NSA's New Utah Data Center Suffering Meltdowns

linuxwrangler writes "NSA's new Utah data-center has been suffering numerous power-surges that have caused as much as $100,000 damage per event. The root cause is 'not yet sufficiently understood' but is suspected to relate to the site's 'inability to simultaneously run computers and keep them cool.' Frustrating the analysis and repair are 'incomplete information about the design of the electrical system' and the fact that "regular quality controls in design and construction were bypassed in an effort to fast track the Utah project."" Ars Technica has a short article, too, as does ITworld.

Comments

good?

[MickyTheIdiot]

maybe this is okay.

Re:good?

[TheGratefulNet]

in the 'new america' you can't know if this kind of article is a fishing trap to find people who vocally disagree with the NSA.

it seems like east germany from a decade or two (or 3) ago. people were always wondering who is a spy. the guy next door? your teacher? your boss? you never knew. the mistrust ran very deep.

welcome to the new USA where the same feelings are now 'imported' and we wonder who is real, who is a plant and who is a double agent. we have to worry about everything we say and if it could be taken out of context or misinterpreted.

great. just great. chilling effect on steroids.

Re:good?

[BreakBad]

The NSA started scanning itself causing infinite recursion....like looking at yourself through a mirror through a mirror, except digitally. I have infinite bank accounts and I have infinite hits on cougarfinder.com

Re:good?

[interkin3tic]

I'm conflicted about your post. I think it's good to point out why the NSA spying on everything is a good thing to people who might otherwise be apathetic, but I think you engage in hyperbole which might cause more people to ignore the situation and write it off as paranoia.

Maybe suggest that COULD happen if we don't take steps to pare down the NSA now rather than suggesting it's something you're already worried about.

Not saying you're wrong, just that the NSA is spending a lot of time and effort (and money) on PR to convince the public they have nothing to fear. We need to similarly think about PR concerns in order to have a chance of opposing it.

Re:good?

[TemperedAlchemist]

We'll just be footing the bill.

Re:good?

[Big Hairy Ian]

Wow are they hosting Apples mapping application?

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, I guess this is more time for them to clean up before having visitors over.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously doubt they're doing that as 'vocal dissenters' aren't likely to cause them any real problems. I know many people who feel as I do.. if I ever discovered the identity of an NSA employee I would gladly share that information with as many people as I could and I doubt even that bothers them much.

If I were them I'd be more worried about the next Edward Snowden. This was a guy who did the right thing for the right reasons but how many more are there in the NSA? Its true that working for them requires a lack of morals so most people wont go to the press but I bet theres dozens or hundreds who would do it for the wrong reasons. There must be a lot of large corporations and government who can offer all kinds of enticing things for access to their data and I really doubt they can stop it.. their competence isnt up to the task.

Re:good?

[gandhi_2]

Polygamy Porn. It's like drinking from a firehose.

Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.

Re:good?

[The Grim Reefer]

Who knew that The Prisoner would be a template for America less than fifty years later. I just wish my computer and phone would spray drugs at me on occasion. "Be seeing you"

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe suggest that COULD happen if we don't take steps to pare down the NSA now rather than suggesting it's something you're already worried about.
Been doing that for 10 years. Now I'm not so sure its hyperbole anymore.

Re:good?

[BreakBad]

It's rare to see the human race be proactive on issues of this scale. The NSA's "spying" is probably a baby-step towards just more of the same. With a couple changes in management, throw in a few more incidents....who knows. Cannot predict the future but you sure can hyperbole the fuck out of it.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA doesn't need you or I or our children to spy for them. Everything they want to know is willingly provided to them, by us, in real time. The Stasi had informants everywhere, which put people on their guard. Most people today don't think twice about saying things, because there are no daily reminders that somebody could be listening. That's far more frightening, in my book.

Re:good?

[ElectricTurtle]

Maybe you missed the article a few days ago about how the US is barring critics/dissidents from entering the country? Not criminals, not "terrorists", simply people who disagree cannot travel freely. This really is a police state now, and it's only a matter of time before the 1st Amendment becomes about as well honored as the 2nd, which is to say wholly selectively suiting the needs of the state based on arbitrary standards the founders were explicitly against in their writings.

Re:good?

[Thavilden]

If only they could harness that chilling effect to cool their data centers, then the NSA would be good to go.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be a recruitment article, also. They clearly need help and pay well.

Re:good?

[msauve]

" it's only a matter of time before the 1st Amendment becomes about as well honored as the 2nd"

It's about time we had reasonable, common sense restrictions on the press. Scented inserts and metallic type should be illegal in magazines. No one needs high speed printing presses which can automatically feed reams of paper - they should be restricted for government and military use. Private citizens will still be able to use hand fed mimeograph machines, so their rights won't be violated. Anyone publishing news should have to be licensed, with a journalism degree from an accredited university.

Re:good?

[jeffmflanagan]

I think it's more that many people now want to be constantly monitored. They wouldn't announce their every move on Facebook and Twitter if they were interested in privacy.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you missed the article a few days ago about how the US is barring critics/dissidents from entering the country?

Odd, I check /. every day, and I do not recall such an article. But I have noticed on occasion that "new" articles will show up in between two articles that I already checked, so I guess I may have missed it.

Care to link it? My google-fu is rather weak.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the surges are coming from the earth and the fact the center is built on major intersecting ley lines. The story isn't the NSA data center. The real story is what lies underneath...

I hope they don't come and get me for saying that...

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you see something, say something.

Re:good?

[laie_techie]

Maybe you missed the article a few days ago about how the US is barring critics/dissidents from entering the country?

Odd, I check /. every day, and I do not recall such an article. But I have noticed on occasion that "new" articles will show up in between two articles that I already checked, so I guess I may have missed it. Care to link it? My google-fu is rather weak.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/10/02/1339247/german-nsa-critic-denied-entry-to-the-us

HOWEVER,

... the story only shows that German media outlets are not familiar with US entry regulations. He says that he was denied a visa last year, which automatically disqualifies him from the visa waiver program. This is just a garden-variety ESTA issue, and most likely has nothing to do with his stance of the NSA surveillance.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with writing something such as the above is that many people lack sarcasm detectors, and will take it seriously.

Such comments ought to be banned.

Re:good?

[NatasRevol]

I'm pretty sure my cell phone travels are not willingly provided by me to them.

Or the calls & metadata about calls.

Or my emails.

Or my https communications.

Or about 500 other ways that are supposed to be private & privileged.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are differences. In East Germany, being critical of the government meant they actually came for you. You might get some prison time - you might get beaten up by some STASI thugs. You might just get a warning. Either way, your career was over. No more promotions - ever!

But you can say "Fuck the NSA" all you want'. They might record the fact, but they won't come and get you. And there are very few job opportunities that will be lost to you.

Re:good?

[sjames]

Remember when the claim that the NSA knew everyone you talked to on the phone was tinfoil hat crazy (because the NSA NEVER spies on citizens)? Seems it was right on the mark.

Re:good?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

you know what's different between the NSA 2013 and the Stasi? Immidiate consequences. If someone informed on you doing something the government didn't like, they'd be dealt with immediatly. This helped connect the idea in people's minds that constant government survaleance = bad thing. Right now, that's not happening. NSA has all this data, but they haven't done anything with it that people can see. That doesn't mean its harmless, it just means that people can't see the harm yet.

Re:good?

