[ExI] The NSA's new data center

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 3:05 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 08:28:05PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>
>> However, video cameras and storage follow Moore's Law, and eventually
>> it will be so cheap that nobody can justify not doing it on a
>> financial basis.
>
> So you'll get seamless coverage of the back room deals in Washington?
> I'm sure only Moore prevents us from being there. I'm sure the board
> meetings won't mind a few perching quadcopters in there, either.
> Transparency is good, after all.

I have a kind of vision of nanobot video cameras just crawling all
over the place, self replicating (under control, of course - don't
want grey goo), and doing mesh communication to relay the images back
to a central server. Try to hide from those Bin Laden... Who owns
these? Everyone who wants to. Where will they be? Everywhere. The only
thing that could stop you would be the law, and there are enough
people willing to break the law with video cameras today that I don't
see that as an effective deterrent.

Technology like this is going to make it really difficult for multiple
governments to continue to function independently. I am guessing that
we're headed for a one world government IF the populace is going to
continue to insist on privacy... but I don't know that the populace
will insist on that. The next generation is just giving away their
secrets on Facebook as though they have no value whatsoever. And I
care a lot less about privacy than the generation before me... so
maybe the one world government can be prevented. Maybe.

>> This new data center is less than ten miles from my house. I had heard
>> only the lightest whispers of such a thing going in. There are a lot
>> of construction activities in the area right now, so it's not hard to
>> believe that it got lost in the noise.
>
> I wonder why they let Bamford get away with it year after year.
> I understand he has some fans in the agency, and since he's not
> getting any info on the really juicy stuff keeping the agency
> in the press makes sense. It's hard to justify your budget if
> you're not there.

Freedom of the press? I think it's in some barely consequential
document referred to as "The Constitution"... but we'll probably not
pay much attention to that in the future if current trends hold.

-Kelly