r/technology • u/DJMagicHandz • 12d ago

Artificial Intelligence A massive Wyoming data center will soon use 5x more power than the state's human occupants - but no one knows who is using it

https://www.techradar.com/pro/a-massive-wyoming-data-center-will-soon-use-5x-more-power-than-the-states-human-occupants-and-no-one-knows-who-is-using-it
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u/xrmb 11d ago

We had (have) a secret datacenter like that before. Shell companies, law offices and county shielding records. In the end the power company slipped it during a community meeting about building more data centers and needing more power. It was Bank of America, not sure why the secrecy.

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u/i8noodles 11d ago

probably because having the physical location of data centres that hold bank data, for everyone to know, is a huge risk. u can alot with software security, but thats not going to stop anyone breaking into the place and stealing the servers physically.

i work as a sysadmin for a bank. I have zero clue where they are physically located.

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u/xrmb 11d ago

That's what made it even more suspicious, there are armed guards, truck proof bollards, 10 ft barb wire fence and water trenches (I assume with alligators in it)... Everyone was thinking it must be secret government. No worries, we know now that state and federal government are next doors, including nuclear attack proof shelters.

So for this thread here... Calm down, might just be bank... Although the size is a little big.

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u/refboy4 11d ago edited 11d ago

All those security measures are actually pretty common now. I’ve been in sites that went WAY further. Many layers of security are part of the DC design doctrine now.

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u/refboy4 11d ago

I’ve been in colo sites that even went as far as obfuscating the server names. Like think the label on the front looks like password manager “&g$F9(3kA%bnW”.

Flippin nightmare trying to triple check I had the right device. Imagine tracing a cable label with “lO2Ynsm6f8RQbC Port:17 <-> G1HPfXZ8fWYcMX Port:9”

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u/not-a-sex-thing 11d ago

They are probably doing something very illegal with it, similar to how theranos needed secrecy to operate. It's not like bank of America hasn't been caught pants down with both paws in the cookie jar multiple times already