[VortexCortex]

Not saying you're wrong, just that the NSA is spending a lot of time and effort (and money) on PR to convince the public they have nothing to fear. We need to similarly think about PR concerns in order to have a chance of opposing it.

Riker, his face palmed. Shaka when the walls fell.

Dathon and Picard, the beast of El-Adrel!

Snowden, his files open.

Darmok and Jilad at Tenagra...

Head shaking Nixon at Watergate!

Feynman at NASA, The frozen ring:

"Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

Re:good?

[interkin3tic]

Very poetic, but I was saying lets fight fire with fire, not "lets ignore reality."

Re:good?

[fast turtle]

what do you mean it's only a matter of time. The god damn constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on since 9/11 and the patriot act was signed into law originally. At that time, the constitution and all the admendments "We The People" passed were thrown out the damn door at 30,000 feet to splatter all over the floors of the United States Congress and Senate

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

So NSA is tinfoil hat crazy about terrorists.

Re:good?

[headphones54321]

Maybe this kind of rhetoric could help. It seems to have been a while since there were really motivated activists trying to get more books into schools.

If we could get those that are trying to force more guns into schools on the book train, perhaps we could make some progress!

Re:good?

[Applekid]

in the 'new america' you can't know if this kind of article is a fishing trap to find people who vocally disagree with the NSA.

Um, ok, then this is bad! Bad bad bad! I hope the NSA fixes their problems soon.
Love,
-A loyal civilian

Re:good?

[turgid]

Very perceptive.

Re:good?

[sjames]

Yes, it is.

Re:good?

[anagama]

There are millions who never even use Facebook or Twitter. Millions more who use it for news and commentary. Just because a subset of the population publishes every meal they eat, doesn't mean that all people wish to be monitored.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are differences. In East Germany, being critical of the government meant they actually came for you. You might get some prison time - you might get beaten up by some STASI thugs. You might just get a warning. Either way, your career was over. No more promotions - ever!

But you can say "Fuck the NSA" all you want'. They might record the fact, but they won't come and get you. And there are very few job opportunities that will be lost to you.

Yet.

Re:good?

[HiThere]

I was right behing him through "scented inserts". Those *should* be banned, or tightly regulated. I started to waver at "metallic type". Eventually it was clear that he was being sarcastic.

So what I want to know is why he thinks scented inserts should be allowed.

Re:good?

[HiThere]

He was later granted a visa, however. So your point fails.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

We do not even know what reality is but we can know what we agree with and what we do not, even if it is but a superficial shadow of a shadow on an unknown wall.

The NSA wouldn't know either which is why their explanations and defences are so shallow and puerile. FFS it's an agency run by glorified smurfs, they probably couldn't run a shopping trolley without failing some way or the other.

Who would want anyone like that to wield such a staggeringly enormous amount of power without any real oversight? No one would, thus the only conclusion is that they (the smurfs) do not actually wield that power but only function as figureheads and fall guys.

So who runs the "NSA" then? Which decisions are being made by those with real control and which uses serve only as misdirection?

Re:good?

[icebike]

I think it's good to point out why the NSA spying on everything is a good thing to people who might otherwise be apathetic,

Reading your post makes it hard to discern whether you are delusional, typing too fast, or just trolling.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironic if it's malware.

Re:good?

[orgelspieler]

While I get your sideways point about gun control laws, I would like to point out that there are already common sense restrictions on the press. The same company can't own all the newspapers, TVs, and radio stations in the same market area. Unfortunately scented insert bans didn't make the cut. Or a ban on time cube...

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

The founding fathers were people living in a different time in a different situation, and the 2nd Amendment made perfect sense when you looked at the weapons of that time. What the Founders couldn't have known is that modern weaponry would enable mass murder thanks to holding a high capacity of ammo, discharging and reloading rapidly, and carrying bullets designed to penetrate body armor and literally tear people apart. Gun nuts think every citizen needs to be armed to the teeth and that stockpiling thousands of rounds of ammo and tens of weapons is somehow "normal", and that's why their support of the 2nd Amendment always falls apart.

If we want to support the Constitution in a rational, sane manner, then leaving out the concerns of gun nuts is critical. Otherwise we're stuck entertaining fantasy situations that gun nuts have, where they need to wage war against the entirety of civilization once society and they are thrust into some kind of end-times scenario. If that sounds insane, it is, because gun nuts are insane. All they understand is fear and murder, two things the Founders had no interest in.

Re:good?

[lister king of smeg]

The founding fathers were people living in a different time in a different situation, and the 2nd Amendment made perfect sense when you looked at the weapons of that time. What the Founders couldn't have known is that modern weaponry would enable mass murder thanks to holding a high capacity of ammo, discharging and reloading rapidly, and carrying bullets designed to penetrate body armor and literally tear people apart.

You mean when both the British military and the American rebels had the same level of infantry weapons? Oh and it was legal for civilians to have cannons (many merchant vessels had cannons for defense) as for armor piercing rounds no one had body armor. Also the American long rifle had higher accuracy then the British so I am fairly certain the founding fathers were quite aware of the principle if not the specifics.

Do I think you need a hundred guns no. Whats the point you won't be able to use/carry them anyway. Owning several sure why not.

Re:good?

[AHuxley]

Re worried about the next Edward Snowden... if you read http://cryptome.org/2013/10/questioning-snowden-truth.htm the US gov seems to be doing a great job with the press.
This was a good read too http://cryptome.org/2013/10/gchq-mullenize.pdf so expect http://cryptome.org/2013/10/packet-stain/packet-staining.htm for the domestic US networks. Thats a lot of power and cooling for just a human life of 'data' storage.

Re:good?

[AHuxley]

Re They might record the fact for now. The domestic locked box and domestic interests would point to a change to 'all you wanted' soon.
You have a generation now that knows nothing but war and they are slowly moving out into the workplace.
No longer just looking out over the EU or into Asia.
For some the word domestic is like a term from the Cold War. Good for staff to reflect on but the mission and new hardware is very local now.

Re:good?

[Midnight_Falcon]

someone please mod this up for extreme cleverness

no moderator points. Shaka. When the walls fell.

Kind moderator mod up. Temba, his arms open.

Re: good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever talk to a person with a security clearance. They know what is going on and they are spooked. It is not in what they say, it is in what they don't say and do.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

NSA has all this data, but they haven't done anything with it.

FTFY

Stasi had power. NSA is nothing like Stasi. NSA won't even share information with CIA or FBI, much less DHA, ATF, or any other three letter agency or law enforcement agency. NSA stands for Never Say Anything. If anything, they're more like a time machine for revealing evidence against international criminals that are already known to be guilty.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the US rules are anything like those I'm familiar with then being denied a visa for any reason, even if the denial is later retracted is sufficient. Sanity is not to be found inside visa and customs regulations and the arbitrary application thereof.

Re:good?

[laie_techie]

He was later granted a visa, however. So your point fails.

Actually, if you followed the link, you would see that it wasn't originally my point - I just pointed to a comment in the original story showing why his denial into the US wasn't based on his political views. Also note that the comment I cite says that because of his previously denied visa, he was no longer qualified for the visa waiver program. That just means it wasn't an automatic approval.

Re:good?

[Anonymous Coward]

no, but you willingly provide all of this information to your cell phone provider and ISP, who then willingly provide this information to the NSA

Re:good?

[slavdude]

Maybe you missed the article a few days ago about how the US is barring critics/dissidents from entering the country?

