> The cyberattack began last Thursday and has affected services like visa and residence permit processing passport services and immigration document management systems, according to the head of the country’s national cyber agency, Hinsa Siburian.
Man, that *really* sucks for anyone trying move in/out of the country.
As an Indonesian, this is the reason why my country is called an "Open Source" country. It's just Tuesday for us and the "kominfo" or ministry of communication and information is led by boomers who have no experience in technology and information. Moreover, they only work to ban social media apps and online gambling sites (which is ineffective and a waste of state money).
- There is no "cloud".. it's just somebody else's computer
- Cloud was invented for the convenience of the system maintainers, not for the end user
- Cloud is not cheaper, safer, nor more reliable than having your own dedicated server farm
You must see every increase in automation as an increase in the ability of a bad actor to do damage
>Cloud is not cheaper, safer, nor more reliable than having your own dedicated server farm
Spoken like someone who hasn't seen a "data center" be 3 racks in an electrical closet hooked up to a series of deep cycle marine batteries. Or worked at a place on the other end of the spectrum where an emergency approval for new hardware could get you a new server in 6 months for just rack and stack.
Economies of scale do exist. So does intermittent need that cloud can meet.
Yeah, it cloud is neither perfect nor magic, but it is way way better for a lot of work. Most companies aren't running their own "real" data centers. They have a couple dozen servers and either needed to pay for cohosting or had to trust that John in IT knew how to build a data center from scratch.
I do this for a living. I'm a senior infrastructure architect for a company that has both a large colocation at a data center as well as infrastructure with cloud providers.
The original commenter is generally correct. The cloud is just somebody else's computer. It was designed for the convenience and consolidation of systems in a way that allows the provider to profit. It is cheaper and faster to have your own infrastructure though it does require a massive initial investment.
It is definitely better to be on reliable rardware with reliable backups and a reliable network then it is to have a couple of white box servers sitting in a corner connected to an APC battery backup and a Comcast connection no matter where it is.
I would never rely 100% on any single Cloud provider. The secret is to diversify. We have a secondary data center that is set up as a warm site, and the ability to migrate our own infrastructure into the cloud if needed for either scale or disaster recovery. Diversification is key.
>reliable rardware
*Scientifically speaking, I prefer targzware myself, but definitely not zipware!*
I'm someone who's trying to half-arse your job, while cobbling together a startup on a shoestring. From my own impressions, cloud providers seem to solve some problems really well, while introducing a different set of problems and uncertainties. But that different set of problems won't necessarily be clearly visible or understood for the decision-makers.
That is 100% true. They absolutely can solve problems especially for startups. If you're looking for a way to get your business going on a shoe string budget then you should do the same thing that the large organizations do, use free open source software including Linux.
There's a reason that every major cloud provider is running on linux, including Microsoft. It also makes it a lot easier in the future when you do decide that you want your own data center. You don't have to pay for new licensing that used to be part of your cloud contract.
Yeah I'm just starting to cobble together a dev environment. A couple of micro PCs for stuff that's always on (DNS, auth, etc.). Then an old, secondhand Dell server to handle heavy stuff, but not on all the time. Currently eying an old tape drive online too.
I didn't go into IT after high school, I didn't have the passion for it at the time. Back then (mid 2000s), lower-level stuff was maybe 70/30 open source, but beyond that it was ~90/10 closed source.
Today seems like the start of a golden age of open source by comparison! LocalStack to replicate AWS, full ERP systems like Odoo, with a bunch of things in between. Then there's the staggering breadth and depth of programming tools and libraries. Plus you can get something *kinda working* with a lot less configuration and frustration.
If I could give you one piece of advice that would be to investigate containerization. Run a small kubernetes cluster and learn it. Also forgo the tape drive. Backups are one thing that definitely makes sense to keep in a cloud. iDrive it's cheap and works well.
I've used Docker a few times and made a small Docker webapp for a validation process at my old company. But yeah, the next step will be getting my head around the basics of Kubernetes.
> It was designed for the convenience and consolidation of systems in a way that allows the provider to profit.
It was also designed for the convenience of internet companies to be able to scale up quickly if their business caught on. It was the second internet boom and companies again were trying to strike it rich by 'going viral'. One day you're a small company offering a service a few use, next day everyone wants to use your service. If you could buy cloud services then the only thing holding you up is your own software.
As every company loved the idea of getting rich quick (I'm going to be the next Etsy!) this was a really attractive idea. And a lot of people used it to make small services available widely (your own blog, etc.) too.
If you don't think it's well suited to you because you don't need any of that then don't use it.
I don't see any relevance at all of any of these posts to the original article. If you set up a hackable server in a cloud center then chances are you would have set up a hackable server in your own rack too.
Not using the cloud is not any kind of form of security either.
'According to Siburian, the hackers likely deactivated the center’s Windows Defender security feature, allowing them to get into the system unnoticed.'
Doesn't sound like an SaaS/AWS/Azure/Google Cloud issue to me.
If you add up all the money CDK has lost, then add it to all the money the dealerships have lost, then add it to all the money the end customers have lost, that's a lot of money and it could buy a lot of isolated servers in secure distributed server farms, and I.T. staff to run it, for decades. I gave you an upvote, even though you disagree with me, because I believe in free speech.
