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Running an ISP in a Warzone

Posted by Hemos on Mon Apr 24, 2006 10:33 AM
from the frag-the-line dept.
Communications IT
musatov writes "SGT Coughanour, David A (HHC 1-110th Infantry US Army) speech on NOTACON 3: "Right now I am currently serving in Iraq where I run IT operations for a small chunk of the Sunni triangle. One of the major projects that we have accomplished here is setting up an ISP that supports 350 subscribers. It has also survived multiple mortar attacks, and is built entirely on Linux." Download video (80 MB QuickTime) Requires latest QuickTime installed. A mirror is available for people to download it."
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  • Wuss. (Score:5, Funny)

    by XorNand (517466) * on Monday April 24 2006, @10:35AM (#15190166)
    I used to work at an ISP in Detroit.

      • Re:Wuss. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by XorNand (517466) *
        I live 30 minutes west of Detroit; off of Baseline (aka, 8 Mile) Rd. in fact. I'm allowed to poke fun at the city (and the Lions).

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by Xest (935314) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:35AM (#15190172)
    Maybe it IS possible to run an ISP in Manchester (UK) after all!

  • Linux immune to mortar attack! (Score:5, Funny)

    by CockMonster (886033) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:36AM (#15190182)
    Who'd a thunk it?

  • Gives new meaning to disaster recovery plans (Score:5, Interesting)

    by qwijibo (101731) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:38AM (#15190190)
    I've always found disaster recovery plans to be an annoying necessity in large businesses. I'd hate to see all the other paperwork that would be needed if my systems were subjected to mortar attacks. That certainly justifies the need for clustering over a WAN.

    • Re:Gives new meaning to disaster recovery plans (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2006, @10:44AM (#15190245)
      I think mentioning terrorism might be the new Goodwin's law, but at that risk, do you recall the WTC attacks? I used to work for a company whose servers were located in the WTC, thankfully I worked in Chicago. I may have been one of the first in Chicago to know something was wrong when all of our connections went down. Of course I just thought it was a network problem at first.
      • I was working tech support that day.
        You would not believe the number of people calling to complain that they couldn't see what was going on down the street because of the smoke and/or dust and they couldn't watch the news because their cable TV and internet services were not working.
        Geeee, there are whole blocks of your city missing, why do you THINK your Cable is down?
        IIRC - the basement of one of the towers housed a major peering point as well as a network satilite feeds.

  • Comcast is in Iraq?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by 6350' (936630) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:38AM (#15190191)
    Multiple mortar attacks would explain a lot about my isp.

  • Video isn't going to last long, so... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MattGWU (86623) * on Monday April 24 2006, @10:38AM (#15190196)
    Here's the best line: "And there are couple of reasons why we do it: The uh...the DoD gives us an MWR cafe, for every 1000 troops you get something like 6 to 12 computers. And that's great, except some of the grey-list sites are kind of blocked so basically you can't get porn off it, among other things."

    Runner up:
    "Managed to get a Power Mac G5 smuggled in from eBay"
      • "The poll, conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College's Center for Peace and Global Studies"

        I'm sure we'd all give the same credence to a study done by Fox News and PNAC [newamericancentury.org].
      • Access to media outlets is not generally blocked -- I can't think of a single site that is, unless it includes pr0n. The only exception may be some of the European rags that included the so-called "page 3 girls" nudie pix. And those used to be up...may still be now.

        Here's an idea for those naysayers who are using this article for political grandstanding (pro or con) -- join the military and discover for yourself what is blocked or not.

  • Kind of redefines.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by mike2R (721965) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:39AM (#15190203)
    Bulletproof hosting [wikipedia.org]..
    • I wonder if anyone has tried that for real. Some sort of multiple server system up and running when someone puts a bullet through one without the system missing a beat. Now that's a video that would get some attention, both for the insanity and technical merit.
      • Some sort of multiple server system up and running when someone puts a bullet through one without the system missing a beat.

        Would a storage (disk array) subsystem do? Here [theinquirer.net] you go.

      • Re:IT + NRA (Score:5, Interesting)

        by joib (70841) on Monday April 24 2006, @11:12AM (#15190484)

        I wonder if anyone has tried that for real. Some sort of multiple server system up and running when someone puts a bullet through one without the system missing a beat. Now that's a video that would get some attention, both for the insanity and technical merit.


