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NSA To Build 20-Acre Data Center In Utah

Posted by samzenpus on from the data-on-the-horizon dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Salt Lake City Tribune reports that the National Security Agency will be building a one million square foot data center at Utah's Camp Williams. The NSA's heavily automated computerized operations have for years been based at Fort Meade, Maryland, but the agency began looking to decentralize its efforts following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and accelerated their search after the Baltimore Sun reported that the NSA — Baltimore Gas & Electric's biggest customer — had maxed out the local grid and could not bring online several supercomputers it needed to expand its operations. The agency got a taste of the potential for trouble January 24, 2000, when an information overload, rather than a power shortage, caused the NSA's first-ever network crash, taking the agency 3 1/2 days to resume operations. The new data center in Utah will require at least 65 megawatts of power — about the same amount used by every home in Salt Lake City — so a separate power substation will have to be built at Camp Williams to sustain that demand. 'They were looking at secure sites, where there could be a natural nexus between organizations and where space was available,' says Col. Scott Olson, the Utah National Guard's legislative liaison. NSA officials, who have a long-standing relationship with Utah based on the state Guard's unique linguist units, approached state officials about finding land in the state on which to build an additional data center. 'The stars just kind of came into alignment. We could provide them everything they need.'"

16 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. American Money, American Land, American Calls by freedom_india · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Knowing what NSA does, this Super Data Center would be used to spy, filter and record all the calls redirected it to by AT&T.
    So, now we have an American agency, operating within America, and recording American telephone conversations without oversight of law.
    And we have the galls to say USSR was a spy country...
    Wonders will never cease!

    --
    "Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
    1. Re:American Money, American Land, American Calls by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't need supercomputers for handling AT&T's data. You need them for decrypting foreign signals. You know, their mission and stuff.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    2. Re:American Money, American Land, American Calls by rgviza · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Of course this is assuming no one on AT&T makes international calls, or no one internationally calls US AT&T customers, like terrorists contacting a cell that is operating here.

      This is probably a small percentage of AT&T's calls... however, if they had any sense the terrorists would get those Go phones that don't require ID to purchase and activate, so yea, it's likely AT&T isn't very interesting to the NSA. But I'm also pretty sure that NSA would never underestimate the stupidity of extremists since you need to be pretty retarded to blow yourself up in the name of a religion that's been twisted to make violence OK.

      Truth be told, nobody really knows what NSA does but NSA and possibly the president so anyone here is talking out of their ass because they don't work there. If they did, they won't be much longer ;)

      --
      Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
  2. So... by captainpanic · · Score: 4, Funny

    The secret service builds a datacenter and announces that in mainstream media?

    It will be a very large data center.
    It will be important.
    It will be secret.
    And it will be located at Utah's Camp Williams.

    That's very amicable to other secret services. Saves them some searching. :D

    1. Re:So... by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Surveillance only tells us that they don't store the data on the rooftop"

      (ok, it's from a rather lame Simpsons episode, but I'm sure some will get the reference)

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:So... by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How about some stealth? Paint GOOGLE onto the sides of your cars and be very blatant about taking pics and nobody will think of anything.

      It's like breaking into a warehouse. You don't use flashlights and sneak about. You turn on the store lights and walk around like you belong there and nobody will think of anything ill.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:So... by arb+phd+slp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's kindof hard to hide the massive power transmission infrastructure, also. You don't just "hide" a facility that has that much electricity coming from civilian sources going into it.

      --
      There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
    4. Re:So... by camperdave · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, maybe the true secret datacenter is built somewhere else. The best way to prevent you from searching for it is when you believe you already know where it is.

      Well yes, obviously it's a decoy. The NSA knows that we would immediately jump to the conclusion that this is a decoy, and start looking elsewhere. In fact, they're counting on it. They want us looking elsewhere so that they can install their top secret datacentre hardware in Utah.

      Except... why make it so conspicuously obvious. They make a show about building this datacentre, so we would look elsewhere. We know that they want us to look anywhere but their decoy, so we look at the decoy. While we're busy looking at the decoy, they build elsewhere. Clever.

      However, they've got to know that there's enough people to look at both the new datacentre and all the other sites. Something else is going on. They've got scurrying around like ants, looking for this "true" datacentre. We're focused on the ground. We're focused on the NSA. This isn't about NSA datacentres. This is about CIA satellites.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  3. Hmm by moogied · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anyone else remember when the announcement of a government facility wasn't met with constant pessimism and assertions of ill-doing? Me either. I suppose thats our job as 'informed' citizens though.. to constantly second guess our government.