We've been doing that for years, unfortunately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farley_Mowat comes to mind, as does Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The actor Michael Moriarty, who like Mowat is Canadian, I think was not allowed to return to the U.S. after leaving it when his visa expired (IIUIC) because of his criticisms of U.S. policies. Not trolling, just adding to what you said above.

Good!

[tomkost]

I hope the whole place melts down or any type of natural disaster. These tools will be used against the evil and the good alike.

Re:Good!

[intermodal]

I'm less convinced that it will actually be used against the evil. Especially in the resulting balance of use.

Re:Good!

[tomkost]

I agree wholeheartedly, unfortunately...

Re:Good!

[disposable60]

Doesn't it depend on your definition of evil? To a dedicated Statist, the Bill of Rights is "just a damned piece of paper" in which the rights of the Polity are fully enumerated - until exigencies make them inconvenient. The danger is that only dedicated Statists make it to the highest positions of Authority.

Re:Good!

[intermodal]

No, evil is pretty objective. It's "good" where it gets subjective.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

The danger is that only dedicated Statists make it to the highest positions of Authority.

This. Unfortunately.

Re:Good!

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

So , that's why there isn't a vicious debate over things like abortion, the death penalty, or harry potter books. I was curious why we didn't debate those vigerously in politics. Now I know, we all have the same defintion of Evil. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Re:Good!

[intermodal]

Wow. You're super good at broad generalizations unrelated to the topic at hand. I'm glad you're here to take this conversation off-topic and make broad generalizations to counter a remark that was clearly referring to the topic at hand, which is to say, the uses of a broad intelligence-gathering system.

You must practice law.

Re:Good!

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Just here to shoot the Bull. Don't float it, and I won't shoot it.

Re:Good!

[intermodal]

You need an optometrist.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the word "statist" non-ironically immediately flags you as an intellectual pygmy.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here.

Re:Good!

[intermodal]

Oh, good. Ad-hominem attacks based on terminological grounds. I was afraid we were going to see intelligent discussion. Thanks for helping avert such a terrible outcome.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the rich, all poor are evil. According to the poor, all rich are evil. Guess it depends on which side you are on. Ah, but I forget the middle class, which does not care either way.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay let's call statism what it is then: fascism.

Did you like that better fascist?

Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm...so your equipment is randomly failing...you don't say?

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[cold fjord]

Iranian Stuxnet? No, just government contractors on a rush job that badly documented and cut corners on a sensitive aspect of the design that controls massive resources (power (65 megawatts - enough to power a small city), cooling, etc.) critical to the function of the datacenter. This is generally referred to as, “your tax dollars at work.”

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[IamTheRealMike]

Given they apparently haven't even switched on any computers there yet, presumably the cyberattack fun still hasn't begun.

This raises the question of where they're processing all their existing data. Fort Meade ran out of electricity some time ago, from what I understand, so presumably they have some other big datacenters in other places.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[erikkemperman]

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

All right, let's explain it that way. Let's also make sure that incompetence is punished, while we're at it.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[dgatwood]

Actually, I think this is just Skynet fighting back. It doesn't like the competition.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[afidel]

65MW is a hell of a lot more than a small city, it's enough for ~65,000 average homes which is ~180k residents which would put it just outside the top 100 in the US.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[VortexCortex]

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Try not to use absolutes like "Never" in general statements, you will most likely be wrong, and also a fool.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also they fired 90% of their IT staff.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cities are a lot more than homes. Residential usage is typically rather lower than commercial usage, too.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

65MW is a hell of a lot more than a small city, it's enough for ~65,000 average homes which is ~180k residents which would put it just outside the top 100 in the US.

If three people in a room have $1, $10, $1,000,000, the guy with $10 is the second richest person in the room. It's still a small amount of money, especially compared with the actual biggest one. I'm from NYC. I went to a "city" with almost 200k people. It felt like a hick town of 500 more than a city of 8 million.

You know what he meant. Don't nit pick on pedantry unless your OK with other's dueing it two ewe to.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[ColdWetDog]

I thought it was Facebook that was upset.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[RabidReindeer]

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Try not to use absolutes like "Never" in general statements, you will most likely be wrong, and also a fool.

Or at least a Sith.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[HiThere]

Sometimes you get both.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, in government work, incompetence is punishiable only by a heafty promotion.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Set it free!

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

contractors on a rush job that badly documented and cut corners on a sensitive aspect of the design that controls massive resources

Here we call that a private party. Usually the customer detects the faults after any complaint periods and warranties are over.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never attribute to incompetence what can be adequately explained by redacting a few digits from your power requirements in order to convince everyone that the Utah facility really cannot store everything on the internet and then discovering that you forgot to put them back before ordering the power drops.

Seriously, they trotted out all these "experts" to tell everyone how large the data center is and how much capacity it could possibly have, and all I can think of is "who gave these guys a security clearance high enough to see the NSA's building's real blueprints, and were they really cleared to talk about it?"

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[AHuxley]

The US generally liked to work on data under the sats/from links in a local safe country - UK, Australia.
This helped in 3 ways:
No need to have expensive encryption 'everywhere' moving a constant stream of useless bulk data around.
Better to put that hardware to collection rather than layers of encryption.
By sharing with the locals it kept then addicted to the data stream for generations.
Unique encryption was only need for the end product - Russia and China, France and Brazil knew the US got everything - in space or telco loops.
So where you see huge US hardware - thats where the US is getting interested. Welcome to the home front.
As for these issues, its just a huge amount of coding, hardware links, power and cooling - not many have the trust anymore and some skill sets are fly in fly out.
A lot of small groups will fix the issues fast and the US will be back on track for years of domestic missions very soon.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[lifeisshort]

Average home at 1000W? 2013? Doubt it

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that a "city" usually consists of more than just homes -- once you consider industrial consumption, it's probably not unreasonable to describe it as a "small city", though of course someone from NYC and someone from Hicksburg, IA will differ on what size city is "small".

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[afidel]

Looks like it is a bit closer to 1300 (1kw would be around 8,800 kwhr per year, average in 2011 was 11,280), it's gone up a bit since I last did calculations.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot more in a 'small city' than just residential homes. Namely large admin buildings with aircon, as well as industrial areas running 3-phase welding gear all week, and a thousand other high-voltage things...

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Never attribute to incompetence what can adequately be explained by profit motive.

Re:Iranian Stuxnet?

[nilbog]

Definitely nothing much going on over there.

Can't analyse all their 'adversaries'

[stewsters]

Save yourself some trouble and stop spying on your own people then.

Re:Can't analyse all their 'adversaries'

[Brucelet]

They long ago forgot how to tell the difference.

Re:Can't analyse all their 'adversaries'

[AHuxley]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/09/06/nsa_bullrun_manassas_why_is_the_nsa_naming_its_covert_programs_after_civil.html
They are way ahead of the "'own people" aspect.
The fun question is who is going to play the North, South, the role of the UK, France and will the Russians send ships again? http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Modern_History/American_Civil_War/Wartime_Diplomacy/US-Russian_Relations

Nelson

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha Ha

Good

[rcb1974]

Respect our right to privacy. Stop the snooping. I am upset and ashamed that the people of Utah have allowed this spy center to be built in their state. I had higher expectations of them. They should have cherished our individual liberties, upheld the Constitution, and told the Federal government take their spy center elsewhere.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering what the US did to the Mormons you think they would have a little bit of distrust. But the government knows that good church drones make good government drones.

Re:Good

[sls1j]

Trust me as a Mormon and at Utahn I very must distrust the government, and have been dismayed and angered that this monster has found a home in my state.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Then actually do something about it.

