this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
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Oh please can AI just fuck off for once and keep going? Surely this shit has to pop soon. Otherwise I'll have to learn all about data center sabotage, and that seems like work.
Well, data centers usually have fairly tight security, so your first challenge is just getting access to it. There are five main approaches you could try:
Infiltrate: Apply for datacenter jobs and try to get employee-level access to the facility. This is likely your best shot, but depending on your background, it may be difficult or impossible to achieve. It will also be extremely difficult to maintain your anonymity while doing this, so you're very likely to be caught.
Assault: Datacenter security is designed around keeping out a sneaky, lone, unarmed intruder. A rapid application of brute force and violence could probably break through security and gain access. But alarms will definitely be tripped, so you'll likely only have a few minutes before police backup arrives.
Long-Range Assault: Using drones, rockets, long-range rifles, artillery, trebuchets, whatever heavy weaponry you can get your hands on, attempt to damage the facility from long range, from well outside of its security perimeter. Unless you can get/build some very impressive weaponry, damage is likely to be limited and localized, but you could conceivably get away with it without getting caught if you 'shoot and scoot' and cover your traces well.
Stealth: Try to find holes in its physical security and sneak through without being noticed (including by impersonating staff without actually getting hired). Since this is exactly what their security is designed to prevent, it will likely be the most challenging option, but it's possible there are still vulnerabilities in their security that could be exploited. If you do manage to make it through, you could potentially cause a lot of damage and still manage to get away without being caught, so it's a high risk/high reward strategy.
Hacking: Instead of trying to get physical access to the datacenter, you could try to hack into it and gain electronic access. However, this is likely to still be fairly difficult unless you're extremely skilled in hacking, and the damage you can do is limited because you won't have much opportunity to cause hardware damage. This will (mostly) be limited to causing temporary outages before they restore from backup. (Though if you could manage to set off the fire suppression systems...)
How exactly you actually go about damaging the datacenter's systems will depend heavily on which method you're using to gain access. Different methods open different possibilities.
I'm liking the idea of a grassroots terrestrial version of Rods From God: use utility poles (or sections thereof), launched from a pneumatic launcher hidden inside box trucks and/or trailers. Apply some good old kinetic energy to the right inputs/outputs/interconnections and we should be good.
But it might even be easier than that - use augers to target the data lines. I will admit I'm not sure whether such lines are typically underground, but that should be a matter of public record, no?
If you can build the capability of launching a telephone pole that far, you could cause a lot more damage by launching an equal weight of explosives and/or incendiaries instead. If you're going to the trouble of making a hidden pneumatic launcher in a box truck, you might as well make the payload as destructive as possible.
Incoming power lines won't be buried and will be easier targets. Especially the transformers -- oil-cooled power transformers (as would be typical for that role) can easily be disabled by a single hit from a decently powerful rifle, which will punch a hole in the casing, allow the oil to leak out, and result in the transformer overheating and failing.
Except I can get utility poles free, especially if I cut them down in the form of trees. 100% under the radar, unlike diesel and fertilizer, which will get you on a watchlist.
I'd sooner go for the data centers that operate their own turbines or generators. They're horrifically polluting, and that stuff is expensive as fuck. You take out a turbine, that's a major bill and not an easy thing to replace.