UK Servers Humming In Former Nuclear Bunker 95
JournalistGuy writes: "The Independent wrote today about firms moving their hardware underground into a cold war nuclear bunker. Apparently they're worried about theft by criminals and attacks from anarchists." I wonder what's now become of the U.S.'s Y2K command center -- wish that would go on Ebay. One of those abandoned missile silos would make a nice hosting site, too.
If you're going to post a story ... (Score:1)
US Y2k Bunker wasn't a bunker (Score:1)
Canada had one up for sale (Score:1)
hmmm (Score:1)
I'm not sure if it's the same one but from what i've heard this bank's first and second power generators failed and thheir entire server-farm went down! It took them more then 30hours (a lot for a bank!!) to get them alle up again. Some servers had crashed and not all backups (on tapes i hear) worked properly.
That didn't sound like a very secure site to me!
Priorities? (Score:1)
Heads up guys: anarchists have computers too.
Looks like it is a Command centre (Score:2)
Actualy, I'd guess it's a 'regional seat of government'
So it would make a very good server facility. The one nearest London is now a museum, so if this one is similar, it has everything you need. The London one is built into a hill, so there wouldn't be a problem with water leaks. (They basicaly removed a small hill, built the bunker, and then put the hill back). It's got deep-level wires going to useful telecoms places and a big microwave dish on top, so in prinicple connectivity should be good.
It's overkill of course, but you can never have too much overkill.
(I visited the London one as I was driving in the essex coutryside when I found a sign saying 'Secret Nuclear Bunker', and I had to follow it. Someone had a good sense of humour)
crackers = "militant luddites"? (Score:2)
Has anybody read this guy? Is he actually trying to talk about script kiddies here (who, the last time I looked, were the #1 enemy of a public box) or is he on about something else? I mean, yes, there is definitly an anti-corporate movement, especially in Europe (witness the "anti Mc-Globalization" protests, etc), but who does he think folks worry more about their servers getting hit by?
Re:Looks like it is a Command centre (Score:1)
Network Security (Score:2)
However, as far as the protection of the servers is concerned, shouldn't they be worried more about the network security? After all, what good is is to lock the server in a nuclear bunker and then forget about keeping up to date with software patches?
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Silos in the US (Score:3)
But silos wouldn't be. Most of the old silos in the US and Former Soviet Republics had thier lids removed for a spell (18 monthes) I think so that spy sats and "Open Sky" recon planes could fly over and make sure there were no missiles in there. The Russian flights over the US were conducted by Polish registered EC-135s and E-8s (Boeing 707s). Then the silos were blown up.
Some of the old silos (Titan IIs, and Minuteman I & IIs) were de-militarized before the START I treaty called for the measures listed above.
Some of the posters talked about the silos being below the water table. In western South Dakota, where I lived half a mile from a Minuteman II (that's 3 150 kiloton warheads and at least 5 Soviet warheads aimed at it) the watertable was at 330 feet down. Alot deeper than the silo was.
Of course your milage might vary on water table...but in the Dakotas and eastern Wyoming...those silos and Command and Control centers should be nice and dry.
Cryponomicon (Score:2)
The book is good, btw.
Some people are already prepared (Score:1)
Banks will be interested (Score:1)
Or companies that have activities that attract protestors (terrorist bombing attacks being the ultimate form of protest).
#ifdef SHAMELESS_PLUG :) /* SHAMELESS_PLUG */
Virtu secure webhosting [virtu.nl] in the Netherlands is setting up a similar facility in the vault of a bank. Great building to visit.
(I'm a satisfied customer
#endif
Slashdotted (Score:1)
Re:Slashdotted (Score:2)
Re:UK has very real needs (Score:1)
Probably a good thing your bobbies are now allowed to pack heat. I can't imagine they had much of a chance of competing against your average hooligan without one!
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watch that basket (Score:3)
Re:Missle silo house! (Score:1)
http://www.missilebases.com/new/
Anarchist Attack? (Score:3)
If I was an anarchist, I wouldn't bother with the computer center itself. I'd just attack the fiber optic cables running to it.
