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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.
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.
Hmm...so your equipment is randomly failing...you don't say?
Save yourself some trouble and stop spying on your own people then.
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.
It probably lacks certification from the Department of Redundancy Department anyway...
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.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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? =)
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
The only thing that will save us from the massive dragnet of the NSA is apparently the incompetence of the NSA.
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? /. does this far too often and I hope to see better in the future
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304441404579119490744478398.html
(Google Cache just in case
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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.
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
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
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?
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.
afterall google revealed a good amount on how they go about building their data centers and keeping it cool. But then again, contractors...
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
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.
We'll just be footing the bill.
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.
"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
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
. . .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. . .
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...
Wow are they hosting Apples mapping application?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
'incomplete information about the design of the electrical system'
Well, duh, it's secret.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
> 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?
Cry me a river, and all that.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
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.
Polygamy Porn. It's like drinking from a firehose.
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.
THL phish sticks
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.
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"
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.
The Blowback!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
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.
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.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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.
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.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Enjoy the serenade, NSA
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
...the NSA tries to tail -f the [censored] planet!
; )
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
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.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
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.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Seems NSA has also pissed off some UFOs and they are doing their magic. Thanks!
to a nicer data center...
is probably the main cause
I'm sure it won't last, nothing this good ever does, but let's enjoy it while we can.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
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.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Dont make us come there and look for WMD's in your back yard.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Couldn't happen to nicer people.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
so we now have an official price tag on your stolen personal information.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If only they could harness that chilling effect to cool their data centers, then the NSA would be good to go.
" 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.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Spell check - there's an app for that.
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.
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)
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?
Place something witty here
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.
HA...HA (ala Nelson)
On one hand the NSA is publicly embarrassing itself with costly malfunctions On the other hand, it's all happening on my dime
Did they check for jellyfish in the intakes?
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
After being stuffed with all the information in the world, the network is starting to gain self-consciousness.
Isn't it terrible when bad things happen to absolute fascists?
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.
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.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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.
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.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lurk -- NSA
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.
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.
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.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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
No brain, no pain.
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.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
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:
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.
Very poetic, but I was saying lets fight fire with fire, not "lets ignore reality."
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
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
So NSA is tinfoil hat crazy about terrorists.
Have gnu, will travel.
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!
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
More Twoson than Cupertino
Very perceptive.
Stick Men
Yes, it is.
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.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
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.
Stick Men
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.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
He was later granted a visa, however. So your point fails.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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...
Oh, don't mind that. Echelon and Helios are just attaining sentience.
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.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
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.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
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.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
no moderator points. Shaka. When the walls fell.
Kind moderator mod up. Temba, his arms open.
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"
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.
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.
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
Sounds like a good opportunity to try those wine powered processors.