Booting Up: New NSA Data Farm Takes Root In Utah...

[Indi Guy]

Source: NPR


[font size="1"]The National Security Agency says its massive new data center near Salt Lake City will enhance the agency's ability to analyze the email, text message, cellphone and landline metadata it collects.[/font]

The National Security Agency won't say exactly when it will fully rev up its newest and biggest data farm in the Salt Lake City suburb of Bluffdale, Utah... ...But, according to NSA spokeswoman Vanee' Vines, "We turn each machine on as it is installed, and the facility is ready for that installation to begin." Those machines are computer servers — enough to fill four warehouse-size "data halls" covering 100,000 square feet.

...More than 1 million additional square feet here are devoted to generators, diesel storage tanks, power substations, backup battery banks, water tanks, chilling plants and an office building. The annual maintenance costs are pegged at $20 million.

"No Intent Here To Become Big Brother"

"We built it big because we could," says Lonny Anderson, the NSA's chief information officer, who runs the agency's data acquisition, storage and processing effort. "It's a state-of-the-art facility," Anderson adds. "It's the nicest data center in the U.S. government — maybe one of the nicest data centers there is."

It also gives the federal government's intelligence agencies easier access to the email, text message, cellphone and landline metadata the NSA collects, "for foreign intelligence purpose[s]," as Vine insists...

Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/23/225381596/booting-up-new-nsa-data-farm-takes-root-in-utah

[NYC_SKP]

1. Shaped like a great curve phallus in the landscape, ready to screw America.

How appropriate.

[Adsos Letter]

28. LOL!!!

...er, sorry...couldn't help myself...

[Posteritatis]

2. Three orders of magnitude margin of error in their storage estimates. Ahh, tech journalism. (nt)

[Recursion]

16. XKCD had a great "what if" that mentioned this last week

http://what-if.xkcd.com/63/

A few headlines, rather than going with one estimate or the other, announced that the facility could hold "between an exabyte and a yottabyte" of data ... which is a little like saying "eyewitnesses report that the snake was between 1 millimeter and 1 kilometer long."

[Posteritatis]

23. Yeah - that and the power consumption cut down a lot of the estimates about this thing

Exabyte-level storage is alarmingly high given the owners, but I don't buy for an instant that they're in the zettabyte or yottabyte range. That's just spinning huge numbers for emotional purposes and banking on the fact that people won't sanity-check them.

The thing's a big enough problem with the numbers that are feasible.

[Indi Guy]

29. ...a couple charts so that we all can know the kind of numbers we're talking about here...

or

[bloomington-lib]

3. It would sound more realistic if they said

It also gives the federal government's intelligence agencies easier access to YOUR email, text message, cellphone and landline metadata the NSA collects, "for foreign intelligence purpose," as Vine insists...

[seveneyes]

4. How about We the People put a few independent auditors on the staff

Not that we don't trust you, just that we are paying for it and it is OUR processing center.

[hughee99]

5. Wouldn't be shocked to see them start renting out some of the storage space

to become the back end of "the cloud". Then they wouldn't have to go get your data, you'd be indirectly paying them to store it... and with your data already stored on their equipment, they shouldn't have any issue accessing whatever they need.

[Indi Guy]

8. Bruce Schneier: NSA Spying Is Making Us Less Safe...

...In recent months that newspaper and other media have issued a steady stream of revelations, including the vast scale at which the NSA accesses major cloud platforms, taps calls and text messages of wireless carriers, and tries to subvert encryption.

...We are seeing the NSA collecting data from all of the cloud providers we use: Google and Facebook and Apple and Yahoo, etc. We see the NSA in partnerships with all the major telcos in the U.S., and many others around the world, to collect data on the backbone. We see the NSA deliberately subverting cryptography, through secret agreements with vendors, to make security systems less effective. The scope and scale are enormous...
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519336/bruce-schneier-nsa-spying-is-making-us-less-safe/

[hughee99]

24. It's not a huge leap from accessing those providers to selling them the storage

they need and accessing the data directly without having to go through a 3rd party.

[Indi Guy]

30. ...makes perfect sense to me.

I'd be surprised if the ptb haven't thought of it.

[adirondacker]

6. How appropriate to smack it down in the middle of geneology central. Rmoney's wet dream. nt

[SwankyXomb]

7. Am I the only person that wants to fly a drone

loaded with an EMP weapon into the building?

[PSPS]

9. How cute. Our very own Stasi compound.

As long as it stands, we're not America.

[blkmusclmachine]

10. And the Post Office stores digital images of all your mail.

Who do you know, comrade?!!!

[Recursion]

11. Huh. Underwhelming. That looks smaller than Switch & Data's old center in Reston (nt)

[Indi Guy]

12. Does that facility include 100,000 square feet of computer servers...

...with more than 1 million additional square feet devoted to generators, diesel storage tanks, power substations, backup battery banks, water tanks, chilling plants and an office building?

...and with annual maintenance costs pegged at $20 million?

???

[Recursion]

13. Yes. It's bigger, in fact. Something like 75% of Internet traffic used to pass through it

Its security was probably better than this facility's will be.

