/. [Does the NSA Need More Electricity?]

[Eugen Leitl]

Link: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/06/133203
Posted by: CmdrTaco, on 2006-08-06 13:26:00

   An anonymous reader writes "The Baltimore sun (NSA watchers can't live
   without it) reports that the [1]NSA worries about overloading the
   Baltimore energy grid if it were to install new computing capacity at
   it's Fort Meade HQ. This includes two multi million dollar
   supercomputers. Some systems are reportedly not getting the cooling
   they need. The temperature in NSA buildings is raised two degrees to
   conserve energy, according to the article. The NSA is Baltimore Gas
   and Electric`s (BGE) biggest customer the sun reports. Former NSA
   employees fear that a power outage at Fort Meade would have worse
   consequences than the 2000 "information overload" related outage. The
   NSA does apparently not have the backup power generation capacity to
   power the whole facility during power outages. Some point a finger at
   a new mall build in the area, but a BGE spokesman says the mall is
   "fairly easily accommodated". Some sources say the problem was
   identified in the late 90`s. But "keeping the lights on" wasn't a
   priority. A $4 million computer upgrade to the system that allocates
   power was postponed for budgetary reasons. (the NSA budged is
   estimated at $8 Billion) The article reports that the budget documents
   for listening posts around the world report similar infrastructural
   problems, in the budgets for 07 as well as previous years. It should
   be noted that the huge "groundbreaker" IT infrastructure upgrade
   program is reportedly [2]over budget and late, but not yet fully
   operational."

References

   1.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.nsapower06aug06,0,5137448
.story?coll=bal-home-headlines
   2.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/custom/attack/bal-te.nsa26feb26,0,6311175.st
ory

----- End forwarded message -----
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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