        Funny you should say that. HP just did it with their high end storage array. See here [hp.com].

  • Now (Score:5, Funny)

    by kryten_nl (863119) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:39AM (#15190208)
    Now that's running Linux in sandbox mode.

  • Multiple mortar attacks? Big deal. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Overzeetop (214511) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:39AM (#15190210) Journal
    If they can survive putting an 80MB video file on the front page of /., well, lets just say I'll be far more impressed.

  • Linux? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Squalid05 (850603) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:41AM (#15190223) Homepage
    Linux...easy.. The hard task is doing that with Windows.
  • It has also survived multiple mortar attacks, and is built entirely on Linux.

    Is there anything Linux can't do?

  • It's about time that TCP/IP was tested in the conditions it was designed for.

    Seriously, other that to act as a recruiting tool for the U.S. Army, what's the news here? All-Linux mom-and-pop size ISPs have been the norm, I think, as far back as 1994 or so.

    • Re:It's about time that TCP/IP was tested... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by eln (21727) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:52AM (#15190310) Homepage
      I don't know what ISPs you've worked for, but most of the places I've worked for weren't getting hit by mortar rounds while I was trying to manage the servers. I mean, I know ISP jobs are stressful anyway, but I would think that sort of thing might ratchet the stress level up just a little bit.

      I don't think the interesting thing here is that he's running Linux necessarily, but rather that they can keep an ISP going at all in that sort of environment. Of course, I'd be running Linux in that situation too, as anything that could keep me from having to come into work to babysit the servers while the bombs are flying would be a positive.

  • Lol, runs on Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pinefresh (866806) <william,simpson&gmail,com> on Monday April 24 2006, @10:47AM (#15190269)
    but you have to DL quicktime for windows to watch the video
  • See. If he hadn't been running Linux, I don't think he'd have uptime through those mortar attacks. Windows just can't handle that kind of abuse. I think that's an oft-forgotten selling point of Linux that should be cited more often.

    Yeah, your OS has cool graphics. But how does it stand up against a mortar attack?

  • They get nasty DDoS attacks... (Score:5, Funny)

    by b1t r0t (216468) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:50AM (#15190302)
    Distributed Dispersal of Shrapnel, that is.

    They also have to watch out for TCP/IP packets that arrive out of ordnance.

  • Ping Statistics (Score:5, Funny)

    by kaoshin (110328) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:52AM (#15190315)
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, KIA = 0 (0% KIA)

  • So many choices to troll on... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gothmolly (148874) on Monday April 24 2006, @10:59AM (#15190372)
    Lets see, there's the Linux angle, with optional (anti)piracy garnish.
    Then there's the Iraq angle.
    Then there's the "we should be feeding people before we bother to set up ISPs in the 3rd world angle".

    Gosh.

    S/N ratio dropping to zero in 10...9....8....7....
    • Iraqis were starving but mostly that was due to the sanctions imposed on them. Before the sanctions it was a fairly well off population living under a secular socialist dictatorship.

      The sanctions did cause immense suffering mainly because they were implemented after Bush the elder destroyed a lot of infrasture like water treatment plants, factories, roads, bridges, electrical generation facilites etc. The UN estimated that more then a million people died as a consequence including hundreds of thousands of c

  • All things aside . . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Badgerman (19207) on Monday April 24 2006, @11:02AM (#15190394)
    It's just very, very neat to see how people do technical work like this in adverse situations.

    I'm passing this one on to my branch's VP of disaster planning. He's very cool, and likes to have a little "extra" to hit people over the head about good planning.

  • Pshaw. That's easy. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Peldor (639336) on Monday April 24 2006, @11:08AM (#15190443)
    Anybody can survive a mortar attack.

    Let's see them survive a mortar hit.

  • i also ran an ISP in the sunni triangle (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2006, @11:10AM (#15190470)
    I was stationed at Camp Taqaddum for about 10 months in 2005. The MWR internet center was across camp a few miles so I decided to set up my own satellite based connection. Peak usage was about 80 soldiers and marines, fed off of multiple wireless APs.

    The ability to be in constant communication with family while we were not out on missions (we did security patrols of our Area of Operation) was a great boost to morale. Web cams and email meant you could see and talk to the people that mattered most to you.