The datacenter in Reston I'm thinking of has 500K square feet of server space.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

14. It's not. n/t

[Recursion]

15. Yes it is. In fact the Equinix Reston datacenter is five times as big, it turns out

Equinix (formerly Switch & Data) has 500K square feet of server space compared to 100K in Utah.

[Indi Guy]

17. If that's the case then we already have far too many of our tax dollars targeted...

...for surveillance that's targeted largely at us.

We are paying the gravediggers for the tomb of our Constitution.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

19. Density. Equinox doesn't draw 65MW

As you know, or should know, the newer the data center, the denser it is in terms of power, drive space, virtualization, etc. And you can bet the place won't be filled with space-inefficient co-lo cages, just row after row after row of dense servers and storage. I'm pretty sure the NSA has the budget they need to get the latest and greatest. They also have more than 900,000 square feet to play with. When have you EVER toured a data center and not heard of plans to expand into the empty space? Final point: why on earth would we believe the NSA's claims of 100,000 square feet in a 1.5 million square foot facility? Generators, UPS, and offices and conference rooms for 100 employees don't make up the difference.

[Recursion]

20. I said Equinix is "larger", which it is

Which is also why that aerial shot of the Utah building was underwhelming to me.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

21. So the NSA facility is larger overall. And it draws more power with newer equipment.

But you're looking at the floor space in use in Reston. I think you'd be impressed by some of the newer, denser data centers. I think we'd both be blown away if we could see the Utah facility. That's not to detract from Equinix, but the NSA is building a homogenous, single-customer data center. And as much as that disgusts me as a citizen, I'm professionally impressed with the scale of the undertaking.

[Indi Guy]

37. According to the CIO...

..."It's a state-of-the-art facility," Anderson adds. "It's the nicest data center in the U.S. government — maybe one of the nicest data centers there is."

There you have it.

[arikara]

18. Nice that somebody can get money for something

"We built it big because we could," says Lonny Anderson, the NSA's chief information officer, who runs the agency's data acquisition, storage and processing effort. "It's a state-of-the-art facility," Anderson adds. "It's the nicest data center in the U.S. government — maybe one of the nicest data centers there is."

Lots of money for spying and war. No money to feed people though.

[Indi Guy]

22. A government interested in feeding the people...

...would first have to be on the side of the people.

Following the money, it's clear where the government's loyalties lie. (notice I didn't say "our" government...&quot

[font size="4"]House Slashes Food Assistance[/font]

On Thursday, the House Republicans passed the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act (H.R. 3102) to cut approximately $39 billion from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) over the next decade. If enacted, these cuts would eliminate food assistance to 3.8 million low-income Americans. http://www.foreffectivegov.org/node/12700

[JoeyT]

31. +1

That's what jumped out at me too. "We built it big because we could"

Well thank goodness we had an excess of money from taking care of the poor and hungry that we could toss it into a big wasteful project.

[Indi Guy]

32. Maybe the place could double as a homeless shelter/soup kitchen.

I'm sure the gov would be tickled to host our nation's less fortunate in "maybe one of the nicest data centers there is." Nah -- there would be that pesky "national security" thing in the way.

[Generic Other]

25. spy v. spy

They are not above criticism. We need to start spying on the spies. Shake some skeletons out of their closets. I wonder how Lonny Anderson, the NSA's chief technologist and information officer would feel if his personal information was data mined and shared? He acts like this is nothing. Too bad he can't get a taste of his own medicine.

NSA's chief technologist and information officer:
Mr. Anderson graduated from the University of Maryland (University College) in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts in Government. He also graduated from the Defense Intelligence College in 1990 with a Master of Science in Strategic Intelligence.

Mr. Anderson joined NSA/CSS in May 2001 following a 21-year career in the United States Army.




Today, Rumsfeld appointee General Alexander sits in the command center as he has since he left his last position as deputy chief of staff for intelligence for the U.S. Army whose units included the ones involved with the torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/nsa-mind-keith-alexander-star-trek

?uuid=ELDPwg-cEeGzpeoj2RvJbQ

This is the 'Let's not worry about the law. Let's just figure out how to get the job done,' Alexander before he went to HackerCon to recruit hackers. Master of disguise that one. Mr. Evil.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/1/3199153/nsa-recruitment-controversy-defcon-hacker-conference

They have no allegiance to anything, and provide no security. Why the hell are these swine from the Bush junta still in power?

[defacto7]

26. Gees, I can almost see my house from this aerial shot...

Sure as hell they can see inside it.

[Indi Guy]

38. Look at the bright side...

The government elite will be the first to know if you go hungry (not that they will help you in any way).

[blackspade]

27. Oh, joy.

This is something that should be torn out by the roots.

[Sunlei]

33. 10,000 more employees to steal files.

more billions of Federal taxpayer money to feed the monster.

[jsr]

34. Does it have a Star Trek bridge for Gen. Alexander when he visits?

[Indi Guy]

35. If not, the general can simply...

[Ash_F]

36. Red State boondoggle. /nt