Fire Destroys Iron Mountain Data Warehouse, Argentina's Bank Records Lost 463
cagraham writes "A fire at Iron Mountain's data warehouse in Buenos Aires left the facility 'ruined' and killed nine first-responders, according to the Washington Post. The origin of the fire is unknown. The facility was supposedly equipped with sprinkler systems, fire control systems, and had a private emergency team on standby. Among the records destroyed are Argentina's bank archives, the loss of which could have some surprisingly far-reaching implications."
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
The obvious question is: Cui bono? Do any of Kirchner's henchmen have a gasoline odor on their hands?
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
I was going to leave feedback, but their link took me into third party site hell (nice going guys).
The redesign is a bad idea. What makes the classic design work is the same thing that makes Craigslist work - there's a maximum of readable poop per area of screen real estate. We don't need large, flashy fonts, big catchy icons, etc if that means fewer stories or shorter summaries on a page. That's how you get into the "we made the site look so good that everyone left" syndrome.
Microsoft's Windows 8 designers had a similar idea; you'll notice that Windows 7 is still doing a brisk business.
Re:There's no default title in a reply in slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
My big issue with it is the crazy amounts of wasted whitespace. This is a trend in site layout that needs to die.
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
i've got the feeling the beta slashdot was designed by someone who makes websites for the elderly
huge fonts, extra pictures, tons of whitespace everywhere >__
it might be decent for a mobile version, but not for desktops, we're not reading this on 8" screens
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
When that many failsafes all fail (and Iron Mountain certainly takes this sort of stuff seriously), it's pretty clearly an "accident" not an accident.
Multi-tiered backup strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Allow me to stress the importance of a multi-tiered backup strategy. The loss of any individual tier should not result in the loss of any data...
We're not exactly fanatical about our backups, but we still go for a three tiered strategy for our live systems: on-system (like nightly SQL dumps), off-system (nightly disk images stored in the datacentre), and off-site (nightly incremental rsync-based backups). The failure of any one of those backup tiers wouldn't be an issue...
I don't see why archival storage should be much different. You should have at least two copies of everything in different locations, on-site and off-site. Basically, if you're shoving archival data in a third-party facility like this, you have no backups of your archives...
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
You are complaining about crappy stories and shitty web design, and then recommending Reddit as an alternative?
The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one.
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
change happens, sure, but when change is for the worse should we really embrace it? There is no shortage of news sites on the internet, I think the majority of old users like myself still come here for the comments/discussion, and if a redesign makes the comment section less usable and so causes people to leave, what's left then?
Re:There's no default title in a reply in slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the part that kills me. As far as I can tell, there is no way to expand/view the parents or children of highly-moderated posts without viewing at -1, at which point the highly-moderated posts get lost in the noise. Lots of "Funny" replies where I can't even open the parent post to get the context of the joke.
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
I really wish someone with a big-name reputation in the geek community would do a Slashdot fork.
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
You are complaining about crappy stories and shitty web design, and then recommending Reddit as an alternative?
The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one.
You're full of it. The reddit's stories are much the same as /. but they have many more of them. In addition reddit's web design is far superior to slashdot beta. Slashdot beta have got so many things wrong with it it's just ridiculous. The so-called "designers" who did it should hang their heads in shame. I put an entry in my hosts file to kill the random redirects to beta. If that dies then slashdot is just another advertising junk site as far as I'm concerned.
Re: Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Another 5 digit agreeing with the 4 digit parent.
This redesign is horrible. I will be leaving Slashdot after >10 years if this is forced on us.
Re:Multi-tiered backup strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
Very few companies want to keep those archives - the data can only harm them. You store one copy as legally required, and you store it in the best facility to show you made a proper effort, and if something still happens, well, it's not your fault any more.
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:3, Insightful)
The stupidity of your comment is in fetishising the CIA. They really aren't the only people capable of acting badly.
Re:There's no default title in a reply in slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
My big issue with it is the crazy amounts of wasted whitespace. This is a trend in site layout that needs to die.
Here Here. Slashdotters like data density. We extract lots of information very quickly. eg. Having a UID next to a user name infers how long they have been in the community.
It is like pixel density in monitors which has gone backwards in the last 10 years, and now is only just starting to progress again with 4k displays. I want more data density, less white space.
Re: Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
None at all.
And yes, beta has serious problems. Regressing to having to bang on the "Load More..." button instead of "Load All Comments" while not logged in is one glaring example. The fact that comments don't flow around the end the right side ad bar is another.
This is not Twitter. People write lengthy comments here; please don't piss away space with huge margins and poor layout.
Re:There's no default title in a reply in slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
ROFL
Tried it myself after all the fuss here and it doesn't resemble what you descibe at all. To make it truely painful try XP and IE 8. The 1st 3 stories (i think) are all kind of on top of one another. There is a little helper box descibing and pointing to menu items I don't actually see. Some more odd menu? entries or buttons. Past the 1st screen it seems to settle down with less than ONE story per screen usually with a HUGE pic with little relevance. Oops, i mean no stories per page, took 2 pages to get something to read. Really? Someone replaced the little icons with a pic taking up 90% of the screen, wtf? BIG green header bar with a little tiny "slashdot, news for nerds" Why the hell does it need a HUGE header, half of which (which should be the whole thing, and certainly has room for the news for nerds tagline) follows me down the screen in case I forgot where I was.