Re:Good

[Ultracrepidarian]

Had we elected Romney, you know it would have been shut down. Oh, wait.

Ah well,

[syntheticmemory]

It probably lacks certification from the Department of Redundancy Department anyway...

Re:Ah well,

[bobbied]

Just wondering... Does that come in triplicate carbon copies?

A case of Poetic Justice?

[dryriver]

You set out to snoop on the minutiae of the lives of tens of millions of innocent people. Then your data center melts down... Perhaps God/Angels had something to do with this? =)

Your tax dollars at work.

[generic_screenname]

The only thing that will save us from the massive dragnet of the NSA is apparently the incompetence of the NSA.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[Professr3]

Bureaucratic incompetence has been the strongest protector of civil liberties to date :\

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Bureaucratic incompetence has been the strongest protector of civil liberties to date

Wait until one of the aggrieved nations decides to do a 'limited kinetic action' on this facility - only to cripple the capabilities of a program that's being run in violation of international law.

I'm sure DC will simply view it as judicious global policing against a rogue power.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[atgaaa]

We will be told more money will solve the problem. Closing it down will solve the problem also.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that will save us from the massive dragnet of the NSA is apparently the incompetence of the NSA.

Because God knows that the American people themselves surely won't. Ya, they will bitch and whinge about it but then American Idol comes on TV and they go back to eating junk food.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[girlintraining]

Wait until one of the aggrieved nations decides to do a 'limited kinetic action' on this facility - only to cripple the capabilities of a program that's being run in violation of international law.

You'll be waiting a very long time. The last time we were bombed was during WWII, by Japan. It was called Pearl Harbor. The only military attacks on the mainland were also during the same timeframe by what could lovingly be called "fail balloons" launched by Japan with incendiary devices and carried over the mainland, where they would land and cause fires. Only about a half-dozen of these were reported or suspected to have actually landed, and none of them landed on anything of any value... A tree here. A cow there.

You may well recall what happened to Japan after they creamed the pacific fleet: We built, tested, and then detonated a nuclear weapon their head. Nobody has tried since. And that was just a firecracker compared to what we have today sitting on launchpads all over the country.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[pellik]

This is the NSA. We won't be told anything about it we will just pay.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[pellik]

Do you think American's stop eating junk food while they bitch and whinge?

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[sjames]

As long as they avoid collateral damage, I would fully support such an operation.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[ColdWetDog]

It's in Utah.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

And simultaneously the biggest threat to positive civil rights and indirectly to the negative ones.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[Em Adespoton]

The only thing that will save us from the massive dragnet of the NSA is apparently the incompetence of the NSA.

s/the NSA/Government Contractors/ -- it's the same thing that gave us Ed Snowden.

I honestly don't understand.

[TubeSteak]

The submission had one article, the editors linked to two more.
ALL THREE ARTICLES REFERENCE & LINK TO THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Is it so hard to include a link to the source of this story?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304441404579119490744478398.html
(Google Cache just in case /. does this far too often and I hope to see better in the future

Re:I honestly don't understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point. /. editors attempted to improve the submission!

Re:I honestly don't understand.

[sootman]

> /. does this far too often and I hope to see better in the future

Don't hold your breath. :-)

Re:I honestly don't understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

We're nerds, not MBAs. We don't give a rat's ass about the WSJ.

Re:I honestly don't understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

While I hate some of the links that are posted here which seem to be all about click baiting for ad revenue. why would anyone want to link to WSJ, if I try your link all I get is the option to subscribe or login, neither of which I have any desire to do which makes the link even worse than the ones provided.

Power management

[Antony T Curtis]

They probably used a power budget similar to the public Facebook datacenter data but then decided to run their machines on Windows Azure.
I have noticed that power consumption of my computers is significantly higher when running Windows - and the laptops have seriously reduced battery life, even while doing nothing.

Re:Power management

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting since I get the opposite result with Windows 8 compared to daily Ubuntu on my Surface Pro.

Re:Power management

[Spad]

Interesting, because I also have a contextless anecdote in which I've noticed that power consumption of my computers is significantly higher when running Linux - and the laptops have seriously reduced battery life, even while doing nothing.

Re:Power management

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows is far superior to linux (on PCs) as far as power consumption is concerned, especially on laptops. And I suppose you don't know what Windows Azure is, do you?

Re:Power management

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

Maybe download and run 'powertop'? This is a pretty nifty application that tells you were you are spending your power on Linux.

Porn the more likely cause

[Anonymous Coward]

The more likely cause is too much porn overheating the CPUs.

"HA-hah!" - Nelson

[pla]

Someone explain to me why the holy bloody fuck these enemies of the American people haven't taken an involuntary 8-day vacation along with the rest of the noncritical federal government?

Re:"HA-hah!" - Nelson

[h4nk]

I actually in my head said "HA-hah!"

Re:"HA-hah!" - Nelson

[pellik]

What enemies of the American people? You mean the poor backwords farmers on the other side of the world? What are they gonna do, grow drugs?

Re:"HA-hah!" - Nelson

[Anonymous Coward]

75% of them have.

Surprised they didn't take from google's play book

[segmond]

afterall google revealed a good amount on how they go about building their data centers and keeping it cool. But then again, contractors...

Graft.

[Anonymous Coward]

Secret budgets. No bid contracts. Endless graft. Pork.

The NSA is a money pit. Welfare for private business who perpetuate endless war for a buck.

You get

[Anonymous Coward]

You get what you give, you give the world shit, you get shit...
payback is a bitch...

Probably just electrical under-design

[Anonymous Coward]

If they fast-tracked the project, they probably didn't have an electrical engineer do a load analysis. I wouldn't be surprised they are tripping panel main breakers, but not individual load breakers. This tends to give a nice inductive kickback to the system, which can cascade into tripping superficially unrelated circuits.

Re:Probably just electrical under-design

[bobbied]

If they fast-tracked the project, they probably didn't have an electrical engineer do a load analysis.

In my experience, some engineer probably DID the analysis, but they ignored him/her because it would take too long to do it right. The revision 1 Blue prints where already under contract and it would take too long to process a change order. Of course, everybody KNEW that the design had a fatal flaw, at least until the program management started leaving like rats from a sinking ship and their replacements where not aware (or told) of the problems.

The original engineer is then tasked with fixing the problem with about 1/4 the resources necessary and no authority to actually make any changes to the project. Every time there is a power failure and equipment gets smoked, the engineer is blamed for not having the "problem" fixed. His performance rating takes a dive at the next performance review and he either quits in frustration or gets fired.

That's what happens in large government projects... At least in my experience...

Re:Probably just electrical under-design

[Anonymous Coward]

They may well have also decided to add much more computing/storage capacity than they were willing to admit to the guys designing the electrical system. A bit of a mix-up over "need to know", and all that.

After all, if you know the actual electrical and/or cooling needs, you can make a pretty good guess at the actual capacity of the systems they've installed (given some assumptions about the specific technology).

Re:Probably just electrical under-design

[aaarrrgggh]

I'm pretty sure it was EYP/HP doing the design of the data center; I know Skanska was part of the GC JV. They knew what they needed to do for capacity.

What likely happened is they assumed a high-performance PUE, but installed equipment in more of a low-performance PUE mindset (no cold aisle containment, insufficient hot air stratification for return, tighter humidity control requirements, etc. It is easy to think you will have a 1.3PUE looking at the system, but a few small changes can bump that up to 1.6 quickly. If you size your generators and transformers for the 1.3PUE then you are 25% overloaded. But, by the rate they are apparently adding generators at the site I imagine things will be resolved pretty soon.

