NSA Data Center Brings Concerns Over Security and Privacy and Jobs 138
chamilto0516 writes "Twenty-five miles due south of Salt Lake City, a massive construction project is nearing completion. The heavily secured site belongs to the National Security Agency. The NSA says the Utah Data Center is a facility for the intelligence community that will have a major focus on cyber security. Some published reports suggest it could hold 5 zettabytes of data. Asked if the Utah Data Center would hold the data of American citizens, Alexander [director of the NSA] said, 'No...we don't hold data on U.S. citizens,' adding that the NSA staff 'take protecting your civil liberties and privacy as the most important thing that they do, and securing this nation.' But critics, including former NSA employees, say the data center is front and center in the debate over liberty, security and privacy." According to University of Utah computing professor Matthew Might, one thing is clear about the Utah Data Center, it means good paying jobs. "The federal government is giving money to the U.'s programming department to develop jobs to fill the NSA building," he says.
Re:Interesting cycle (Score:4, Informative)
Somebody else starts buying US debt.
Otherwise, I hope you not thinking of the wingutter theory that China will suddenly sell off all their US holding (with the intention of crashing the US economy.) The wingnutters seem oblivious to the fact that Chinese will never do that - because it would not only crash their own economy, but also that of one of their largest markets, and severely damage the economies of their remaining markets. The Chinese are many things, but they aren't stupid. Their leadership knows full well what will happen if the middle and working class they've created is suddenly out of work.
Re:5 Zettabytes? (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with your point about how silly it is to throw around that number, but your storage density figures are a tad off... BackBlaze is hitting a density in real-world use of 180TB per 4U server, which in a 42U rack gives you 1800TB per rack with some room for switches. 5 zettabytes would therefore only require roughly 2,982,617 server cabinets. It's still ridiculously implausible, but ever so slightly less so ;)