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General => Archive => Political and Religious => Topic started by: El Barto on April 25, 2012, 03:56:24 PM
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Wired ran a featured article today on what amounts to the NSA's version of Area 51. While they're already capturing pretty much every bit of information that floats around, this facility will allow them to store it all indefinitely. The article covers pretty much everything from how they get it, what they do with it, and where they're going with it.
Everybody knows my opinion on the matter, so I'll refrain from ridiculing idiotic and chickenshit Americans. I'm just throwing this out as an interesting read.
https://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1
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Eh, I see this with much calmness, maybe because I personally work in the field of data analysis (I don't work on classified stuff, but coworkers of mine do).
I think Lt. Deptula said it correctly "We're swimming in sensors and drowning in data". Just because you have information doesn't mean you can draw conclusions from them. Look at 9/11; the information was all there, but it was drowned out in a backdrop of unimportant data. As the article says, internet traffic will quadruple in 5 years, which means your privacy has been increased by a factor of 4.
rumborak
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I really wonder what's in Area 51.
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Oh boy :lol
My best guess is that there is a section in area 51 that is essentially a "loony museum", with all the stuff conspiracy theorists have been saying about the place.
rumborak
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Eh, I see this with much calmness, maybe because I personally work in the field of data analysis (I don't work on classified stuff, but coworkers of mine do).
I think Lt. Deptula said it correctly "We're swimming in sensors and drowning in data". Just because you have information doesn't mean you can draw conclusions from them. Look at 9/11; the information was all there, but it was drowned out in a backdrop of unimportant data. As the article says, internet traffic will quadruple in 5 years, which means your privacy has been increased by a factor of 4.
rumborak
If that's a concern, why do you think they're building this? I agree with you that the amount of data out there complicates things, but it also simplifies investigations once you go beyond realtime. Based on their projections, storage for future data isn't a problem. Once they decide to investigate someone, lawfully or otherwise, analyzing it is quick and easy, and now painfully thorough.
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If that's a concern, why do you think they're building this?
A LOT of infeasible things get funded in my personal experience. In terms of national security it's probably THE problem right now, and so they have a lot of dough from Congress to spend on this, and they figure it's better to have something than nothing. Will it improve the situation? Certainly. Will it put them into the position they would like to be in? Hardly.
I agree with you that the amount of data out there complicates things, but it also simplifies investigations once you go beyond realtime. Based on their projections, storage for future data isn't a problem. Once they decide to investigate someone, lawfully or otherwise, analyzing it is quick and easy, and now painfully thorough.
Yes, that I agree with. Once you targeted a person you can more easily track them. But, the biggest problem, finding a person worth tracking, is still looming over all of it.
rumborak
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I agree with you that the amount of data out there complicates things, but it also simplifies investigations once you go beyond realtime. Based on their projections, storage for future data isn't a problem. Once they decide to investigate someone, lawfully or otherwise, analyzing it is quick and easy, and now painfully thorough.
Yes, that I agree with. Once you targeted a person you can more easily track them. But, the biggest problem, finding a person worth tracking, is still looming over all of it.
rumborak
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If I had confidence in their ability to find the right people to target, I wouldn't be as concerned (although I'd still say that we're no longer the America they seek to preserve). My concern is that I suspect they'll be tracking more innocent people than wrong-doers due to incompetence or idle hands. It used to be that search warrants were one of the safeguards to that concern, but when was the last time anybody bothered with one of those things?
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I'm somewhere between you two. It's too much information for the normal person to have any concern, but keeping it saved forever is unnecessary, and rather unsettling.