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AWS stops billing Middle East cloud customers as repairs to war damage drag on

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/05/amazon-stuck-with-months-of-repairs-after-drone-strikes-on-data-centers/
50•johnbarron•2h ago

Comments

nerdsniper•1h ago
I'm surprised this reportedly only affected 19 server racks. Some of the small FPV quadcopter strikes I've seen videos of have collapsed entire homes. Even if the structure is more resilient than a fragile home, I would have expected the blast from a larger long-range drone like a Shahed to damage more server racks than that.
downrightmike•1h ago
The sheer amount of metal on every rack makes DCs very dense
bluegatty•57m ago
It's either 100lb or 100Kg, with a direct hit on a dense centre, it would damage a lot of racks, but if it's oblique, or indirect, impartial, the damage could be less pronounced. They could also be misrepresenting by diminishing the damage as there's a lot of information suppression going on.
time0ut•1h ago
Data centers are such great targets in modern warfare. A few cheap drones can inflict billions in damage with low direct casualties (if the attacker even cares). I have heard AWS in particular is secretive about the exact location of their data centers, but no doubt every major country knows exactly where they are.
cute_boi•1h ago
I wonder if you can uncover where the data center is just by using ping command.
fragmede•59m ago
That's some of how geolocation works. Ping can't go faster than the speed of light, so that gives you a circle for where something is. Ping from enough places and you can get a good enough idea, if you're the Iranian Guard or otherwise.
sophacles•55m ago
You can find data centers by looking for hvac units in satellite photos.
Ekaros•42m ago
Probably also grid connections like size of transformers and if there is prominent number of trucks going in and out.
hirako2000•13m ago
You can make a few phone calls. Maintenance is not avoidable until boston dynamics figure out how to clean the toilets at least.
tcp_handshaker•45m ago
>> I wonder if you can uncover where the data center is just by using ping command.

Not exactly, but you can uncover cloud providers like Google and Azure, who forget to tell you, their "availability zones" are in the same data center ;-)

yabones•44m ago
It could give you a rough idea, but it's far from precise. The delay added by a single router could throw you off by several KM.

It's much more effective to just go through satellite imagery and land title records.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=0.01+ms+at+speed+of+lig...

kdheiwns•55m ago
Big tech's love for cheap labor is a great mechanism for finding where all their most valuable assets are and mapping out any and all vulnerabilities. I imagine state actors are applying to any and all low paying jobs that have seemingly juicy job requirements and feeling out details during interviews. Even better if you offer to accept a salary far below standard rates and actually get the job.

While probably not a state agent, I've personally done online interviews with some people that were clearly lying about everything and trying to feel out details about the company. People claiming to live in our country and being citizens but having little ability with the language, saying they would love to come to our city but it's a bit far, saying they graduated from a major university but being unable to describe anything about the town (with their resume mentioning graduating from a different university, and their LinkedIn a different university from either), random people moving around and arguing in the background, all their work was with random crypto businesses that shut down within months. I had to stop my coworkers from saying too much. I had to convince them why hiring that person for remote work and giving them access to our servers was a bad idea. There are without a doubt companies giving similar people physical access to their hardware. And there are undoubtedly people who practice interviewing to better deceive companies.

jmalicki•13m ago
Just look on satellites for giant buildings with no cars or semi trailers parked in the parking lots.

I wonder if data centers will have to start doubling as automobile junkyards to conceal themselves.

walrus01•5m ago
You can be secretive all you want, but it's extremely difficult to hide massive heat exchanging systems and/or generators from aerial/space photography. Particularly at the scale of an AWS-like datacenter.

Building a fully camouflaged datacenter could be done at much greater cost, but you still can't hide its thermal emissions from infrared.

logickkk1•23m ago
"Stops billing" makes it sound generous. If those regions can't run customer apps, not charging for them is just the minimum.
juliusceasar•6m ago
Thanks 2nd Epstein War for all the fuck up in the world.

