Utah data center

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"Utah Data Center" Panorama (April 2014)

The Utah Data Center at Camp Williams in the city of Bluffdale (south of Salt Lake City , Utah ) is an American data center that was built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the National Security Agency since 2011 and has been in operation since the end of 2013 is. Its official name is Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-Security Initiative Data Center . During the construction phase, the project name was Bumblehive / IC CNCI Data Center 1 .

Operator and purpose

The National Security Agency operates the facility that is supposed to support the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). The NSA denies wanting to use the facility to store private emails from US citizens.

As early as March 2012, the magazine wired took the view that the Utah Data Center would not only have the task of storing large parts of the entire Internet communication, but also enormous computing speed for cracking complex encryption methods such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) , will get. According to the US magazine wired, the opening of the data center was planned for September 2013. In September 2013, some media reported that the facility was operational, but the NSA did not confirm it. Technical complications are also said to have occurred repeatedly.

The Utah Data Center receives data from the Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center , from NSA Texas at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonia, from NSA Georgia at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia , from the Aerospace Data Facility at Buckley Air Force Base , Colorado, and other listening posts in the United States and abroad.

Technology and equipment

Utah Data Center floor plan

The future technical equipment of the plant is subject to confidentiality. It is known that the facility will require around 65 megawatts of electrical power. The Utah data center will cost $ 1.7 billion to build . Around 200 technicians are to work there. The entire site is approximately 93,000 square meters.

Experts are controversial about the efficiency of the system. NSA journalist James Bamford told the Guardian :

"It's basically a hard-drive. It's also a cloud, a warehouse. It'll be storing not just text and audio but pictures and video. There's a lackadaisical attitude to this. People pay no attention until it's too late. "

“It's basically a hard drive. It's also a cloud , a database. It will not only save texts and audio but also videos and pictures. In contrast, there is disinterest. The public takes no notice until it is too late. "

- James Bamford : The Guardian

The predicted storage space of the system varies depending on the information between one yottabyte (see mirror - this would correspond to approx. 0.17 cents per terabyte at the system price mentioned ), 5 zetta bytes or only approx. 3–12 exabytes (see Forbes etc. with a price of around $ 170 per terabyte). Converted to the world population, this would correspond to a data volume of around 0.38 and 1.53 gigabytes per person.

In the British Guardian , ex-NSA mathematician William Binney was quoted on June 14, 2013 as saying that the computers in the data center were expected to perform at a storage rate of 20 terabytes per minute - the equivalent of the entire inventory of the Library of Congress in the United States ( second largest library in the world with 31 million books, 12 million photos etc.) every minute. The data throughput of the Internet node DE-CIX was around 25.5 TB / min at the previous peak. - measured in January 2015 with 3.9 Tb / s. According to Wired , the data center will initially work with a Cray Jaguar XK6 Titan supercomputer before faster supercomputers are available.

Location

"Utah Data Center" from the air (June 2014)

According to Spiegel informants, the choice as the location of the UDC in the middle of the state of Utah was obvious, as the majority of the local population are Mormons , who are considered to be particularly patriotic.

A program has been set up at the University of Utah to train students to manage large data centers. In the first year, 20 students are earmarked for additional training.

On June 27, 2014, Greenpeace , the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Tenth Amendment Center joined forces in a joint action in which they flew over the data center in an airship . This advertised a new website calling on US politicians to oppose surveillance on the Internet. A picture of the UDC taken from the airship has been released under the Public Domain license by the EFF.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Utah Data Center  - Album containing pictures, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carlos Lazo: Groundbreaking ceremony held for $ 1.2 billion Utah Data Center ( en ) In: spk.usace.army.mil . US Army Corps of Engineers. June 1, 2011. Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  2. ^ Siobhan Gorman: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center ( en ) In: The Wall Street Journal . October 7, 2013. Archived from the original on May 29, 2014. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  3. ^ A b Steve Fidel: Utah's $ 1.5 billion cyber-security center under way ( English ) In: Desert News . January 6, 2011. Archived from the original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  4. ↑ USAF User: Welcome to AT&L ( Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics , XLS 751 KB) In: http://www.acq.osd.mil/ . USAF. Row 1770. April 10, 2013. Archived from the original on March 25, 2014. Retrieved March 25, 2014.
  5. ↑ Andrea Shalal-Esa, Paul Simao: US agency denies data center to monitor citizens' emails ( English ) Reuters. April 15, 2013. Archived from the original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  6. ↑ a b James Bamford: The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) ( English ) In: wired . March 15, 2012. Archived from the original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  7. ↑ The Standard: NSA put gigantic server farm into operation in Utah . In: The Standard . September 27, 2013. Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  8. ^ Rory Carroll : NSA data center opening delayed after series of electrical surges in Utah ( English ) In: The Guardian . October 8, 2013. Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  9. ↑ Computerwoche -Author tc: "WSJ": Massive technical problems slow down the NSA's Utah data center . In: Computerwoche . October 8, 2013. Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  10. ↑ Micheal Kelley, Brian Jones: Pictures of the NSA's Utah Data Center ( English ) In: Business Insider . July 201306. Archived from the original on August 20, 2013. Retrieved on August 11, 2013.
  11. ↑ a b c d Rory Carroll: Welcome to Utah, the NSA's desert home for eavesdropping on America ( English ) In: The Guardian . June 14, 2013. Archived from the original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  12. ^ Frank Patalong: Bluffdale: The NSA's data collection center . In: Der Spiegel . June 8, 2013. Archived from the original on August 20, 2013. Retrieved on August 11, 2013.
  13. ^ NPR: Amid Data Controversy, NSA Builds Its Biggest Data Farm ( English ) In: National Public Radio . June 10, 2013. Archived from the original on October 11, 2012. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  14. ↑ Kashmir Hill: Blueprints Of NSA's Ridiculously Expensive Data Center In Utah Suggest It Holds Less Info Than Thought ( English ) In: Forbes . July 24, 2013. Archived from the original on February 13, 2014. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  15. ↑ de-cix: DE-CIX - Statistics . de-cix. Archived from the original on December 20, 2012. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
  16. ↑ Marcel Rosenbach , Holger Stark , Jonathan Stock: Prism Exposed: Data Surveillance with Impacts for the World ( English ) In: Spiegel Online . June 10, 2013. Archived from the original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  17. ↑ Thomas Burr, Nate Carlisle: New University of Utah program prepares students to work at new NSA center - Data center >> Spy agency officials brief Utah politicians on status of the facility ( English ) In: The Salt Lake Tribune . March 30, 2013. Archived from the original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved June 20, 2013.
  18. ↑ Electronic Frontier Foundation : Diverse Groups Fly Airship Over NSA's Utah Data Center to Protest Illegal Spying ( en ) Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  19. ↑ Electronic Frontier Foundation : Releasing a Public Domain Image of the NSA's Utah Data Center ( English ) Retrieved on July 10, 2014.

Coordinates: 40 ° 25 '53.5 "  N , 111 ° 55' 59.1"  W.