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Very interesting... Any chance that this will mean the Govt can't subpoena data from this data center if it is floating far enough from the US coast? Or does i

• Pirate-of-SV 13y ago
  On international waters you follow the laws of the country where the ship is registered.
  • Luc 13y ago
    So, most likely Liberian or Panamanian law...
    • seanherron 13y ago
      From the pictures, it looks like the ship is registered in the US (though that could change once it is finished).
• warfangle 13y ago
  In international waters, it matters more which flag your ship is sailing under than which port is closest.
• us0r 13y ago
  If you are doing business in the US you will play their rules.
• enjo 13y ago
  It has to connect to the U.S. somehow. So they can still subpeona data moving through the switch. There's going to be a cable connecting this to the mainland, which one could argue means the ship is moored to the U.S. coastline? Might be a fun legal battle.
  • duaneb 13y ago
    > So they can still subpeona data moving through the switch Well if they weren't an american corporation they would be doing this anyway. Besides, perhaps the most important data wouldn't ever have to be transmitted into the country.
• aragot 13y ago
  It's the other way around: The whole block is the subponea treatment unit of Google. It's offshore so it's not under US jurisdiction.
• MBlume 13y ago
  Don't know how this'd work in actual international waters, but no, this is in a bay, nothing international about it.
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    Its being built at an island in SF Bay. That doesn't mean its going to be operated there.
    • monkeyspaw 13y ago
      Would servers be affected by the instability of the ocean? That is, if they use spinning drives, would the heave and ho of the ocean affect it? Would that affect other electronics and components?
      • josephagoss 13y ago
        I doubt the heave and ho of the ocean would affect spinning disks like hard drives. We used to put hard drives in iPods that got thrown around by people jogging with few failures. What is a concern is salt water, wind blowing the surface of of the ocean can add salt into the air that will eventually get into the containers. Salt moisture will be a huge long term problem.
        • dm2 13y ago
          The salt issue is something that's probably already been solved (couldn't find any information on it though). There are underwater science labs, medical rooms at sea, and probably tons of research into how to keep salt out of computers from the US Navy.
      • Symmetry 13y ago
        For a boat that big you're never going to get accelerations higher than a half G or so, and water is squishy so the jerk is going to be very moderate. I expect that frequent acceleration will actually have some impact on how fast the hard drives wear out, but not a large one. Protecting everything from salt spray is going to be the bigger concern.