full-disclosure - Fwd: How to Steal a Mainframe

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From: igenge2 at csc.com.au (igenge2@....com.au)
Subject: Fwd: How to Steal a Mainframe

>> > passed through these servers. What gets me is only 2 servers were 
stolen and yet
>> > they were in there 2 hours "unhooking the computers" so it was said. 
Doesnt
>> > take that long just to "unhook".
>
>> Umm... We're not talking about a 5U-high Netfinity, probably.  We once 
had
>> occasion to move an IBM 9672 (which is as near as I can tell the same 
size/
>> class machine) across the machine room, and it was a long morning's 
work.  Even
>> a *small* S/390 or z-series system can have 48 channel cables on it, 
128 is not
>> at all uncommon - and IBM uses some pretty hefty screws to hold them in 
place.
>
>They put them on small trolleys and wheeled them out the door and took 
off with them. One seriously doubts they >were anything more than high 
towers.

It would be nice to know what they really were.  If they took mainframes 
then the thieves would only have the data stored in RAM at the time (if 
they are using battery backed RAM) but not the data stored on the disks, 
because they are usually separate (on the other end of the channel 
cables).  On the other hand they could have taken the disks themselves, or 
they could have been *NIX servers or Windows Servers or ...

The trouble with relying on press reports is that we just don't get enough 
information to make reliable comments.

Ian Genge
__________________________________________________
Senior Network Engineer
CSC