NSA Overwhelmed with Information

puppet wrote to us with a CNN article that's currently running. Apparently, the NSA is drowning in information. The agency supposedly has too many targets, too much info and cannot sift through all of it. So, here's to sending out thousands of bogus signals for them to sort through! *grin*

Comments

NSA Distributed Client

[Anonymous Coward]

If they make a distributed client at NSA, we could help them process all that delicious information. I'd love to get my hands on other people's secrets.

The New World Order

[The Dodger]

The British Empire once stretched across the globe and it wasn't until Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese that the sun finally set on it. The UK used to be the most powerful nation in the world, but it is no longer, and that realisation was a hard one to swallow. It's only recently that the Brits have begun to lose their superiority complex, characterised, for example, by their reluctance to fully participate in the European Union.

However, they did eventually come to realise that Britain was no longer a global superpower, and the UK is now doing quite well for itself, that-you-very-much. They no longer rely on brute force to achieve what they want. Practically everyone knows the SAS' motto: Who Dares Wins. That typifies the British attitude which resulted in them standing firm against tyrannic regimes such as Nazi Germany and Iraq. Less well know is the Special Boat Squadron, an elite force which draws it's members from the Royal Marines (think of it as the UK equivalent of the SEALs). The SBS motto is: Not by Strength, By Guile. The UK continues to exert immense geopolitical influence by dint of it's diplomatic and intelligence assets, which it utilises in a subtle manner. Lacking the brute strength to effectively bully or intimidate other nations into doing what it wants, the UK uses less obvious, more sneaky methods to achieve it's aims.

So what has this got to do with the NSA? I hear you cry. Well, I think that the United States of America is going to have to face the same reality as the UK had to - that it no longer has the capability to ake problems disappear by simply throwing resources at them. Just as the Web levelled the playing field in terms of business, allowing companies like Amazon to appear overnight, the sociological, technological and economic developments which have occured since the end of the Cold War are levelling the playing field in a much wider range of areas, from economic to military/intelligence.

The NSA doesn't need to get stronger. It needs to get smarter. It needs to understand better how to pursue it's aims, within the big picture of the world at the beginning of the 21st century. If it tries to cling on to it's position, using the old methods, it will get swept away. Only by adapting to the New World Order (for want of a better phrase), can it survive and continue to fulfil it's mission.

Let's face it guys - even though you all bitch about the NSA, Echelon, the CIA, etc., you all know that they do a lot to protect your way of life. There are entire nations for whom 'Death to America!' is a perfectly legitimate political declaration. Fair enough, there are situations where the intelligence community has overstepped it's mark, but do you really think they give a flying f**k about a bunch of Linux-loving, long-haired nerds?

D.
..is for Dangerous.