AI uses less water than the public thinks

https://californiawaterblog.com/2026/04/26/ai-water-use-distractions-and-lessons-for-california/
144•hirpslop•2h ago•120 comments

Spotify adds 'Verified' badges to distinguish human artists from AI

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yerr4m1yno
63•reconnecting•2h ago•28 comments

Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2026)

156•whoishiring•4h ago•174 comments

New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/its-possible-to-learn-in-our-sleep-should-we
28•XzetaU8•1h ago•4 comments

whohas – Command-line utility for cross-distro, cross-repository package search

https://github.com/whohas/whohas
82•peter_d_sherman•4h ago•18 comments

Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2026)

93•whoishiring•4h ago•167 comments

City Learns Flock Accessed Cameras in Children's Gymnastics Room as a Sales Demo

https://www.404media.co/city-learns-flock-accessed-cameras-in-childrens-gymnastics-room-as-a-sale...
51•joshcsimmons•58m ago•3 comments

Understand Anything

https://github.com/Lum1104/Understand-Anything
34•taubek•2h ago•8 comments

Sally McKee, who coined the term "the memory wall", has died

https://www.online-tribute.com/SallyMcKee
85•deater•4h ago•10 comments

Show HN: WhatCable, a tiny menu bar app for inspecting USB-C cables

https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable
318•sleepingNomad•10h ago•113 comments

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16•zachdive•1h ago•11 comments

I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

93•proberts•4h ago•143 comments

Running Adobe's 1991 PostScript Interpreter in the Browser

https://www.pagetable.com/?p=1854
104•ingve•7h ago•22 comments

Artemis II Fault Tolerance

https://alearningaday.blog/2026/05/01/artemis-ii-fault-tolerance/
9•speckx•1h ago•1 comments

The end of "Just ask Sarah"

https://simme.dev/posts/the-end-of-just-ask-sarah/
21•milkglass•2d ago•14 comments

The X-Files Has Made Me Nostalgic for a Time I Never Experienced

https://midnightmurmurations.substack.com/p/the-x-files-has-made-me-nostalgic
66•Teever•2h ago•46 comments

The Gay Jailbreak Technique

https://github.com/Exocija/ZetaLib/blob/main/The%20Gay%20Jailbreak/The%20Gay%20Jailbreak.md
132•bobsmooth•2h ago•41 comments

An open letter asking NHS England to keep its code open

https://keepthingsopen.com
153•tvararu•4h ago•9 comments

AWS stops billing Middle East cloud customers as repairs to war damage drag on

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/05/amazon-stuck-with-months-of-repairs-after-drone-strikes-o...
50•johnbarron•2h ago•16 comments

A statement about why RightsCon 2026 will not take place in Zambia

https://www.rightscon.org/rc26-statement/
59•benbreen•57m ago•14 comments

Show HN: My Private GitHub on Postgres

https://github.com/calebwin/gitgres
24•calebhwin•1h ago•13 comments

New copy of earliest poem in English, written 1,3k years ago, discovered in Rome

https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2026/caedmons-hymn-discovery/
186•giuliomagnifico•2d ago•114 comments

Canonical/Ubuntu have been under DDoS

https://status.canonical.com/#/incident/KNms6QK9ewuzz-7xUsPsNylV20jEt5kyKsd8A-3ptQEHpOd8VQ40ZQs-K...
122•jtlebigot•11h ago•42 comments

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97•keepamovin•4h ago•60 comments

Advanced Quantization Algorithm for LLMs

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101•lastdong•10h ago•15 comments

Ubuntu servers taken offline by "sustained, cross-border attack"

https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/05/ubuntu-infrastructure-has-been-down-for-more-than-a-day/
9•RattlesnakeJake•21m ago•1 comments

Your website is not for you

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222•pumbaa•8h ago•157 comments

Show HN: Site Mogging

https://sitemogging.com
45•jilles•8h ago•55 comments

Apocalypse Early Warning System

https://ews.kylemcdonald.net/
14•carlsborg•3h ago•0 comments

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34•todience•9h ago•8 comments