NSA New Security Center

[Xittenn]

The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)!

 

My economics teacher likes to think that he knows copious amounts of fine details when it comes to computing. He keeps going on about the NSA having one of only two terahertz computers in the world. This doesn't exactly mean much of anything, as far as I'm aware there still isn't at present a terahertz transistor to design a chip on.

 

So I decided to do a little research and it seems that the current standard in national security is the petaflop. Recent articles suggest however, that in fact there is currently a work in progress toward an exaflop security center, and this has generated some buzz. The fact that the NSA might be listening in on every phone call in the world is now at a peak of concern for those it matters to; like my teacher. I guess it would seem that he had at the very least one thing correct. Although, I doubt the NSA will be knocking at my door anytime soon for the crap that comes out of my mouth regular basis--but then again!

Edited April 15, 2012 by Xittenn

[imatfaal]

In rough (very rough) figures there are about 10^6 emails, 10^5 texts, and 10^5 telephone calls worldwide per second. I really don't know about computing time and flops required to scan emails and texts - but we can only hope that the huge scale of snooping defeats even the fastest computers with the largest bandwidth/throughput.

[John Cuthber]

What's new?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence)

[CaptainPanic]

In rough (very rough) figures there are about 10^6 emails, 10^5 texts, and 10^5 telephone calls worldwide per second. I really don't know about computing time and flops required to scan emails and texts - but we can only hope that the huge scale of snooping defeats even the fastest computers with the largest bandwidth/throughput.

The only way to swamp such a supercomputer is to put more information online. Or, rather, to put the same amount of information online, but in bulkier formats.

 

You can express your opinion in a 100 KB blog post, or a 100 MB youtube movie. Logically, it will take the NSA computer a lot more time to check that movie than the blog post, because the sequence of 10010100101010101 is thousand times longer. But it takes us (humans) the same amount of time to digest that kind of information. We're good at recognizing pictures... It doesn't take a world-class computer to read all our emails, but I bet it takes a lot more than all the computing power worldwide to replace our 7 billion visual cortexes.

 

Shall we open a 2nd thread to discuss the stupidity of tracing each and every step of every person on this planet? I mean, if this is indeed the NSA's goal, then it's true: they really do take the "1984" book by Orwell as a guidebook rather than a warning.

[imatfaal]

/snipped

 

Shall we open a 2nd thread to discuss the stupidity of tracing each and every step of every person on this planet? I mean, if this is indeed the NSA's goal, then it's true: they really do take the "1984" book by Orwell as a guidebook rather than a warning.

Or shall we open a 2nd, 3rd, 4th.... thread - on the basis that they need to read this stuff as well so we mights as well give them a decent volume

[John Cuthber]

Or copy the NSA in on every email you send, to save them the trouble.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I doubt the plan is to analyze the content of every single email, text message and phone call. If you just track who's talking to whom, you can easily determine who the interesting people are, and watch them more closely.

 

To quote something I have written elsewhere on the Internet:

 

Giving the government the power to read your email, tap your phone, and record your porn usage isn't bad simply because it's embarrassing. After all, the data will likely only be seen by a computer. But it gives the government enormous power to make decisions about you -- decisions about whether you may take a commercial airline flight, get a security clearance, or even get a job -- without your knowledge or consent, and without you knowing how they make the decisions.

 

In short, a lack of privacy gives the government the power to be even less transparent in its decision-making, and gives it yet more power over its citizens. It's not a question of discovering your fetishes or being embarrassed, and we shouldn't respond to the "nothing to hide" argument as though their conception of privacy is right and having nothing to hide really is an excuse.

 

This article is rather good: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

[CaptainPanic]

[...]In short, a lack of privacy gives the government the power to be even less transparent in its decision-making, [...]

I completely agree. This is one major issue. Although, it can be argued that most (Western) governments are still considered "the good guys", so we have nothing to fear. It's a well-known argument: "I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear (from my friendly government)". Personally, I am convinced that the argument is irrelevant. Still, because this argument is so persistent, I choose to fight this privacy problem from another angle:

 

A more immediate fear I have is that information can will be hacked/lost. Sure, every government promises to take good care. And I am confident that they really try their best. Still, once every now and then, a tax office gets hacked, or a bank, or a government agency. My point is that the most sensitive (and most secure!) systems, those which deal with our money, are also getting hacked. Why wouldn't this particular effort get hacked as well?

 

My most immediate fear then is not that some government does evil with this data. My most immediate fear is that it falls into the hands of criminals. And until now, there is literally nothing on the internet that has been proven 100% secure.

[Tridimity]

Now it turns out that the NSA planned to 'discredit radicals over their web-porn use': http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25118156

 

Serious issues here:

 

i. The complete lack of privacy for ordinary law-abiding citizens. Mass collection of web usage and communications data means that the US authorities have the capability to find a perceived flaw with anybody they so wish to and to persecute that person. Nobody is perfect; we all make mistakes, and now those past or present mistakes are readily available to fuel the immoral actions of the NSA.

ii. If you are going to disparage terrorists - then the fact that they are terrorists ought to be enough! The hunt for web-porn usage makes it seem as if one is trying to find a fault where there already is (a much larger and more important) flaw. It's like looking for grammatical mistakes in the orders written by Hitler so that you can stitch him up!

iii. I do not condone pornography but so long as both the viewer and the person involved in the pornography are consenting adults then I do not see as it is mine or anybody else's business. If no harm is being committed in the process then the people's privacy ought to be respected.

 

The infringements on our privacy are getting quite scary. It might be worth moving East just to escape the glare. I think in the future citizens are going to have to seek alternative communications providers based in different countries and to encrypt their messages, or silence themselves, in the meantime. The state is getting heavy.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Tridimity

[John Cuthber]

It's as if the NSA have heard people saying things like "David Cameron is a wanker" and they are taking it literally.

[Moontanman]

You have to trust the NSA, they are part of our government and everyone knows the government only has our best interests at heart...

 

[Tridimity]

You have to trust the NSA, they are part of our government and everyone knows the government only has our best interests at heart...

 

 

 

LOL