
Unexploded Ordnance found in Server Room - empath75
https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/8kzx5p/some_kind_of_explosive_lying_on_the_floor_of/
======
gnarbarian
There are a lot of possibilities here.

1) it was wired to explode, to cover tracks or harm people.

2) It was fired a long time ago, came through a roof/wall and landed behind a
server rack and got buried behind cables. the hole in the wall/ceiling tile
got patched and there it sat until someone moved the rack.Possibly with
numerous people kicking it or seeing it and not thinking a second thought
about what it might be.

3) someone came into possession of it and hid it there because it's a secure
location with few people who come by. eventually either they forgot about it
or they were not in a position to be able to retrieve it.

4) it's inert and he's pulling everyone's leg

I personally think 4 is most likely, followed by 3 and then 2 and then 1.

edit:

one more possibility, it's IS inert but that is undetermined, so the police
err on the side of caution and proceed as if it were live.

edit the sequel:

the police don't know about it. I'm fairly certain this is all bullshit now:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17119251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17119251)

~~~
radiorental
Could be (3) for the karma. However, if true why invite the curious eye of a
Three Letter Authority who might be interested in Russian ordinance.

That said, the poster said that the IT guy was fired and locked the server
room. The only curious part of that tale is that he said the room was locked 2
months ago. I know of no server room with a broken AC unit that can operate
that long.

[edit] this is the Czech Rep, that could explain a few things.

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orf
As of 25 mins ago[1] it's an active bomb and there appears to be an active
military lockdown.

I laughed pretty hard at the comment asking about his offsite backup strategy.

1\.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/8kzx5p/som...](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/8kzx5p/some_kind_of_explosive_lying_on_the_floor_of/dzbu0dm)

~~~
jacquesm
Right to be forgotten or secure erasure measures?

~~~
m-p-3
GDPR taken to another level.

~~~
nungster
This comment made my day! We just finished our GDPR audit last week!

~~~
astrodust
Did you find any unexploded ordinance?

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dataqat
I'm surprised how little skepticism there is about posts like these. A month
earlier the user posted a comment about a mortar round in the same group, and
posted a video about a security prank. Not saying it's fake, but it's far from
obviously true.

~~~
yread
The czech police apparently doesn't know about it

[https://www.lupa.cz/aktuality/na-redditu-se-resi-udajna-
bomb...](https://www.lupa.cz/aktuality/na-redditu-se-resi-udajna-bomba-v-
ceskem-datacentru-policie-o-nicem-nevi/)

~~~
gnarbarian
I definitely believe he's just pranking everyone now. here's a translation:

On one thread on Reddit, an interesting thing is being discussed today. The
user, with the nickname WhySoSadCZ, posted a photo of where an old bomb lies
between the server racks on the ground. It is supposed to be a location in the
Czech Republic, specifically in a server room in offices of unnamed smaller
companies.

"No one has been in the server since the last person left IT two months ago
and apparently took his keys," WhySoSadCZ writes that he was going to repair
the air conditioning in the room and had to get in without the keys.

The user further writes that the business owner has no idea how the bomb took
place there. He also states that the building has been evacuated and that the
police have been involved here.

Police Spokesperson of the Czech Presidency of the Czech Republic, Jozef
Bocan, however, told Lupu that the police did not carry out such an action.
"We do not know anything about this description at this moment," he said.

------
jacquesm
Holy crap. That takes 'leaving a bomb behind' to a whole new level. I'd bet
there is a 'bad leaver' in the recent past.

Worst I've ever found in a server room was a server that shouldn't have been
there.

It's close to this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M14_Malyutka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M14_Malyutka)

Just after the wall fell there was a market in Krosno in South Eastern Poland,
you could buy _anything_ Soviet made there including tanks if you wanted to.
Makes you wonder when this thing stopped being tracked as a military asset and
what the story is of how it ended up in that server room.

~~~
gargravarr
You assume Soviet arms were /ever/ tracked, military assets or not. The Soviet
military has a long history of misplacing weaponry...

~~~
jacquesm
That's an interesting possibility that I had not considered. I always think of
the military as a giant exercise in logistics and there is no such thing
without asset tracking.

After all, whether you're talking about bullets or aircraft carriers they're
not much use to the state that owns them if the state doesn't know where they
are.

But if there is enough stuff and a portion of it is misplaced then that would
be a real problem. The simple fact that this thing is on display in its
present location is worrisome. You could have put it in the back of a car and
transported it halfway across Europe to fire it at the base of the Eiffeltower
or something stupid like that before anybody would have known it was even
there.

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jerf
[https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/8kzx5p/som...](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/8kzx5p/some_kind_of_explosive_lying_on_the_floor_of/dzbu0dm/)
seems to have some running updates of what's happening, which is below a
stickied post.

------
greedo
That's a Sagger ATGM. For when you really want to make sure that your packets
get through the firewall.

~~~
Thriptic
I don't think that's what the client had in mind when they asked for a
penetration test XD

~~~
astrodust
"20mm round unsuccessful in penetrating concrete server building. Will repeat
test with 150mm round."

------
pvg
"thread for following an unverified reddit thread on something supposedly
developing in real time" seems like a really bad fit for HN.

------
coding123
Last attempt to get them to switch to cloud.

------
zitterbewegung
Good thing that the OP exercised good logical thinking about the bomb. It’s
great that no one got hurt .

------
m3kw9
That most of the time would be the IT guy who just finished a large burrito,
max spicyness

------
nathanaldensr
Shouldn't the word be "ordnance?"

~~~
gnode
According to The Free Dictionary, "ordnance" is a syncopated version of
"ordinance".

[https://www.thefreedictionary.com/ordnance](https://www.thefreedictionary.com/ordnance)

Also:
[https://www.etymonline.com/word/ordnance](https://www.etymonline.com/word/ordnance)

"Ordnance" seems to be the more conventional spelling for this meaning, but
I'm not sure that makes it uniquely correct. Linguistics isn't an exact
science.

~~~
Koshkin
Some of it is [0].

This fact is ever more important in the age of AI.

[0]
[http://www.helsinki.fi/esslli/courses/readers/K54.pdf](http://www.helsinki.fi/esslli/courses/readers/K54.pdf)

~~~
rijncur
> Please do not circulate, quote, or cite without express permission from the
> author

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sgtmas2006
I've never felt the need to run "git blame" fast enough

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elorant
I find it hard to believe that they set-up the racks and everything without
anyone taking notice of a freaking mortar shell lying dormant on the floor.

~~~
Yetanfou
wire-guided anti-tank missile, actually. It seems to be missing its steering
fins so it probably has been fired before. As to whether it landed in the
server room after a botched shot or was transported there remains to be seen.

------
Fjolsvith
Extreme disposal measures for subpoenaed classified emails on mom and pop
email server?