What good is the world's most secure data center if you can't talk to it?
visitec one once (Score:1)
The Talcot mountain Observitory in CT is built on top of a missle silo. what always gets me is seeing the location of these things. I am surprised that you could purchase them because most that I have known of are filled in and capped with concrete.
Re:Problem with US missile silos. (Score:1)
There are some success stories of some of the less damaged ones getting converted, but I think a lot of them are pretty trashed from neglect.
I'm wondering if it might not be cheaper to build your own bunker from scratch than to buy a government one in dubious condition. You'd get what you want, as you want it with fewer gotchas. Most civilian bunkers need to resist much less severe threats than a silo anyway, since presumably the activities of a civilian bunker are only meaningful if there is a civilian population to service..
UK has very real needs (Score:2)
I worked for a major investment bank in London, and we suffered a couple of very real security threats (to the extent of having sniffer dogs running around our feet as we worked) - in each case we were ready to "invoke contingency", and move trading operations to our backup data centre, some miles away (thankfully it never actually happened for real, but we did a number of tests, and were ready).
Whilst the costs of such an installation would clearly be high, there is a definate need for such offerings, and I suspect we'll see them increase in number, especially with the activities of the "Real IRA" recently.
Problem with US missile silos. (Score:4)
When I was at ISPCon in Orlando last year I was talking to a guy who said he knew someone who had bought one. He said, yes, they do leak, and pointed out, of course they do, they are below the water table.
That is a lot of basement sealer. I chuckled to myself, thinking about those basement sealing scams, where the people call your house and ask if your basement leaks, and then offer to come over for a no obligation inspection. If I lived in one of those leaky silos, I might just have to invite them over, just to get the estimate.
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Count Me Out (Score:1)
No More Cosmic Rays (Score:1)
Re:US Y2k Bunker wasn't a bunker (Score:1)
Re:Problem with US missile silos. (Score:2)
Except for airborne particles, asbestos is mostly not a risk. Stabilize the asbestos somehow and there's no problem.
However, your mistake happened when you said, "it's not hard to stabilize it," which is completely false.
Have you ever seen aspestos before? It looks like fiberglass insulation. Like such insulation, it deterorates with age. Thus, it becomes airborn. There is no way to 'stabalize' it without moisture, removal, and cleansing of the area.
As far as the dust is concerned, it doesn't just cause cancer. It can cause many other things. As fiberglass insulation, it can inflame skin, etc. However, it's a carcegenic. Like lead pipes or pain - dangerous to have around.
Know your facts before you post, please, Mr. Anon.
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CAIMLAS
Re:Well ... (Score:2)
Shoo! Leave me alone! It's 5:12 in the morning, for crying out loud...
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CAIMLAS
Re:UK has very real needs (Score:2)
The idea is that the potential of a firearm can deter a potential offender. Which is more likely to be violated: a woman getting into a car with an American Rifle Association sticker on her window, or a woman getting into a car with a PETA sticker? (provided the violator saw the stickers, ) the PETA woman, of course. No manwants to risk having their pills shot off.
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CAIMLAS
Re:Problem with US missile silos - Some Work Fine (Score:2)
SuperID
Free Database Hosting for Developers [freesql.org]
Diefenbunker! (Score:1)
Check out the Gift Shop: Buy a CD recorded at the CBC studios in the Diefenbunker!
OK, I need coffee (Score:1)
"UK Serves Hummers In Former Nuclear Bunker."
I'll keep what my thoughts on that matter were to myself, thank you.
-Joe
Well ... (Score:1)
[hint: AOL, PSI, NSI, and a couple of there closest friends are within spitting distance of each other.]
Been saving this link for just such an article... (Score:1)
http://triggur.org/silo/
Done by ordinary folks, these people actually broke into an old silo in 1995, photographed the entire place, and published the whole thing on the web. Of course, they were also brought up on felony charges for tresspassing and where convicted, but hey, all for art, right?