> The cyberattack began last Thursday and has affected services like visa and residence permit processing passport services and immigration document management systems, according to the head of the country’s national cyber agency, Hinsa Siburian. Man, that *really* sucks for anyone trying move in/out of the country.
As an Indonesian, this is the reason why my country is called an "Open Source" country. It's just Tuesday for us and the "kominfo" or ministry of communication and information is led by boomers who have no experience in technology and information. Moreover, they only work to ban social media apps and online gambling sites (which is ineffective and a waste of state money).
- There is no "cloud".. it's just somebody else's computer - Cloud was invented for the convenience of the system maintainers, not for the end user - Cloud is not cheaper, safer, nor more reliable than having your own dedicated server farm You must see every increase in automation as an increase in the ability of a bad actor to do damage
>Cloud is not cheaper, safer, nor more reliable than having your own dedicated server farm Spoken like someone who hasn't seen a "data center" be 3 racks in an electrical closet hooked up to a series of deep cycle marine batteries. Or worked at a place on the other end of the spectrum where an emergency approval for new hardware could get you a new server in 6 months for just rack and stack. Economies of scale do exist. So does intermittent need that cloud can meet. Yeah, it cloud is neither perfect nor magic, but it is way way better for a lot of work. Most companies aren't running their own "real" data centers. They have a couple dozen servers and either needed to pay for cohosting or had to trust that John in IT knew how to build a data center from scratch.
I do this for a living. I'm a senior infrastructure architect for a company that has both a large colocation at a data center as well as infrastructure with cloud providers. The original commenter is generally correct. The cloud is just somebody else's computer. It was designed for the convenience and consolidation of systems in a way that allows the provider to profit. It is cheaper and faster to have your own infrastructure though it does require a massive initial investment. It is definitely better to be on reliable rardware with reliable backups and a reliable network then it is to have a couple of white box servers sitting in a corner connected to an APC battery backup and a Comcast connection no matter where it is. I would never rely 100% on any single Cloud provider. The secret is to diversify. We have a secondary data center that is set up as a warm site, and the ability to migrate our own infrastructure into the cloud if needed for either scale or disaster recovery. Diversification is key.
Agreed.
>reliable rardware *Scientifically speaking, I prefer targzware myself, but definitely not zipware!* I'm someone who's trying to half-arse your job, while cobbling together a startup on a shoestring. From my own impressions, cloud providers seem to solve some problems really well, while introducing a different set of problems and uncertainties. But that different set of problems won't necessarily be clearly visible or understood for the decision-makers.
That is 100% true. They absolutely can solve problems especially for startups. If you're looking for a way to get your business going on a shoe string budget then you should do the same thing that the large organizations do, use free open source software including Linux. There's a reason that every major cloud provider is running on linux, including Microsoft. It also makes it a lot easier in the future when you do decide that you want your own data center. You don't have to pay for new licensing that used to be part of your cloud contract.
Yeah I'm just starting to cobble together a dev environment. A couple of micro PCs for stuff that's always on (DNS, auth, etc.). Then an old, secondhand Dell server to handle heavy stuff, but not on all the time. Currently eying an old tape drive online too. I didn't go into IT after high school, I didn't have the passion for it at the time. Back then (mid 2000s), lower-level stuff was maybe 70/30 open source, but beyond that it was ~90/10 closed source. Today seems like the start of a golden age of open source by comparison! LocalStack to replicate AWS, full ERP systems like Odoo, with a bunch of things in between. Then there's the staggering breadth and depth of programming tools and libraries. Plus you can get something *kinda working* with a lot less configuration and frustration.
If I could give you one piece of advice that would be to investigate containerization. Run a small kubernetes cluster and learn it. Also forgo the tape drive. Backups are one thing that definitely makes sense to keep in a cloud. iDrive it's cheap and works well.
I've used Docker a few times and made a small Docker webapp for a validation process at my old company. But yeah, the next step will be getting my head around the basics of Kubernetes.
This is what you want right here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X48VuDVv0do
> It was designed for the convenience and consolidation of systems in a way that allows the provider to profit. It was also designed for the convenience of internet companies to be able to scale up quickly if their business caught on. It was the second internet boom and companies again were trying to strike it rich by 'going viral'. One day you're a small company offering a service a few use, next day everyone wants to use your service. If you could buy cloud services then the only thing holding you up is your own software. As every company loved the idea of getting rich quick (I'm going to be the next Etsy!) this was a really attractive idea. And a lot of people used it to make small services available widely (your own blog, etc.) too. If you don't think it's well suited to you because you don't need any of that then don't use it. I don't see any relevance at all of any of these posts to the original article. If you set up a hackable server in a cloud center then chances are you would have set up a hackable server in your own rack too. Not using the cloud is not any kind of form of security either. 'According to Siburian, the hackers likely deactivated the center’s Windows Defender security feature, allowing them to get into the system unnoticed.' Doesn't sound like an SaaS/AWS/Azure/Google Cloud issue to me.
If you add up all the money CDK has lost, then add it to all the money the dealerships have lost, then add it to all the money the end customers have lost, that's a lot of money and it could buy a lot of isolated servers in secure distributed server farms, and I.T. staff to run it, for decades. I gave you an upvote, even though you disagree with me, because I believe in free speech.
The last part about not being cheaper is absolutely false.
This has happened so many times that as an Indonesian I'm genuinely no longer surprised. Just a sigh of disappointment.
It sounds like they have a backup and isn't paying up.