LJ to restructure backend, redesign interface, eliminate advertising?

[charmian]

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ru&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://lenta.ru/news/2011/11/19/zhzh/&usg=ALkJrhhxg9B2Rg2k0WsNodEgzwrk3iiL9A <--Translation of a news article claiming LJ will not be using ads (however, users will be allowed to put their own ads on their journals).

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Flenta.ru%2Fnews%2F2011%2F11%2F19%2Fzhzh1%2F <--LJ will create a revamped system for ranking bloggers, update the site design (wow), described as being unchanged from 1999, and the backend will be rewritten, allowing uses to have more friends. Now, since this is all via google translate, I'm not sure how accurate this is (anyone who reads Russian want to confirm this?)

Servers may also be moved from the US to Europe (I've seen other sources saying some, but not all will be moved).

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Faspix.livejournal.com%2F133821.html <--Better picture of new interface, and mention that there will be more extensive use of Ajax.


Huh, if the servers are moved to Europe, what consequences will this have for US users?

Where are they getting all the money to pay for this? (Reduce/eliminate ads, new design, redoing backend)

Is there going to be much disruption to service if they're going to redo the backend?

What consequences will more Ajax use have?

I wonder what people will think of the redesign of the site pages.

Comments

[charmian]

That sounds nice!

However, I have never really understood why it matters so much where the servers are. If you can't trust the owners of the site, it doesn't really matter where the servers are, I think.

[azurelunatic]

The servers are less vulnerable to government agents knocking politely or not-so-politely at the data center when the data center is not in the same country as the agents who would like to inspect the servers.

[charmian]

Indeed, but isn't the data center already controlled by the headquarters of the company? In other words, so if the HQ is already in the country whose government you're worried about, isn't it sorta game over already?

[jd]

Well, yes and no. I mean, if they're physically outside the country, the government can't just go to that country and seize them. It's at least another layer of difficulty, is how I see it.

[azurelunatic]

There were protests from LJ users in Russia when SUP started handling stuff at all, and again when SUP took over. So I think that's a significant point of vulnerability.

A hypothetical hostile agent could demand that the company surrender records, or take possession of employees' computers, and demand access. Certainly. And with digital data a copy is usually the equivalent to the original.

Remote access has two ends; I don't know what would happen if someone took an LJ employee's computer, but if I were a paranoid boss I might suspend an employee's accesses if they went missing, particularly if the things they could access were particularly sensitive. I might also require possession of a physical token and regular entry of a password known only to the person who ought to have that token, and automatic suspension of access following failed authentication. Basically there are steps that people can take to secure data from unauthorized access.

It is more difficult to defend your data when the device on which it is stored is in the hands of hostile agents. If you've deleted something by erasing the pointer to the place on the disk where it was stored, physical possession of the disk can lead to restoration of that data. If something's been overwritten with zeroes, sufficiently sensitive tools can pick up magnetic shadows on magnetic media. This is why modern data destruction involves physically destroying the drive.

Defense of data isn't the only thing; persistence of service is another vital factor. Pinboard went actually down at one point because the FBI took the server. Pinboard was on the same physical machine as the virtual machine that some entirely un-fun things were located.

When the goal is not to find out information, but to make information inaccessible or excessively inconvenient to retrieve, physical access makes this much easier. DDoS only makes it inconvenient for a while, and does damage to business. There's only so much that a person could erase remotely before getting caught and cut off. If you really want to destroy others' access to data, you get hold of the main server and as many backups as you can, and you screw with that.

I do not imagine that that would be a subtle process.