Re:This could work. (Score:1)
This plan will backfire (Score:3)
Re:Problem with US missile silos. (Score:2)
I can see how this place MIGHT be okay if a huge amount of money was sunk into it for reconditioning; if you pump out all the water, seal the walls, decontaminate (radiation AND asbestos), remove all the rusted metal, remove all the abandoned/vandalized/destroyed/obsolete equipment, scrape the lead-based paint off the walls, repaint it, repair the spring-mounted floors (to absorb the shock of nuclear blast), put lighting in and in general spend an exorbiant amount of cash you could have something that would serve passably well as a hidey-hole for a group of "survivalists". But the rooms in these places don't seem very large, and they weren't meant to be... they were meant to protect the missle crew in the event of nuclear attack long enough to let them launch their missles in a counterstrike. No thought was given beyond that point, and the design shows. I would NOT want to live in there, and frankly I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in one basket by hosting all my machines there without having some sort of redundant backup located somewhere else geographically. If you're going to spend the money to have machines placed there, you must have enough money to have a redundant site, I would think....
Final analysis: As a data center it's high on the novelty scale, but on the usability factor (cost of implementing/maintaining versus actual usefulness/probability your work is justified) it's mighty low. As a home? No thanks. I can think of better ways to spend half a million dollars (minimum) on my house.
-Da cat
This could work. (Score:1)
Re:Problem with ... (from a former launch officer) (Score:1)
Course, if they had tried it in situ things might have been a lot different, the igniters were probably dry, but the throat and combustion chambers were filled.
Do not try this at home
Great Hosting Site? (Score:1)
Re:Anarchist Attack? (Score:1)
I hear that Asta Networks [astanetworks.com] have product that will stop DoS attacks.
-Da Imp
Re:and I could make it all useless ... (Score:1)
Re:Looks like it is a Command centre (Score:1)
The Bunker Does Not Leak! (Score:2)
The Bunker is about protecting the security of data, not withstanding nuclear attacks.
It doesn't leak. Neither water nor data.
Yeah, if the Internet connections get cut, then we're not connected to the Internet. What's new? How does this affect the security of the data?
And as for overkill, what can I say? Should we skim a few feet off the concrete? Shave down the steel doors? Destroy a few redundant aircon units? What would you suggest?
If anyone has any sensible points, I'd be happy to address them.
and I could make it all useless ... (Score:1)
Seriously tho, what's the point of this excess? A nuclear {war, blast} would take out their Internet providers or a good majority of the internet itself. heh, if I was itching to start a nuclear war, I'd drop a two-KT nuke on this bunker-turned-hosting-firm just to destroy whatever data some poor schmuck paid out the eye for.
This reminds me of a previous unfunny April Fool's post 'Slashdot During War?' or something to that effect.
Tho I do kind of whatever what would happen to the Internet (originally created to survive a nuclear war) if some largescale nuclear/no-nukes war were to strike ... nevermind that if that did happen I'd be dead or have bigger/more important things on my mind than the state of the Internet.
Overkill? (Score:1)
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Re:Slashdotted (Score:4)
By Steve Boggan
11 June 2001
Some of Britain's biggest companies are running their internet operations on systems installed in a 300ft-deep nuclear blast-proof bunker to protect customers from violent anti-capitalist campaigners.
They are renting space in hermetically sealed rooms capable of withstanding a one Kiloton explosion, electro-magnetic "pulse bombs", electronic eavesdropping and chemical and biological warfare.
Hundreds of companies have already installed systems in The Bunker formerly known as RAF Ash, outside Sandwich in Kent and dozens more are understood to be queuing up for space. They have been driven underground by the IRA bombings of Canary Wharf and Bishopsgate in London and, increasingly, by concerns over the operations of anarchists behind sophisticated protests such as the May Day anti-capitalist rallies.
At stake is billions of pounds worth of business conducted over the internet. Companies are concerned that while electronic security using increasingly sophisticated encryption codes is gradually making customers feel more confident about conducting credit-card transactions over the internet, the physical side of e-business is still vulnerable. The fear is that servers, the small electronic boxes through which customer traffic and business transactions on the web are channelled, could be physically vulnerable to theft, damage or sabotage.
For companies conducting business solely over the internet, the loss of a server could be catastrophic; while offline there can be no sales and no income, and customers will go elsewhere. Records, too, are vulnerable to attack, hacking or simple damage, resulting in shut-downs that could cost even traditional companies millions of pounds.