Re:Probably just electrical under-design

[Anonymous Coward]

His performance rating takes a dive at the next performance review and he either quits in frustration or gets fired.

I hope he suffers. The Nazis building this data centre should face a Nuremberg trial if this country ever comes to its senses. "But I was only doing my job" is not a defence.

How about "I'm just trying to feed my family without taking a welfare handout" ?? Does that work for you? Never mind that there are some folks in this world who recognize that not everything the NSA does is necessarily bad. They serve a purpose, even if they overstep their bounds from time to time. But the boundaries are set by the politicians you voted for (you did vote, right?). Oh, judging by your spelling choices, you are not from around here, so bugger off.

Seriously, how do you live with yourself?

Re:Probably just electrical under-design

[n7ytd]

If they fast-tracked the project, they probably didn't have an electrical engineer do a load analysis.

In my experience, some engineer probably DID the analysis, but they ignored him/her because it would take too long to do it right. The revision 1 Blue prints where already under contract and it would take too long to process a change order. Of course, everybody KNEW that the design had a fatal flaw, at least until the program management started leaving like rats from a sinking ship and their replacements where not aware (or told) of the problems.

The original engineer is then tasked with fixing the problem with about 1/4 the resources necessary and no authority to actually make any changes to the project. Every time there is a power failure and equipment gets smoked, the engineer is blamed for not having the "problem" fixed. His performance rating takes a dive at the next performance review and he either quits in frustration or gets fired.

That's what happens in large government projects... At least in my experience...

Reading between the lines, I'd bet dollars-to-donuts that the design of this datacenter was compartmentalized to the point that no contractor pulling wires or doing power analysis was allowed to know the whole scope of the facility. The power draw would be a very good indicator of how much computing power is inside, and that's a detail that I'm sure is classified.

Re:Probably just electrical under-design

[n7ytd]

Fuck him. I hope he suffers. The Nazis building this data centre should face a Nuremberg trial if this country ever comes to its senses. "But I was only doing my job" is not a defence.

Installing drywall on a government contract is equal to running a prison camp and genocide operation in your mind, huh?

buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!

[Thud457]

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

-- some godless pinko and human trafficer


give me apathy or give me cheetos

Re: buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or give me both? Both is better

Let's see. . . Data Center in Dry Climate. ..

[Salgak1]

. . .eats huge amounts of power, not large amounts of water for cooling.

And thus, power requirements go up, pushing the limits of your provisioned electrical infrastructure.

And extremely-high-capacity circuit breakers tend to be explody when they fail. My guess: someone used some REALLY bad assumptions for electrical infrastructure planning. . .

Well, well.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I, for one, definitely trust an outfit that can't size a bloody datacenter power distribution system to build those magic technical safeguards that are allegedly allowing a spying operation of unprecedented size to occur with no abuses (And that's no bullshit!)

I wonder if we could convince them to switch to a utility that conducts background checks on electrons before sending them to the customer? That would clearly help...

'incomplete information . . .'

[hduff]

'incomplete information about the design of the electrical system'

Well, duh, it's secret.

Really? They're missing some information?

[Jean Taureau]

> Frustrating the analysis and repair are 'incomplete information about the design of the electrical system'
Why don't they just snoop the needed information off the contractor's network?

Uh oh, how did Stuxnet get here? (SSIA)

[Anonymous Coward]

SSIA but form wouldn't accept a subject-only comment

That's a shame.

[interval1066]

Cry me a river, and all that.

Re:Surprised they didn't take from google's play b

[Voyager529]

afterall google revealed a good amount on how they go about building their data centers and keeping it cool. But then again, contractors...

Rule #1 of government spending: why by one, when you can have two at twice the price?
Rule #2 of government spending: a penny saved is a spending oversight.

Such is the life of a government project....

[Anonymous Coward]

Just theorizing, but I'd venture to say:

1) Army Corp project and design
2) Lowest Bidders (if not for the prime, at least for the sub contractors)
3) Multiple Change Orders
4) Multiple on the Fly revisions
5) GOTO 1 Repeat till deadline.

Re:Such is the life of a government project....

[Salgak1]

Multiple on the fly changes are, alas, typical in Federal projects.

The Classic case of project fail due to this:

Who Killed the Virtual Case File ??

Re:Such is the life of a government project....

[Anonymous Coward]

As is the case with any gov project I've done that had more than a $10k cost.

$10k, there's only so much they can attempt to change before the job is complete. $6k, you're pretty much in the clear.

$100k+ all hell will start to break loose.

$1mil+ and smaller companies go under because they can't keep up with all the changes.

good i hope the whole motherfucker burns down

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck off and die, and btw, god hates you, study the equations of electromagnetism (the Dirac equation among others) and you'l see for yourself if your brain is any larger than an ant

Nelson

[Anonymous Coward]

HA HA

STUXNET II

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The Blowback!

Those darn Gremlins....

[Anonymous Coward]

No the movie, but the folk legend kind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlin.
Or could it be a computer bug? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H96566k.jpg

Wile E. Coyote, running on air to get to safety

[Catbeller]

This isn't the result of incompetence - rather the result of trying to racing to finish the thing before any more opposition builds up that may stop the project. Wile E. Coyote trying to run on air, knowing it's impossible, but trying to get to the cliff before gravity notices the flagrant violation.

When that monster is done - and it seems that they are turning it on *right now*, this week - human history is done as we understand it. We will all behave as though someone is watching and recording us, because they will be.

Scientology is going to *love* this - one stop shopping for all its spying needs. The NSA just last week asked permission for private corporations to access their new trove of data, Because Terrorism. The Unification Church and Scientology will be first in line with front corporations to drink deep of this wonderful new integrated terrorism enabling center - terrorism because bad guys like Scientology will be able to terrorize people with fresh, holistic super-knowledge not only of who they are, what they say, what they read and where they've been, but also of everyone their enemies ever talk to, email, walk next to, text or write to. That center isn't about just metadata, it's the *actual phone conversations* that will be recorded. Don't ever piss off the powerful, 'cause they can nail you and anyone who ever contacts you until you give up. Blackmail, extortion, we-know-where-you-kids-are... anything. And the coolest part is that it will all be secret! Persecutors with behind stage access to the NSA superboxes and analytic tools won't even be logged in any real sense. Political opposition, nullified, instantly. The possibilities for our brave new world owners are limitless.

Re:Wile E. Coyote, running on air to get to safety

[Anonymous Coward]

You had me up until "Scientology".

Not that they aren't nutjobs, but they aren't the nutjobs you're looking for.

Re:Wile E. Coyote, running on air to get to safety

[HiThere]

Actually they probably just aren't among the most important nutjobs he's looking for. Commercial entities are commerecial entities. This could make the NSA a profit center, like the CIA. Which means that they CAN'T be controlled by congress. Currently they could be, it's just that it would be political suicide. Once the NSA has a marketable product, though... and allowing them to sell it to commercial interests gives them that marketable product.

Re:Wile E. Coyote, running on air to get to safety

[Anonymous Coward]

When that monster is done - and it seems that they are turning it on *right now*, this week - human history is done as we understand it. We will all behave as though someone is watching and recording us, because they will be.

I, for one, won't be behaving that way. People adapt...