Even if it worked as it appears to be attempting to, I have no desire to read news stories that take longer to scroll to than to read. Since I am not getting a new office computer to read slashdot I would be gone too. Feel free to paste this to feedback, with where I see this headed it isn't worth investing my time.
I am with the one that mentioned data density, everyone seems to be going content-free lately :(
Re:There's no default title in a reply in slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
That and the god damned random I-found-something-on-Flickr-that-sort-of-is-maybe-related-to-the-thread pictures. Yes, it's trendy (Google News, ad nauseum), no, it doesn't improve understanding of the issue nor are the pictures intrinsically interesting.
Stop the Madness!
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
And in response most states enacted laws requiring that the mortgage be paid off before it could be challenged in court. Of course once its paid off... who the fuck cares? Result: Literally millions of fraudulent foreclosures. It was so bad that there were legal documents being presented in federal court signed with the name of an employee of the bank that could not be found. The bank had absolutely no record of anybody by that name ever working for the bank. The bank had made up a name and the signing of the documents was fictitious. But because the law required that you pay off, or otherwise post a cash bond for the amount of a loan, before you could challenge it... the fraud was allowed to stand in federal court unquestioned.
Source: I was a mortgage broker in California and watched this happen first hand.
Oh, I will add too... that with the law so protective of the lenders... they got bold. I dealt regularly with court documents where the value of the home, interest rate, mortgage value were all different than what was on the original wet ink signature documents (that I kept scanned copies of). I tried several times to submit my scanned copies to the court as the mortgage broker involved (showing that the lender was fraudulently foreclosing...) in the original transaction but was stymied every time. Any evidence submitted by the defense was essentially void until a bond had been posted for the same amount as the outstanding mortgage. The judge would not even listen to any discussion about inconsistencies, possible perjury, fraud or anything until we paid the bond to gain standing in court. We tried that route and the lowest we could find was 90% equity on a bond. Meaning we had to put up 90% of the value of the mortgage just to fight it in court. When you are fighting over a $700,000 mortgage... who has that kind of scratch just sitting around? If you do... $630,000 is most likely pocket change to you.
I will never, ever, ever buy a house in the united states after witnessing that.
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Starting with Nestor Kirchner (Christina Kirchner's husband), there were a ton of social programs started that basically bankrupted the already bankrupt country
- In order to keep funding said programs, Argentina decides it doesn't want to pay it's foreign debts anymore, especially to the US. Argentina claimed that they had already paid back well beyond the original loan amounts. Simply put, they didn't like the terms of the loans and decided to threaten defaulting. The IMF threatened to put them on credit blacklist which drove their borrowing interest rates up even higher. In the end they restructured their debt, but like all spending problems, it is never the math that causes massive debt, but behavior.
- Fast forward to about a year or two ago. Christina Kirchner keeps spending on social programs with no way to pay for them and is facing massive devaluation of the Argentine Peso. Investors and individuals start buying up dollars and euros before the peso collapses. Kirchner bans the exchange of foreign currencies in Argentina.
-Fast foward to a couple of weeks ago. Argentine economists fear a massive bubble is building over the artificially propped up peso and convince Kirchner and politicians to open up foreign exchanges before the bubble gets so big that its collapse will crater the country like it did in 2001. You can read more about that incident's culmination here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... [wikipedia.org]
- As a result of foreign exchanges opening up the bubble pops and the peso loses 15% of its value in less than 12 hours.
-Foreign companies that operate in dollars or euros have to raise prices. Commodities tied to dollars or euros are always the first to rise. Oil is probably the most exposed to this as all Oil selling countries have to sell Oil in dollars.
-After a week of rapid inflation, Shell raises it's prices, and...drumroll...SO DO ALL OTHER GAS STATIONS TIED TO IMPORTED OIL.
It bothers me that people are always so quick to crucify companies (in this case oil companies) just because it is the popular thing to do. Those dirtbag Politicians in Argentina are no different than the dirtbag politicians we have here in the US. Their arguments consist of blaming anyone but themselves for domestic policy disasters. Just like Bush blamed Terrorists, Obama blamed Bush, and whoever comes next will blame Obama. Down there, they just say "Those damned European/American money grubbing corporations are doing this to us!" Sadly, like here in the US, the people there buy it hook line and sinker.
Sources - Reading the news, living in Argentina for a few years (2003 - 2005), and having a basic understanding of macro economics and currency valuations.
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously you don't know squat about my country's economy or the facts which led to this. Argentinian justice department was investigating a massive fraud commited mostly by US based companies sucha as Monsanto and Shell, and several international baks were impled in the maneuver, the HSBC to name one. This fire looks more a way to cover up for that fraud. If you'd like to exercise your memory, I recommend you to take a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Mountain_Incorporate]trip down Wikipedia lane[/url]. Iron Mountain has a long history of destroying their own facilites to safeguard their customer's data from Justice investigations.
Shell is European. Yes they probably committed fraud in one form or another. Unfortunately, it is the fraud of your elected officials that is to blame for your overall problems right now in regards to your economy tanking. In classic political fashion they are blaming some foreign entity for your problems (all countries suffer from this sort of scapegoat shaming, not just Argentina).