Now organisations such as Scottish Widows, BTCellnet, Richer Sounds and the Bank Automated Clearance System which deals with inter-bank transactions have acted, putting their e-business and confidential dealings out of harm's way behind guards, barbed wire, dogs, electronic detection systems, millions of tons of earth, 4m of concrete, pressurised air locks and rows of steel doors up to 18in thick.
"This isn't paranoia or fantasy, this is the future," said Dr Ian Angell, professor of information systems at the London School of Economics and author of The New Barbarian Manifesto. "There are sophisticated anti-capitalists out there who feel a great deal of resentment against the business world. These are the new Luddites and, given half a chance, they would smash the machine to pieces."
Behind The Bunker is a company called AL Digital Communications, established by the brothers Adam and Ben Laurie and Dominic Hawken. Ben Laurie is already revered in the computing world as the man who co-wrote Apache-SSL, perhaps the best-known encryption technology available over the internet a tool used by some anti-capitalists when arranging demonstrations.
Three years ago, AL Digital heard that an RAF facility with state-of-the art electronics and communications systems was to be auctioned off. RAF Ash was one of four underground command and control centres at the heart of Britain's national air defence system. As part of a cost-cutting exercise, it was to be mothballed only seven years after undergoing a complete overhaul and upgrade.
The AL Digital team made a sealed bid still secret, according to the Ministry of Defence and the 60,000sq ft bunker with 18 acres of land was theirs. "The facility was designed to withstand a nuclear attack without disrupting RAF computer systems," Dominic Hawken said. "Their computers were about radar, but there is little difference between that and hosting a website. Some people have argued that our defences are a little over the top, but they're here now what can we do, shave a little off the walls?"
To enter, visitors must pass through security checks before being allowed through layer after layer of restricted access; of the 49 employees on site, only a handful are allowed into the bowels of the structure. Here, one finds doors that take two people to open and concrete grottoes called Faraday cages that act as electric buffers between the hostile outside and the environmentally pure, air-filtered inside.
There are three back-up power systems big enough to fire up a small town when busy, the National Grid buys energy from The Bunker's four turbines. There are dedicated telecommunications lines installed for the RAF but now available to customers at between £250 a month for a single server on a shelf, to "several millions" of pounds a year for the kind of huge space being rented by a large and unnamed international computer company already inside The Bunker.
There is also a fire station, vast underground fuel and water tanks and an array of cameras on corridors and servers you can even have a camera pointed permanently at your little box to make sure no one tampers with it.
Mr Hawken added: "Co-location is now the buzzword; if your records are destroyed, you want at least one back-up in another place so your business can keep operating. There are many reasons why companies are choosing the safety of a nuclear bunker, but I think the anti-capitalist threat is the most compelling.
"That whole thing is about bringing down large companies and the weakest link is to get to where their information is stored and destroy it. Because of encryption, they can no longer interfere with data, so they may try to damage the hardware that physically contains or controls it. For companies operating over the internet, that means targeting their servers."
None of The Bunker's customers contacted by The Independent would comment for security reasons. However, one, a large multinational computer corporation, said: "The Bunker provides us with a level of physical security and reliability unobtainable in the US. Experience taught us that digital security unaccompanied by physical security is worthless. The Bunker provides us with the highest levels of both."
Other companies said they simply felt they could relax knowing their internet operations were physically safe from attack.
Professor Angell said: "You have to understand. Future wars will be fought by capitalists and anti-capitalists as society polarises. When that happens, control of information will be as important as control of territory used to be in conventional conflicts. If you can stop your enemy from destroying your information, then you have a good chance of winning the war."
Re:Overkill? (Score:2)
Nothing new (Score:4)
Having a site on a second floor protects against floods. Having an underground site should protect against plane crashes (although we haven't really tested that, perhaps we should ask that Richard Branson guy if he could help us out with that).
I just mean to say: if my company could have reused an existing safe cellar for their underground location, they probably would have too. That has got to be cheaper than what we're doing now.
