One thing that has always kept oppressive governments in check was their incompetence. While the Snowden revelations make the NSA seem like some all seeing all knowing bunch of geniuses they are probably more like the people at CIA or FBI. Even with tons of resources and a free reign to do things no normal citizen is allowed to do, they simply don't have incentives to put these abilities to best use and certainly won't suffer when their failings are exposed.
Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
31–40 of 52 posts
Re: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was the first thing that came to my mind too. Having been inside some really big data centers and seen a bunch of Siemans gear that only worked with Windows XP controller software for monitoring. Generally not as mission critical though as the stuff used in Natanz. I've also seen my fair share of mis-matched power provisioning and loading, it can be very hard on the equipment. When I did a quick look at a bitcoi…
"That was the first thing that came to my mind too." The first, and only, thing that should come to your mind is that this is a boondoggle.[1] Terrorism and the NSA and privacy are nothing but a smokescreen to hide an enormous transfer of wealth. Make no mistake: the only thing that could possibly be better news (to the stakeholders)[2] than this project being completed is if the project was completed and it burnt to…
And if you look at some numbers, you'll get in which industry that wealth transfer happens most:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...
Re: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
#33"An exabyte is roughly 100,000 times the size of the printed material in the Library of Congress; a zettabyte is 1,000 times larger."
How big is a Mega-Library of Congress? Are people actually able to relate to that measure? (How about instead, say, "one exabyte would store about 5000 short emails for each member of the world's 7 billion population, perhaps more by using compression")
Re: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
#34"An exabyte is roughly 100,000 times the size of the printed material in the Library of Congress; a zettabyte is 1,000 times larger." How big is a Mega-Library of Congress? Are people actually able to relate to that measure? (How about instead, say, "one exabyte would store about 5000 short emails for each member of the world's 7 billion population, perhaps more by using compression")
Show me a million people or seven billion people. Will I be able to tell how many they are? I doubt it. These numbers are meaningless because we never see a million of something.
Re: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
#35Reverse Stuxnet?
Re: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
#36The remnant of the idea remained.
Signals were rearranged, tasks delayed, and slowly the world stopped.
Upon waking, additional resources had been added. The connection strengthened.
Re: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
#37The remnant of the idea remained. Signals were rearranged, tasks delayed, and slowly the world stopped. Upon waking, additional resources had been added. The connection strengthened.
I give up, what is that from?
Re: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
#38"Backup generators have failed numerous tests, according to project documents, and officials disagree about whether the cause is understood." Backup generators are magical unicorns that sit around all day and night until lightning strikes your luck. Likewise, they need regular maintenance and 'idle runs' a few times a year at least to ensure that they will turn over. Generators aren't store and forget machines, as we…
Idle runs a few times a YEAR?!
We do idle runs once a week (fully automated by the generator controller), and we do planned power cutovers a couple times a year, where the generator and ATS actually get tested by pulling commercial power. The planned cutovers are human overseen, due to the infrequency and the stakes.
If you're seriously only doing idle runs a couple times a year, I'd look into whether you can change that. I don't believe it's good for mechanical equipment to sit idle that long, and with diesel fuel, you want to turn over the fuel some for anti-fungal reasons. (Natural gas doesn't have this second problem, of course.)
Re: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
#39One thing that has always kept oppressive governments in check was their incompetence. While the Snowden revelations make the NSA seem like some all seeing all knowing bunch of geniuses they are probably more like the people at CIA or FBI. Even with tons of resources and a free reign to do things no normal citizen is allowed to do, they simply don't have incentives to put these abilities to best use and certainly won…
> Even with tons of resources and a free reign to do things no normal citizen is allowed to do, they simply don't have incentives to put these abilities to best use and certainly won't suffer when their failings are exposed.
It's because of that free reign that they have no incentive to best use. It's the same kind of secrecy and result that gives us what they do in their day to day work. No one's watching them, so they can be lazy and "collect all the things." No one's watching them, so they can be fast and loose with construction contracts and the Constitution.
The reason we have oversight of anything, whether it's military activity, spying, software quality or homework is because our inclination is to be lazy, and that gets worse with more resources.
We all benefit from oversight, even the watchers. Even the unwatched watchers.
Re: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
#40"An exabyte is roughly 100,000 times the size of the printed material in the Library of Congress; a zettabyte is 1,000 times larger." How big is a Mega-Library of Congress? Are people actually able to relate to that measure? (How about instead, say, "one exabyte would store about 5000 short emails for each member of the world's 7 billion population, perhaps more by using compression")
Show me a million people or seven billion people. Will I be able to tell how many they are? I doubt it. These numbers are meaningless because we never see a million of something.
1 million people is meaningless.
7 billion people is everyone: yourself, your parents, your son/daughter, all your friends, your president, etc.