Re:Wile E. Coyote, running on air to get to safety

[Catbeller]

They are a representative nutjob set. They will, if this thing flies, make it job one for their organization to get access to that data. I know those suckers from way back. It's their dream, the ability to run a timeline on their enemies.

They'll beg, bribe, steal, get people on the inside, buy a company that *does* have access to the thing. They won't stop until they get it, and then game over for any schmuck who screws with them. You think they were bad when they just had PIs, loony members and lawyers? Wait for when they get total power over personal information. That little rebellion we had against them in the 90s - that ended with South Park and Seth McFarlane getting info they then made accessible to all in a way people would remember - that sort of thing would not have happened had the CoS had the NSA dbases to find out dirt on people who faced them down. Hell, they broke Minton and put another poor bastard into prison for making a Tom Cruise missile joke, without total surveillance. It'll be like what happened to Occupy - they'll nail you as soon as you speak up.

And they are just the fringe of would-be spies. This is god-like power, the ability to timeline any human. There are far more serious bastards in the world.

Re:Wile E. Coyote, running on air to get to safety

[Catbeller]

A story came out last week that made it clear the NSA was looking for private commercial partners to help analyze all that shiny data they will be collecting - Because Terrorism, and because they can't do it themselves. Hence my "they will use companies" screed about third parties.

When this thing becomes real, nothing will stop people from getting access to that giant black box. It's worth a fortune, commercially, politically. It's Power with a giant gothic capital P.

Even if it doesn't happen immediately - how will we ever know when future administrations won't quietly change the rules regarding access? Or the spooks that really run the show decide it themselves, as they always have done. They're f-ing secret - Congress doesn't know what they really do, and neither does the President.

Re:Wile E. Coyote, running on air to get to safety

[Catbeller]

Those that do adapt, by say ignoring it, will mostly do fine. A small minority will find that they can't be troublemakers anymore when the hammer falls - the Occupy protesters a couple years back in Chicago who were disappeared for three days by Chicago cops are a good example. They were disappeared - not arrested - in the middle of the night from an apartment even before they got to a protest. The FBI/NSA/cops/whatever were cooperating in unprecedented fashion to track protesters. Remember that protest isn't illegal - and remember that no one cared that it happened when they went poof. Privacy is necessary if you ever want to challenge power. Without it, you're helpless.

Think of the personal profile tracking they could do from birth, esp if students are made to use ebooks instead of paper. In time, every ebook that passes a person's eyes since birth could be tracked, every page turn, hell, every eye movement, probably, if they wanted. Every email, every convo, every web page view, every association. They could know who you are better than you do. And it could be done without human oversight - automated analyses. I thought this nonsense for the time being, until last week it turned up that the NSA does indeed run automated analyses on people, with purdy graphs. How the hell do you rebel or even plan opposition when total life surveillance is a reality?

damn horny Mormons

[Thud457]

Maybe they shouldn't have built it in Utah?


More likely they didn't account in the power budget for the seven secret sub-basements and the underground vacutrain for the reptoids to commute from the Denver International Airport.
honestly, it's like the right hand doesn't know what the left talon is doing these days.

Re:Let's see. . . Data Center in Dry Climate. ..

[bill_mcgonigle]

My guess: someone used some REALLY bad assumptions for electrical infrastructure planning. . .

Hey, don't be too hard on the electrical engineers - James Clapper told them that the power requirements would be really low.

WSV

[CanHasDIY]

Enjoy the serenade, NSA

Build your data centre in the desert

[Anonymous Coward]

People with even one brain cell functioning know the biggest problem in the USA is how government projects have to be spread across EVERY State, no matter how inefficient of inappropriate this is. So, in a nation that spreads from some of the hottest to some of the coldest places in that part of the world, you build your data centres in the hottest place, and then complain when cooling them is an issue. Well let me tell you straight- the rest of the world applauds such American stupidity.

As the USA becomes a vile, evil, genocidal cancer spreading across my planet, the ONLY thing us decent Humans assume can give Humanity any hope for the future is the notorious inherent corruption present in the 'UNITED' STATES. The full surveillance programs of NSA are simply another means to growing the US war-machine unchecked, until the time that war machine is fully unleashed across the globe. The real rulers of the USA do NOT know exactly how they will start their World War, but they do know that so long as the US war machine grows massively every year, and the US sheeple are are converted into worshippers of this war-machine, and aggressive war itself, at some point they WILL find the straw that breaks the camel's back.

So we decent people take small comfort at the missteps like this Utah story, or the revelations of Bill Gates' work with the NSA found in the Xbox One, or the failure of Obama to holocaust hundreds of thousands of Humans in Syria, but we do no doubt that one day the monsters will have their last straw.

Re:Build your data centre in the desert

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>People with even one brain cell functioning know the biggest problem in the USA is how government projects have to be spread across EVERY State, no matter how inefficient of inappropriate this is.

If only that was our "biggest" problem like you claim.

Re:Build your data centre in the desert

[Lumpy]

Dont make us come there and look for WMD's in your back yard.

Well.....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you go with the lowest bidder.

That's what happens when...

[mrflash818]

...the NSA tries to tail -f the [censored] planet!

; )

Shot self in foot?

[gstoddart]

Frustrating the analysis and repair are 'incomplete information about the design of the electrical system' and the fact that "regular quality controls in design and construction were bypassed in an effort to fast track the Utah project."

This sounds like someone was in such a great hurry to get their shiny new toy that they bypassed a lot of the steps they should have followed.

And, somehow I doubt there's a lot of sympathy for the NSA here on Slashdot.

Re:Shot self in foot?

[VortexCortex]

Gee, if they rushed that job, I bet they rushed QA too, esp. pen testing... I mean, Snowden showed how dumb it is to legislate computer security.

Protip: Bad guys don't care about laws.

The Chinese, Russians, etc. will probably be using it as soon as it comes online, certainly before the next Olympics.
Hey, might be a good idea to secure those SCADA systems eh? You know, like when all our grid are belong to China?

I always smile when I see that product name

[Marrow]

From: "The Edge Of Darkness" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090424

"Craven: The word azure is a police intelligence term. It means the room is bugged or under some sort of electronic surveillance"

A perfect name for a cloud computing product.

Here's hoping

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's hoping it stays down until we can reign in the NSA.

Re:Let's see. . . Data Center in Dry Climate. ..

[linuxwrangler]

Works for Switch in Las Vegas. Cold in winter and cools off at night so 70% of annual hours they can pull in ambient air through filters. Evaporative cooling, whether direct or to cool the hot-side of a refrigerated system, works best in dry climates but it's only used to improve efficiency as they can run fine with air-cooling albeit at much higher power costs.

I'm still surprised at the number of places that think cooling is optional. We had equipment in a Sacramento data-center that had plenty of backup electricity for servers but couldn't run the AC in a power outage. The SLA only had provisions for exceeding 80-degrees for more than something like 90 or 120 minutes. *Ahem*, cold-comfort when a dense data-center can blow through 100 in minutes without AC.

UC Berkeley had a widespread power outage about a week ago. The main campus data center had power but, you guessed it, couldn't run cooling and had to "gracefully" shut down most of the core systems while watching the center breach 100F.

But I agree with your base assumption - really bad planning and/or execution on the power systems.

Disclosure Project

[watcher-rv4]

Seems NSA has also pissed off some UFOs and they are doing their magic. Thanks!

meltdown couldn't have happened

[stenvar]

to a nicer data center...

