- MaxBarraclough 8y agoWell, Amazon had a very deliberate policy of keeping this stuff secret, and went to some lengths to keep it that way. I agree it's hardly a death-knell for them, it's more of a hiccup, but they didn't want this to happen.
- neurobashing 8y agoAs a resident of Ashburn, VA the locations are hardly a secret. Just about everyone in the area who cares to know, knows. I drive past the place in the header image of https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/amazon-web-services-data-center/423147/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/amazo... on the way home from the Sterling Wal-Mart. My next door neighbor is an HVAC tech for Amazon, and he's only barely secretive about where they are (to me anyway). Everyone at Old Ox and Crooked Run breweries seems to know, etc.
- romed 8y agoThe most shocking thing in this release is that amazon internally uses Twiki. Happy hacking, black hats!
- amatecha 8y agoThe timing on the release of this information is very _interesting_, considering: "Currently, Amazon is one of the leading contenders for an up to $10 billion contract to build a private cloud for the Department of Defense. [...] Bids on this contract are due tomorrow."
- ape4 8y agoWould it be possible to find the general location by checking ping times?
- kylegordon 8y agoThe metadata of the PDF doesn't seem to include a date, but it's not particularly new. It doesn't have the London or Paris availability zones listed.
- lavezzi 8y agoDoesn't it say late 2015 in the article?
- expathacker 8y agoNot the most exciting, or revealing of leaks. Less interesting, then, say, their leaks of Turkish dessert recipes[0]. Great attempt at clickbait though! Compare the locations with https://www.internetexchangemap.com/ https://www.internetexchangemap.com/ and you'll see that most of these are just the natural locations for datacenters. Most of these locations are within a few kilometers, sometimes within a few hundred meters, of other commercial datacenters. They generally fall within: Close to major population and finance centers with affordable power, abundant fiber, and local/state governments willing to give subsidies... like every other datacenter. 0. https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/757649656650297345 https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/757649656650297345
- Akinato 8y agoI agree with many of the others. I don't see how this information could be useful for anything except someone with malicious intent.
- booleandilemma 8y agoWikileaks, if you leak everything indiscriminately like this you’re like that gossipy person no one likes or trusts.
- amai 8y agoInteresting. A company which wants my real name as a customer is using fake company names to hide away.
- erentz 8y agoThis looks old. It doesn’t include their Columbus data centers for example.
- juscallmerico 8y ago..geo-awareness fail? or faith in bombing range containment? https://imgur.com/HcVFJ0K https://imgur.com/HcVFJ0K
- mikehotel 8y agoThe leaked document is from October 2015. It’s missing new regions in Ohio, Mumbai, Seoul, Canada, Paris, and GovCloud.
- mvanbaak 8y agoThis release shows how desperate wikileaks is. Very old and outdated data that is far from secret. We should all simply ignore them nowedays, thank them for what they did in the past and tell them to move on. The only reason I see why they published is: get some new media attention because tomorrow they might get a contract with Y who we dont like blabla.
- Upvoter33 8y agoAmazon competitors, like Google and Microsoft, already study these things through their mapping products. <yawn>