    --
    So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
  4. In fact, by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We should be decentralizing a number of federal operations. For example, the Smithsonian should be broken apart and distributed around the nation. It is a JEWEL that must be preserved. Having much of our gov. in one location is a disaster in the making. It is OK to put the HEADS of organizations in DC, but the works should be distributed. Basically, we should get to the point, where all major organizations have no more than 1000 ppl in DC. Some exception should be made such as pentagon, congress, etc, but things like Health, EPA, can and should be spread about.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  5. Sounds like a new movie brewing... by Enuratique · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... The Hills Have Ears

    --
    A black hole is where God divided by 0
  6. Well that should cement Utah's status... by Abroun · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...as the country's largest per-capita paid consumer of internet pr0n ( http://people.hbs.edu/bedelman/papers/redlightstates.pdf )

  7. Nominal Intel servers use about 88W by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nominal 8-core Intel servers use about 88 Watts now, not 500W. I performed a "green power review" for a customer this year. Their really old 8-core boxes used around 450W, before we replaced them for new and put 6 old physical servers onto each new physical server running VMs. We weren't even trying to push the minimal server solution and the new servers had 4GB RAM per core, so these aren't VM-specific servers, just normal current tech boxes. Also, we replaced all the internal drives beyond 2 for RAID1 boots with a redundant GigE SAN. Fairly cheap upgrades. Their old power draw was 18kVA and we dropped it to under 4kVA. Anyone want to trade out APC units? I know someone wasting power keeping their batteries charged.

    Now, these weren't the big 24-128-way servers from HP, Sun, IBM, and Fujitsu with redundant fibre SAN and fibre networking, so your estimate could be very good. Some of those Cisco optics switches and routers can really pull power, especially if you use the power over ethernet features.

  8. Re:Sixty five megawatts by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Funny

    A Catholic priest went into a barber shop for a haircut. When he was finished, the barber refused to take payment saying, "You are a man of the cloth... this is a free service that I offer to you." The Priest thanked the barber and went on his way. The next morning the barber found seven fishes and seven loaves of bread on his doorstep in gratitude from the priest.

    The next week, a Jewish Rabbi went into the same shop for a cut. Again the barber refused payment saying, "You are a man of God... this is a free service that I offer to you." The next morning the barber found a fitting gift from the Rabbi.

    The following week, two LDS Missionaries went into the shop for haircuts. Again, the barber refused payment saying, "You work in the service of God... this is a free service that I offer to you." The next morning the barber arrived to find 12 LDS Missionaries on his doorstep.

    --
    My blog
  9. Re:What does NSA do ? Why do we need CIA ? by thedonger · · Score: 4, Informative

    First of all, without a security clearance and need-to-know you will never know what the NSA does. And then forget what MSNBC has convinced you is true about the agency; there are very strict rules as to how any "signals" involving US citizens are handled. There is more foreign collection than you could possibly imagine, and that is where they expend most of their power.

    --
    Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
  10. Re:The U.S. government is corrupt. by stewbacca · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The U.S. government spends more on surveillance of its citizens than any country in the entire history of the world.

    Care to cite that?

    The U.S. government has invaded or bombed 25 countries since the end of the 2nd world war, all for profit.

    Profit eh? So how much money does the US government earn every time a B1 Bomber drops another bomb? They have to pay for those planes, pilots and bombs, and get no monetary value in return. So where's the profit?

    In Iraq, oil and weapons investors like Bush and Cheney wanted control over the oil, and didn't care how many people they killed. In Afghanistan, oil investors want to build an oil pipeline.

    Care to explain why this mythical oil pipeline STILL hasn't shown up? It has been what, 8 years now since Moore made up this talking point? Also, if we invaded Iraq for the oil, then why do we not have ANY of the oil?

    The U.S. government has a higher percentage of its people in prison than any country ever in the history of the world, over 6 times higher than in Europe, for example. Some U.S. states, such as Oregon, spend more on prisons than on education!

    Perhaps there is a higher percentage of criminals in the US than in Europe, or our law enforcement is more efficient, or, gasp, we have a bunch of dumb laws that put dumb people in jail? So what.