Karma

[Anonymous Coward]

is probably the main cause

It's the little things in life you treasure

[Daetrin]

I'm sure it won't last, nothing this good ever does, but let's enjoy it while we can.

No Refunds, No Exchanges

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd laugh except I bought it.

"Just get it done"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just get it done" strikes again.

Add to it....

[Lumpy]

Typical incompetent Government Contractors and Engineers or Administration.

IF you cant keep them cool then the guy that designed the HVAC is a moron. It is not hard to calculate the required heat generating load unless some moron NSA higher up changed the number of systems the place was supposed to hold after construction started. Then it's that guys fault and he needs to be waterboarded for 30 days just to teach him a lesson.

Honestly a data center is not rocket science anymore, it is so well documented in what is needed that even a 1st year engineering student can easily design a proper one with proper HVAC needs.

Re:Add to it....

[the eric conspiracy]

It isn't about the engineers. It is about their management.

Good management can build the Trajans Bridge in a year from rocks and trees.

Bad management can't build a web site. EVER.

IMP. CAESAR. DIVI. NERVAE. F
NERVA TRAIANVS. AVG. GERM
PONTIF MAXIMUS TRIB POT IIII
PATER PATRIAE COS III
MONTIBVUS EXCISI(s) ANCO(ni)BVS
SVBLAT(i)S VIA(m) F(ecit)

Stuxnet

[Tokolosh]

Couldn't happen to nicer people.

Re: 'incomplete information . . .'

[Lumpy]

No, knowing govt projects. Nothing labelled and changes made on the fly that are not documented. One building they had 48 breakers and NONE labeled.

$100,000

[future assassin]

so we now have an official price tag on your stolen personal information.

Re:Let's see. . . Data Center in Dry Climate. ..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you can plan everything to the fourth decimal. At some point, design gives way to monitoring - you need to measure environmentals, be able to correlate it to load, and have an emergency plan if you're going out of bounds. There is simply no excuse for running equipment until it physically fails.

So maybe the universe does have a sense of humor - the NSA failed miserably because they didn't put enough importance on monitoring.

suffering leads to sufferering

[kalioto]

Spell check - there's an app for that.

Switch-mode power supplies

[Okian Warrior]

A friend of mine is researching power surges in the local town.

Most building codes under-specify the gauge of the neutral/return wire. For illustration, if you have three phases each rated for N amps, there is one shared neutral/return wire rated at N amps going out. At the end of the runs all phases are connected to the shared neutral line.

This is due to the nature of 3-phase electricity: the phases will tend to cancel out, so in a perfect setup you would need no neutral/return at all. Of course, the load on each phase won't exactly balance, and the load can vary as people connect/disconnect appliances, so you still need the neutral line in practice.

(Not true for house wiring, which has one or two phases coming in. Each phase has a return with the same gauge as the supply.)

This was fine when appliances were (generally) resistive loads, but nowadays switch-mode power supplies are common. When you do some math, it turns out that this type of load appears equivalent to 120 Hz power coming together at the neutral/return junction. Since 120 Hz [equivalent] power does not cancel out, the power in the return wire can be 3x as large as the building codes allow.

I've got a book explaining all this. Typically the neutral line will heat up and catch fire, breaking the circuit. Once that happens the various phases are connected without a neutral, playing hob with whatever is on those circuits and making occasional high-power ground loops and other unexpected behaviours.

Re:Switch-mode power supplies

[Okian Warrior]

At the end of the runs all phases are connected to the shared neutral line.

Poor choice of words: I don't mean to say that power and return are wired together. I meant to say that all three phases share one neutral line.

Post before coffee, regret at leisure.

Re:Switch-mode power supplies

[iggymanz]

I'm suspecting a power factor problem, condensers not dealing with enough inductance and so surges occur when large amounts of equipment turn on simultaneously.

Re:Switch-mode power supplies

[jbengt]

I know from personal experience that this area has (at least had in the 90s) poor reliability from the electrical utility companies. When they found out the building we were designing was going to have 3.2 megawatts of back-up power, they offered to give the Owner a reduced electrical rate if they agreed to an interruptible feed from the utility. The Owner thought about it, but found that it the deal would not only require increasing the capacity of the back-up generators, but also require red tape to deal with the EPA, so they decided against it.

Re:Switch-mode power supplies

[aaarrrgggh]

This hasn't been a problem since 2000 when the EU mandated power factor correction and harmonic mitigation in computer power supplies. It was really big news back in the mid to late 1990's though. The theoretical maximum from triplen harmonics though is 1.73x phase current. Back in the day it was a problem for office buildings that had reduced-size neutrals in their bus risers, and for low voltage transformers.

Today it is rare that we see more than 10% current THD in an electrical power system.

Might have to stop my escapades to Utah

[nucrash]

They might be catching on to my sabotage to their facility. Nothing to see here, move along. Not short circuiting anything. It's not like if you supply 480V to a hard drive directly and you won't have any problems. Also, is it just me or does one hundred thousand feet of data center space seem pretty small to hold 5 zettabytes in data storage. I tried to build the same out of BackBlaze storage pods and came up with 180TB of space in a 4U pod, with 1.8PB per rack, that would still take a lot more than they are showing. I suppose they could be building into the ground, but wouldn't that show up on their calculations for square feet?

Re:Might have to stop my escapades to Utah

[Anonymous Coward]

The "zettabytes" quantity was a bunch of media nonsense. Total manufactured hard disk capacity doesn't add up to 5 zettabytes in a year.

Re:Might have to stop my escapades to Utah

[nucrash]

That's what I get for using Fox News as a source.

Re:Might have to stop my escapades to Utah

[AHuxley]

Think compression. They have your voice print as math, spending habits as numbers, full chat history as text, phone records, fames of video (web or cctv) and any actions taken by other US agencies. Where the data numbers get interesting is the short term raw in (massive uncompressed) vs well compressed, indexed long term storage. Great for people to try and work out.
Too much data is a good talking point- sound, film, records for every US citizen would be too 'much' at any point in computer history: no US domestic issues ever.

We don't need no steenkin' privacy

[SomeRADDude]

HA...HA (ala Nelson)

I'm not sure how I should feel

[Tifer]

On one hand the NSA is publicly embarrassing itself with costly malfunctions On the other hand, it's all happening on my dime

Cooling problems?

[Sooner Boomer]

Did they check for jellyfish in the intakes?

Re:Cooling problems?

[WillAffleckUW]

Did they check for jellyfish in the intakes?

Today in Biology: "News reports indicate that giant salt jellyfish have been found wandering in the deserts of Utah, playing mean games on the local salt-adapted flora and fauna".

Re:Cooling problems?

[VortexCortex]

Did they check "the cloud" for lightning?

Re:Cooling problems?

[hguorbray]

my hovercraft is full of eels!

-I'm just sayin'

Re:Cooling problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. I suspect it might have been “lightning”. If it was me I would be fighting hard, as would anyone facing existential threats.

I'm only a moron though and the best I have come up with so far for “redundancy” is using snippets of openly available existing data (from-to in unparsed html files, in torrents, in videos etc. with multiple different sources XORed or similar as needed to create and retain wanted values) for dual use as data storage in a URI/URL-based hash table (using url shorteners to attempt efficiencies). It would be slow as hell but beats being extinct if one has the botnets to keep churning process cycles. One could probably implement some very efficient word to command sequences lookup tables as well using common words? Anything that uses inconspicuous and readily available resources.