    We sold the operation to another unit just before we left, and there were 3 other systems I helped set up in our area serving other groups.

    To the current soldiers, marines, and others at Camp Taqaddum: Give 'em Hell and keep your buddyies safe!

    • civilians must protect those in military? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      (Please feel free to strengthen the arguments in this off-topic post.)

      In order for the U.S. military to operate effectively, there must be strength in the chain of command. Following orders is critical, dissent cannot be tolerated .

      Therefore, it is up to the non-military citizens of the U.S. to provide a check on the transient civilian military leadership (president, vp, sec defense).

      This is nominally the job of the U.S. congress. But when the dominant party in congress is the same as the party controllin

  • Additional Mirrors (Score:4, Informative)

    by c0nman (573940) on Monday April 24 2006, @11:16AM (#15190520)
    Here are a few mirrors to use up. I'll probably bring them down after a few TB of transfer...

    New Jersey
    http://www.def-con.org/~nocfed/downloads/notacon06 _hajjinet.mp4 [def-con.org]

    Texas
    http://www2.def-con.org/~nocfed/downloads/notacon0 6_hajjinet.mp4 [def-con.org]

  • It has also survived multiple mortar attacks

    Are they using HP Storageworks maybe?

    http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/cache/49205-0-0-225- 121.aspx?bodycontentparams=320065-0-0-0-121&ERL=tr ue [hp.com]

  • Some name... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Perseid (660451) on Monday April 24 2006, @11:26AM (#15190590)
    NOTACON? Sounds like an ISP funded by Nixon.

  • so what? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Geekboy(Wizard) (87906) <spambox@NOsPam.theapt.org> on Monday April 24 2006, @11:37AM (#15190677) Homepage Journal
    computers don't care if bullets are fired near it. and if bullets were fired at it, then it wouldn't matter what OS it was running.

  • Brings a whole new meaning... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tobiasly (524456) on Monday April 24 2006, @12:16PM (#15190963) Homepage
    ...to the term DMZ.

  • Tachyon! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pointbeing (701902) on Monday April 24 2006, @12:23PM (#15190996)
    I work for an agency under DoD. We've deployed several Tachyon [tachyon.net] systems in southwest Asia. Tachyon is a satellite solution with one fixed option and two mobile options. We had problems in the beginning with regular T1 lines being cut by insurgents or vehicles - and it takes weeks to get a new line run that we decided to go satellite.

    The coolest system of the three that Tachyon offers is the 'Auto-Deploy CAS' system, where you just plug it in, push a button and the thing finds the satellite on it's own.

    A bit spendy, but we've found them to be the most reliable solution for broadband communications.

        • Re:Did I get it right? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by c6gunner (950153) on Monday April 24 2006, @12:43PM (#15191154)
          They're fighting against an occupation by killing their countrymen? Have you SEEN the casualty figures? These fuckers kill something like 10 Iraqis for every 1 US soldier. I don't remember George Washington blowing up crowded markets in order to kill 3 British soldiers, or putting American children in the path of British horses and then blowing up all of them when the brits come to a stop.

          Whatever term you decide to use for them, don't for one minute beleive that their goals have anything to do with freeing Iraq from opression or occupation. The vast majority of your "insurgents" employ terrorist tactics, and their ultimate goals have more to do with gauranteeing power for themselves and their supporters than with bringing freedom to the average Iraqi. If that doesn't make them terrorists, then you must be employing a very unusual definition for that word.
    • Our troops do try to help where they can w/ water, power and food. Sadly, the insurgents destroy most of their and the Iraqi governments efforts. As far as this guy setting up an ISP for his soldiers to stay in touch with their families and keep up with current events, I say more power to him. As far as you saying "So what" to his efforts, then I feel sorry for you. Unless you have been over there, then I think you have not the slightest clue about what you are speaking. Try not to belittle our troops,

    • Re:Priorities (Score:5, Informative)

      by DigiShaman (671371) on Monday April 24 2006, @02:02PM (#15191833) Homepage
      Dude, this guy specializes in networking, NOT power and water engineering. So regardless of whether or not these people lack security, hospitals, power, and water...he can't do squat about it. He CAN however apply his skill set to getting a network up and running.

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