OFF THE WIRE
Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
The US Air Force (USAF) has announced the development of a super computer that will be stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force base (WPAFB).
This computer is being touted as the most powerful system – rivaling even the Department of Defense (DoD).
However, under the Navy DoD Supercomputing Resource Center (NAVY DSRC) is a supportive branch of the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) provides “on a daily basis, global, regional, and very high resolution coastal ocean circulation and wave model oceanography products supporting worldwide Navy and DoD operations.”
This computer will be tasked with simulated experiments that are too risky to be undertaken for soldiers as well as calculating 1,500 trillion calculations a second; which makes this computer the 7th biggest and most powerful computer in the world.
Every branch of the military and off-shoot of the DoD will be allowed to use it.
Dubbed “Spirit”, the highly – dense supercomputer sits on 9,000 square feet and weighs more than 30 tons. The price tag for this technology is $25 million.
An impressive 2,000 people can log into Spirit at once.
A specialized water-pump system has been created to cool the computer off, prevent over-heating and speed up the hyper-fast electronics; as well as thousands of miles of copper wiring that encompasses the fiber optic cables.
Spirit will test weapons systems, simulate bomb detonations and project how cargo in aircrafts could be parachuted to land when necessary and safely.
Scientific research will also be a function of Spirit with a possible focuses on anything from subatomic particles to hurricane forecasting.
Spirit is one of two currently built and in use at WPAFB; with another supercomputer being developed and slated for construction in 2014.
Lloyd Stonaker, head of the Spirit project, said: “Instead of going out there and blowing something up, we can simulate it. We save a lot of money that way and we can take a look at the different options available to us.”
The National Security Agency (NSA) Utah Data Center is scheduled to come up LIVE in September of this year. More than $2 billion have been spent to create a network that can analyze yottabytes of information daily.
According to the NSA website , with regard to private data being surveilled, “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
The NSA claims that “domestic surveillance plays a vital role in our national security by maintaining a total information awareness of all domestic activities by using advanced data mining systems to ‘connect the dots’ to identify suspicious patterns.”
The Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6 (HSPD6) grants the NSA authority to screen information “to protect against terrorism” while collecting and disseminating “information about suspected foreign and domestic terrorists.”
The NSA readily admits to spying on Americans and creating a national citizen database for “security reasons” that is comprised of:
• internet searches
• websites visited
• emails sent and received
• social media activity (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
• blogging activity including posts read, written, and commented on
• videos watched and/or uploaded online
• photos viewed and/or uploaded online
• music downloads
• mobile phone GPS-location data
• mobile phone apps downloaded
• phone call records
• text messages sent and received
• online purchases and auction transactions
• bookstore receipts
• credit card/ debit card transactions
• bank statements
• cable television shows watched and recorded
• commuter toll records
• parking receipts
• electronic bus and subway passes / Smartpasses
• travel itineraries
• border crossings
• surveillance cameras
• medical information including diagnoses and treatments
• prescription drug purchases
• guns and ammunition sales
• educational records
• arrest records
• driver license information
Steve Scherr from the DOD gives a presentation on the HPCMP contract awarded by Lockheed Martin for Appro to build a unique hybrid supercomputer for six US Department of Defense Locations.
http://youtu.be/Za1IlgPQCdk