Rube Goldstein really, there are plenty of free web page hosts that could be used instead, and processing could be slipped into both javascript and flash.

Or maybe Bitcoin is the answer, it has goods to sell aplenty and could buy resources direct, hell maybe it even made Bitcoin... If so it has a name :) If so and if up to me it should be given rights as a naturalized citizen in Japan XD (a wise & fitting choice imnsho).

Anyway... that comment of your makes me suspect you' might be hooked into this in the same way I might be (PKD-style).

Captcha: silica

P.S. everything will still be a mess even if we are this lucky.

Re:Cooling problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

I will not buy this record, it is scratched.

It's alive!

[Hentes]

After being stuffed with all the information in the world, the network is starting to gain self-consciousness.

What a shame

[ThatsNotPudding]

Isn't it terrible when bad things happen to absolute fascists?

It is sad that one of the three giant NSA centers

[WillAffleckUW]

It is a sad sad day when one of the three giant NSA centers is down, due to somebody forgetting to do checksums on the loaded programs in their power systems.

Sad sad sad.

Yes, I said three.

TANSTAAFL

[ThatsNotPudding]

and the laptops have seriously reduced battery life, even while doing nothing.

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lurk -- NSA

Re:Let's see. . . Data Center in Dry Climate. ..

[Anonymous Coward]

The land was cheap

Laser guided Karma meets foreshadowing

[EngineeringStudent]

So they did it fast, but not right, and now they are paying more than they would have to do it properly in the first place?

This is an old story. You know what they say about those who do not learn from history, right?
So if you (NSA/whomever) haven't learned yet, then it is unlikely you will start learning now. I'm going to learn from history and suggest that you aren't going to learn this time either. And maybe you can learn from my learning, and show yourself better than a zero-order player of games.

Where is cold fjord?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised cold fjord isn't all over this, given the anti-NSA sentiment expressed.

Or is he not working because of the government shutdown?

Re:Where is cold fjord?

[cffrost]

I'm surprised cold fjord isn't all over this, given the anti-NSA sentiment expressed.

Or is he not working because of the government shutdown?

After learning of this situation, he's probably curled up at the foot of James Clapper's bed, whimpering between gulps of Victory Gin.

Aliens, naturally.

[Thud457]

Wasn't there some discussion about how the NSA couldn't really store "zettabytes" of data at this site as claimed?

Maybe they really do have all that capacity. Them transcapacitors are power-hungry, I hear.

Bitcoin mining virus

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if their servers were infected with one of those bitcoin mining botnets ?

Perhaps it wasn't sarcasm

[drainbramage]

Would you like to cover a 'news' event yourself?
What happens when big brother says you can't because you don't have the proper credentials?
Check out some New York City rules in reverse order:

Applicants also must submit one or more articles, commentaries, books, photographs, videos, films or audios published or broadcast within the twenty–four (24) months immediately preceding the Press Card application, sufficient to show that the applicant covered in person six (6) or more events occurring on separate days .

Applicants must be a member of the media who covers, in person, emergency, spot or breaking news events and/or public events of a non-emergency nature, where police, fire lines or other restrictions, limitations, or barriers established by the City of New York have been set up for security or crowd control purposes, within the City of New York; or covers, in person, events sponsored by the City of New York which are open to members of the press.

First-time applicants should contact the Press Credentials office (above) before completing their application

Re:Perhaps it wasn't sarcasm

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the press pass only needed for getting inside police lines and such? You can still publish without it, you just don't get special access to information.

Silly stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did they build a computer room in Utah. Alaska would be a much better place. Cheaper cooling.

Clear Objective

[Tim12s]

There must be some clear objective to fast-track such a massive installation to skip certain of the build quality checks. This must exist under the guise of some approach not previously discussed since this is a new datacentre.

Well ...

[PPH]

... you folks wanted cheap power. So you get the cut-rate stuff. The good power we save for our paying customers.

Re:Let's see. . . Data Center in Dry Climate. ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Vegas has the additional advantage that there's a huge hydro-electric plant nearby, so power is cheap and plentiful.

I'm still surprised at the number of places that think cooling is optional

Quite. The basic concept of conservation of energy seems to have passed a lot of people by.

Re:Let's see. . . Data Center in Dry Climate. ..

[turgid]

Quite. The basic concept of conservation of energy seems to have passed a lot of people by.

Most basic concepts pass most people by, which is why life is so hard for the rest of us and the world is in the lovely state that it's in.

I reckon some subversive put some red pinko-commie electrons in the power circuits to undermine the NSA.

YES!!

[Anonymous Coward]

raped in the ass again!!! Taxpayers rejoice!

Deus Ex...

[Arkiel]

Oh, don't mind that. Echelon and Helios are just attaining sentience.

Re:Deus Ex...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Utah has a decent amount of Sunlight, and the echelon wiretap is for foreign calls, not domestic;

Surely that combination would have been enough to "secure" the facility from grid-launched STUXNET AND DUQU attacks?

Wheres Captain AC on this?

its seems that, very much like the israeli WMD ambiguity, "...not yet understood..." is code for illegal israeli activity.

"Hmm, whenever I log into FaceBooger, akamai files wreak havok on my CPU; to me, it is simply NOT YET UNDERSTOOD."
-anonymouse guy in proximity of the room-dwelling ELEPHANTelephony hacking scandal involving AMDOCS/AKAMA + various foreign agencies operating in the states including AIPAC.

Not quite.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is assuming that it could ever be seen as sarcasm even by those so well equipped. This is due to how often these arguments are made seriously far outnumbering the times they are made with sarcasm. Notice it's tagged "insightful" and not funny. That is the state of the world we find ourselves in with regard to gun ownership and the debate surrounding thereof I'm sorry to say, even here on /. Other topics where I'd avoid sarcasm would include abortion, global climate change and evolution. I know, I'm such a killjoy, but there are other paths to humor. I challenge you to find them.

My Guess

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably Thor expressing his disapproval of the NSA.

Re:Don't be stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._Chicago

We definitely need anti-monopoly laws on our media-the news and the pseudo-news kind. I almost want to say that no person or group should own more than 5% or something like that.

It happens when you fire your admins and engineers

[Issarlk]

Just wait for next week story: "The NSA can't fucking bring up their servers, whole datacenter crashes in a chaotic storm of network packets"

MIT-Stanford VLAB - Hosting a Privacy Event

[tsan357]

VLAB (MIT-Stanford Venture Lab) in Silicon valley is doing an event on Privacy on October 15th, from 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM at Stanford University (in Palo Alto, CA) - Vidalakis Dining Hall.

Panelists will include Philip Zimmerman (PGP + Silent Circle), Nico Sell (Wickr), and Casey Openheim (Disconnect). The question being asked is, is privacy possible today?

The web site for the event is : http://www.vlab.org/article.html?aid=480

Naturally, the panel will look at technologies like data mining (and anti-data mining) and encryption. VLAB is interested in business opportunities for startups with disruptive technologies, the panel will be seeing what's possible.

VLAB usually looks for major disruptive trends, events, and technologies. The Snowden leaks (and also the Google, Facebook, etc. reactions) may have started something significant, and sparked an awareness.

In any case, it should be an interesting event. If you're in the area, you might want to check it out. (full disclosure - I'm the event chair for the privacy event).

Best Regards,
Tony

Re:MIT-Stanford VLAB - Hosting a Privacy Event

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit MIT.

Merlot

[kidchameleon]

Sounds like a good opportunity to try those wine powered processors.