Comment by nine_k
4 days ago
Is deployment of surface-to-air missiles, flak cannons, Gatling guns, and anti-air radars going to become a standard requirement? Unfortunately, Starlink can't go the easy route and just dig itself 100ft underground, they need satellite comms.
Let's not exaggerate. Two persons apparently entered Starlink's premises and put their equipment on fire.
It doesn't take a gatling gun to prevent that, basic physical security and stronger incident-handling will suffice.
Aren't datacenters being targeted with missiles in this conflict? A single incident for a single Starlink datacenter might not have been the result of a missile, but it seems that full-on missile and drone attacks are now a very real part of the threat profile for datacenters.
As resentment towards datacenters grows in the US you might even see increasingly creative acts of vandalism and other attacks in places that are not considered war zones. A pipe bomb tossed it the vents of AC units ups the game of "basic physical security". And you don't have to get that crazy. A $100 drone can drop a bag of BBs.
Basic physical security is already way above basic at ordinary datacenters in seemingly safe locations.
In other cases, yes. Not here.
Sharing information:
In Europe, the airspace above a property is not owned by the company owning the land.
It's owned, monitored and guarded by the local government. Missiles aiming at a data center would first penetrate the national airspace of the country, as well as unlicensed drones do. This is a violation of national airspace and a crime against the country.
Drones are still a weak spot of national security though, as we keep seeing all around the world. But governments in Europe have no doubt that it is their responsibility to secure their airspace, and there are EU-wide activities to fix that.
> "Basic physical security is already way above basic at ordinary datacenters in seemingly safe locations."
From all that is known, this incident is about vetted access control and having a sufficient secure perimeter around your facilities.
In both US and Europe, a data center is considered a critical infrastructure and needs to adhere to the maximum physical and digital security requirements, which is much more substantial than this.
In this case, again, two people apparently penetrated security and put equipment on fire.
This might as well be the warehouse of a supermarket. It's a gap in their security that this happened, not a lapse of the government.
The responsibility to do their best to protect is still with the owner, it doesn't mean they must succeed at any cost. They must only do their best. Did they do their best?
I read the statement as the government introduced additional security measures "even though responsibility for their protection rested with their owners". These measures weren't "surface-to-air missiles, flak cannons, Gatling guns, and anti-air radars". Clearly more could have been done before digging into the bag of silly options. The owners just didn't do it.
There's a fine line between hyperbola to make a point, and hyperbola as a silly attempt to blur the issue. You comment is on the wrong side.