Anarchy for the PC (Score:1)
Are attacks by Anarchists really a major threat? Admittedly, an Anarchist did start WWI but they haven't been doing much since then. There was that Sex Pistols Song in the late 70s. But I don't think the Sex Pistols were technically Anarchists. They were just angry and really really drunk.
THE dream of all geeks everywhere... (Score:1)
No, I got a better idea. Three words: underground secret laboratory. That would rock!
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by coincidence (Score:3)
makes sense to me.
;-)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
*grabs his wire cutters* (Score:1)
*snip, snip*
*dusts off hands*
Cheers, old beans! Your servers are secure, but now they're a bunch of introverts!
US silo for sale (Score:3)
Re:Not worth it (Score:1)
One would only have to come up with the asking price for hosting the server/bomb. A few kg charge could fit in a power supply and that would be it. If they are not filtering their air for certain contaminents you could use bio warfare on them.
Also what about data lines? Cutting them off at the source would be virtually impossible, but are they going to put all the routers in the uk in these things? Why not just take out the switching station up the road from this place ? The cost of rebuilding all those connects physically would be enourmous.
Re:Not worth it (Score:2)
They make their own.
their data lines
Yeah, us Brits are so dumb we didn't think of that one. This is a MILITARY bunker not some "lets keep the bureaucrats safe" hole. Communications are paramount.
their cable TV
Now you're trolling deliberately
their phones
See above
and they'll also have to worry about Islamic militants hired to work on the plumbing and flooding them out
Or maybe the contractors who built the thing would have been checked out by MoD before they were allowed within 5 miles of the place...
Modding this "Insightful" is like calling Houston dry.
Alternate uses for US Missile Silos.. (Score:1)
Re:The Bunker Guided Tour (Score:1)
"Work or test on this apparatus must be authorised by the authorised person"
Who is the authorised person?
Steve.
The Bunker Guided Tour (Score:4)
Steve.
Re:Overkill? (Score:2)
"You have to understand. Future wars will be fought by capitalists and anti-capitalists as society polarises. When that happens, control of information will be as important as control of territory used to be in conventional conflicts."
grim predictions coming from across the pond...
Sauna girls (Score:1)
Features [greenbrier.com] you don't ordinarily expect to find in a bunker (well, maybe in Dr. Strangelove's bunker): Time honored services of soaking, scotch sprays and Swiss showers continue to be offered, and a wide selection of new treatments and programs now enhance every guest's desires. Quiet areas for use before and after services, and private, personal changing rooms, make the experience one to always remember... and return to again and again.
"Cosmic hummers" (Score:1)
Imagine my embarassment when a female co-worker at IBM revealed the *other* meaning.
Hmmmmm.... (Score:1)
Air Conditioning (Score:1)
Re:Problem with US missile silos. (Score:2)
Certainly enough to get a whole silo sealed against leakage.
Anarchists (Score:1)
Why does not believing in capitalism mean that those people are going to break into a server?
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Re:Overkill? (Score:2)
That said, it's still an interesting application for military installalations that would otherwise fall into neglect and disrepair (or cost their respective governments, big $$$ to maintain). These sorts of facilities are perfectly suited to such a use. Power requirements, independant generators, climate control, all are already in place, (as I presume the article pointed out, although when I tried to read it it had already been
Also, The fear-mongering mentioned by previous posters is nothing more than good business, and let's face it, there are some applications where the physical invulnerability of the facilities is a big attraction as well, but my point here is the majority of customers will be atracted to this sort of facility, not by the 6 feet of concrete surrounding their servers, but the relitive low cost and treditional data center style precausions and security service, provided at relitively low cost.
No, I havn't priced out a missile silo or abandoned sub base recently...
--CTH
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Re:Problem with US missile silos. (Score:1)
But the coolest one was one that had filled with groundwater, bought by a guy who's into scuba diving. So now you can scuba dive in the middle of America's heartland. Well, as long as you're not claustrophobic, I guess.
US Missle Silos (Score:1)
Re:The Bunker Guided Tour - other sites in the UK (Score:1)
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/
Matt
HostPro offers this in the U.S. (Score:1)
Re:The Bunker Guided Tour (Score:1)
defeating their own purpose (Score:1)
They are renting space in hermetically sealed rooms capable of withstanding a one Kiloton explosion, electro-magnetic "pulse bombs", electronic eavesdropping and chemical and biological warfare.
