c/world · by FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 175d

Datacenters are becoming a target in warfare for the first time

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/10/datacenters-target-warfare-iran

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/26942609

222 points · 33 comments · view on lemmy.world

33 Comments

Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works · 56 pts · 175d

If your aim is to do as much damage as possible with your missile or drone, a data center is a solid choice of target.

TommySoda@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 175d (17 replies)

Datacenters are not just for AI.

This is potentially worse than you'd immediately think. Literally everything that exists in "the cloud" is in a datacenter and is not exclusively AI. Remember when AWS went down and half the internet went down with it? Now imagine the datacenters actually got destroyed and it wasn't just a software bug. Imagine if the datacenters went down for your bank account or healthcare provider. Sure this is only happening in the Middle East at the moment, but as we've been learning more and more these days, if it can happen "over there" it can happen here too. Wherever "here" may be, this can affect you.

ETA: Added some words.

empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 35 pts · 175d

Decentralize all the things!

SolacefromSilence@fedia.io · 16 pts · 175d (2 replies)

Could I imagine the data centers holding student loan debt, mortgages, and credit card debt also being destroyed? As a treat?

TommySoda@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 175d (1 reply)

Yes, but they will also hold your bank account. Which for me would be a net positive so maybe you're right lmao

SolacefromSilence@fedia.io · 1 pts · 174d

Oh no, my overdraft penalties, what will ever I do without them!

MonkeMischief@lemmy.today · 16 pts · 175d (5 replies)

Maybe I got my history wrong, but that earlier philosophy of the Internet simply being a "web" of a bunch of interconnected computers/nodes felt like it was way more resilient.

Data centers certainly still have their use, for storage and CDNs and whatnot, but I feel that the corporations' usual lust for monopoly probably overcentralized our infrastructure, annnnd here we are where if anything happens to AWS or Azure or whatever, nobody can connect to anything.

Corporate enterprise controlled networks are super lame.

daychilde@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 175d (3 replies)

There may well be far more datacenters than you might be aware of. It is a pretty large web.

But also, for larger companies, their onsite facilities are........ a datacenter.

Also, the thing about datacenters is that you need great and redundant connections with high capacity. It's far better to have a bunch of datacenters than it is to have them all scattered around to companies everywhere.

This recent push back against datacenters is, at least to some degree, fearmongering and using anti-AI sentiment to do so. A LOT of the information people are pushing is wrong.

(That said, there are lots of valid concerns about some datacenters, and some projects are being done in harmful ways. I'm not completely pro-datacenter, but they are a large part of how the internet is run, and most of them have nothing to do with AI, and we've had them in large numbers for 25+ years...... and we can always improve, sure)

Bloefz@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 174d (2 replies)

AI isn't the only bad thing about datacenters. The whole cloud movement is too. Putting all our data in the grubby hands of some American megacorps.

daychilde@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 174d (1 reply)

And we...... put all our gas into a few gas station brands.

Amd again. Almost every single website is in a datacenter. You can be anti-cloud and don't have to be anti-datacenter.

I run a few websites on my server that I rent.......... in a datacenter. Because paying to run it from my home is impractical for any number of reasons.

Datacenters are not a problem. Some things are, but not datacenters.

Bloefz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 174d

True but the cloud ones are. And there's very few independent ones left. I used to rent a few colocation U's for years with some SPARC servers as my private hosting but this kinda service is really rare now.

Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 175d

I thought it was a big truck? Or maybe a series of tubes?

Yliaster@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 175d

Good, fuck AWS. We shouldn't be that dependent on Amazon. Fuck Amazon.

HasturInYellow@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 174d

I pray that every single data center containing every single cloud based system is turned to ash.

I want their systems of control and oppression to wither into dust.

I do not want to live my life the way that it is now. I want for the insanity of 3000000000 accounts, all with my detailed personal info, circling about on the internet to end.

There is a better way to organize the internet and by Zeus if we have to burn the internet and the financial world to do it, THEN LET US.

hammertime@lemmy.org · 0 pts · 175d (4 replies)

Pretty sure we know what data centers are for.

TommySoda@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 175d (1 reply)

Pretty sure all the people praising this don't realise this, hence my comment.

hammertime@lemmy.org · 5 pts · 175d

We know. We want it.

daychilde@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 175d (1 reply)

I've been in several discussions and gotten downvoted for pointing out that almost every single website on the internet exists in a datacenter. You may know - thankfully - but many do not.

hammertime@lemmy.org · 4 pts · 175d

Which is why these are AMAZING targets. Better than humans.

Ilixtze@lemmy.ml · 33 pts · 175d (1 reply)

It's hard to mourn for them.

Fishnoodle@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 175d

It really is. Like even if it inconveniences me, it's worth it

Bazell@lemmy.zip · 21 pts · 175d

~~Great.~~ Awesome.

brillotti@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 175d

Computer hardware prices go brrrrrrr

garretble@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 175d (6 replies)

Damn if the data centers get blown up how will I make shitty pictures of dogs wearing hats?

frongt@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 175d

MS Paint

daychilde@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 175d (3 replies)

Almost all websites are running on servers in datacenters. You lose fun stuff, but you lose Lemmy instances, you bank goes down, commerce goes down, wikipedia goes down, most of the internet goes offline.

Offline is okay, you say? Not when banks can't move money because it's down. Not when stores can't sell anything and you can't pay by cards or get gas or groceries, and stores can't restock because trucking.

People really need to be educated about what datacenters are and aren't, because far too many people think they're just for AI or just for a few things.

Modern society depends heavily upon them.

grue@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 175d

You underestimate how much of a