How many of their clients' customers will still be able to access their wonderfully protected web sites over a crippled global or national Internet? Let alone how many will be alive after a one kiloton explosion or a biological weapons attack?
Yes, their site will be up busy humming away deep underground while the rest of the world is in chaos, not caring about potential lost commerce from "Scottish Windows" or if they can order new cellular service from "BTCellnet".
The Internet is a distributed system which relies on having enough nodes on average operational than not. An atomic blast or a heavy war-time attack is designed for distributed destruction of a country's infrastructure. Although the original IP network was designed by the military, it still is no match for war. Although packets are supposed to take alternate routes, in reality they end up following the exact same route (do a traceroute) every single time. This might change with IPv6, but probably not because most companies don't want to hassle with making sure their configurations support multiple routing schemes and that their 'dynamic' routing isn't just really static with values changed.
The point is not much will be working, except for those sealed away sites, and those who will be able to access the Internet will have far more important things to worry about. Almost all commercial systems fail during times of serious war -- this includes the commercial Internet.
I wonder if... (Score:3)
Unfortunetly - The request was just slightly misinterperated..... aw well!
Flooding? (Score:2)
espo
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Hmm... (Score:3)
The Internet isn't as redundant as it was when it was called ARPANET. Sorry, but a nuclear war would probably render having your server in the bunker useless...
Re:and I could make it all useless ... (Score:1)
The bunker was originaly build nuclear safe for military purposes. If it was buildt from scrath for its current use it woud probably not be so "over the top", but it was bought used and just keept what was already there.
Missle silo house! (Score:1)
Re:Missle silo house! (Score:1)
Re:Overkill? (Score:1)
I was just thinking that the described security would put the Mission Impossible movies to shame... perhaps there's an opening for a new script.
Simon
"has enormous amounts of bandwidth on-tap" (Score:1)
Simon
Nothing beats computers and a bunker (Score:1)
Re:crackers = "militant luddites"? (Score:1)
Sir, security breach in sector 3!
It's a crusty with a dog on a piece of string.
Oh my God! Raise the blast shields!
He's got a spliff! He's going to smoke it!
God help us.
Re:and I could make it all useless ... (Score:1)
Of course it's not going to be of any use (apart from backup) when there is a nuclear attack, but when 50 crusties are running at it with their scraggly dogs on bits of string, it'll be there in the morning (unlike that MacDonald's in Trafalgar Square after last years May Day riots).
Re:*grabs his wire cutters* (Score:1)
Re:Cryponomicon (Score:1)
If that's your attitude, I hope you are mugged under a disused CCTV camera. That would be ironic. (just pointing it out for the Americans/Alanis Morisette out there)
Old news.... (Score:1)
www.cyberbunker.com [cyberbunker.com]
Gee thought this site was called NEWS for nerds, stuf that MATTERS.
Not worth it (Score:1)
Re:Problem with US missile silos. (Score:1)
I live near here (Score:1)
Re:Problem with US missile silos. (Score:4)
Take a tour:
http://www.triggur.org/silo/silo.html
Not exactly home sweet home.
Re:Visionary Timothy McVeigh, dead at 33 (Score:1)
Now there's a place... (Score:2)
Figures on downtime costs? (Score:1)
Also, anyone have any links to some good horror stories (e.g. systems penetrated and companies lost millions or threw in the towel and never got back on their feet again, etc.)
I wonder how much of the dollar value threat is mitigated by the use of these kinds of facilities? Any insurance people out there? If we're now starting to treat the operating system (or web server environment) one is running as a factor in business insurance, how does the secureness or redundancy factor (e.g. in an installation like this) theoretically affect the insurance industry?
How would an I.T. manager or company exec justify a move to such a facility? It has to be more than the "cool" factor.
Uh oh (Score:3)
One of those abandoned missile silos would make a nice hosting site, too.
"So there I was, hacking away on a tax reporting program...and suddenly my computer says, 'Would you like to play a game?'"