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Technician

NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

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D-Wave TwoTM Quantum Computer Selected for New Quantum Artificial Intelligence Initiative, System to be Installed at NASA's Ames Research Center, and Operational in Q3

Google acquires "Skynet" quantum computers from D-Wave
According to an article published in Scientific American, Google and NASA have now teamed up to purchase a 512-qubit quantum computer from D-Wave. The computer is called "D-Wave Two" because it's the second generation of the system. The first system was a 128-qubit computer. Gen two is now a 512-qubit computer.

This does not mean the gen two system is merely four times more powerful than the gen one system. Thanks to the nature of qubits, it's actually 2 to the power of 384 times more powerful (2384) than the gen one system. In other words, it out-computes the first D-Wave computer by a factor so large that you can't even imagine it in your human brain.

According to Google and NASA, this computer will be tasked with research in the realm of "machine learning" -- i.e. machines learning how to think for themselves. It's not just speech recognition, vision recognition and teaching robotic Humvees with .50-caliber machine guns how to stalk and shoot "enemy combatants" on the streets of America, either: it's teaching machines how to learn and think for themselves.

Using your human brain, think for a moment about where such technology is most likely to be applied by a government that respects no human rights, no law and no limits on its power.

If you guessed "analyzing NSA surveillance data," give yourself ten bonus points.

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a bit too exaggerated, but if this will happen for real, we all are in real big problems!

Also, how much is a quBit in term of bite size? I suppose is something much more than terabytes (i don't remember the name of the 8-bit measurement size, "ohm" maybe?)

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When I first read about this the first thing that popped in my head was the plot from Metal Gear Solid 2 (The whole GW system filtering information on a mass level.) While GW doesn't do exactly what the NSA does it is doing something similar (If you played the game and know the plot well correct me if I'm wrong). There is also another theory I believe in Metal Gear Solid 2 that I think is happening call me crazy. I partially feel this way..Who knows I could be wrong I have some doubt but I believe the US Government isn't ran like it portrays itself. I think the President could be just a public figure..a puppet. I also think we lost all of our freedom along time ago and we are just living under the illusion that we are free. I truly believe that the Government would break some of it's major laws and cover it up (I know they have done in the past...One of my teachers in High School was telling me about a journalist/reporter (Can't remember which) was in another country doing a report on something and the CIA had her assassinated because she knew too much). I also think that the Government could be covering up how JFK died (Before someone jumps down my throat about this one...I am basing this off of what I've heard from other people I could be wrong). I heard in the past that JFK was going to Audit the Government. I've also heard that the Mafia could've killed him and framed Lee Harvey Oswald (Saw a show about it).

But that's just my opinion. I don't really have any concrete evidence so I can't say 100% but these are theories I believe could really be true.

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The answer is "42".

That article reminds me of a short story from 1954 (when computers were little more than programmable calculators), which could be the unintended outcome of this "research" into "machine learning".

walter confalonieri said:

(i don't remember the name of the 8-bit measurement size, "ohm" maybe?)

What's wrong with "byte"?

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i have nothing with byte, actually. However according to my measure converter on my phone is called octet. It's a mesaurament based on 8 n size degrees (1 octet is 8 bit, 1 kilo-octet is 8 kb,1 megaoctet is 8 mb and so on....) I discovered it trought that app,yay ignorance!(?)

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Possibly all this NSA datamining of private speeches has been made to teach Skynet robots new tricks? Awesome. Looking forward to the results.

I'm worried that I might need to take school again if I want to understand how quantum computers work, though.

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walter confalonieri said:

However according to my measure converter on my phone is called octet.

Octet I can live with, Ohm had me scratching my head in puzzlement.

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It's always seemed to me that organizations like this simply resort to the draconian 1984 type scenario's of data-mining on people only because they're becoming incredibly incapable of doing anything investigatory through other means. Its a little stupid to presume that mulching through BILLIONS of files of data simply to track down a few individuals on a watch list is being somehow efficient and not just being a monstrous waste of time, energy, and resources. It sucks when your government because a police state out of boredom and laziness...

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StevieCybernetik said:

It's always seemed to me that organizations like this simply resort to the draconian 1984 type scenario's of data-mining on people only because they're becoming incredibly incapable of doing anything investigatory through other means. Its a little stupid to presume that mulching through BILLIONS of files of data simply to track down a few individuals on a watch list is being somehow efficient and not just being a monstrous waste of time, energy, and resources. It sucks when your government because a police state out of boredom and laziness...


It's more out of corruption then anything else. The companies that have the data mining and general spying contracts are raking in billions in tax payer dollars and have been for years. They in turn funnel millions in dirty money into campaign contributions in order to keep there contracts going. Both the Dem's and Gop are guilty of taking this money and turning a blind eye to the reality of whats being done. That's why the vast majority of politicians are A)Defending these spying programs or B) Saying nothing at all.

It is also about control. Let's face it if you are not one of the people running this country from outside or inside the government you are cattle at this point. The fact that the US is more or less a police state is because our "owners" are loosing there grip on there cattle. So they are reining us in so that we won't destroy there farm.

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No USA, You are the terrorists!

And then the USA sucked..



Why are USA, China, Russia and North Korea trying to win a race for worst country on the earth?

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I hope the NSA/Qubit thingy realizes that it's much too smart to be wasted in what are -by its own realization- human petty matters, like surveilling citizens or furthering micropolitical goals, and just blows the whole shebang up.

StevieCybernetik said:

It's always seemed to me that organizations like this simply resort to the draconian 1984 type scenario's of data-mining on people only because they're becoming incredibly incapable of doing anything investigatory through other means.


I had actually read somewhere that most police forces nowadays are unable to conduct a proper "traditional" investigation, even of the kind you still saw in 70s-80s polilce movies, as they are so reliant on electronic traces, that a criminal using more traditional/obscure channels for communication has a very good chance of eluding them, at least until they start re-training or resorting to specialists. Of course, the temptation to use modern comms is too strong....

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"My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy." Ron Paul.

Love him or hate him he hit the nail on the head with that one. Snowden, like Manning, did his job as an American citizen and he is being punished for it.

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Satyr000 said:

"My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy." Ron Paul.


Interesting. Most constitutions have a clause saying that "Citizens must defend the Constitution with any means possible" but surprise surprise, I've never seen a single resistance/rebellion/terrorist act piggybacking on that clause. Even in regimes that this would make sense, the police and the military who are bound with much stronger -in theory- and explicit oaths to uphold the Constitution (and are armed....) usually do nothing, and if somebody were to "rebel" he would be crushed mercilessly for doing his job/upholding his oath.

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Technician said:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/25/edward-snowden-moscow-vladimir-putin

Snowden is currently sitting in a Moscow airport. Putin says he will not extradite despite Americas requesting his custody.

I think the U.S. has burned too many bridges to expect the very countries they are spying on to turn him over.

And they are asking without a hint of irony.


Putin is smart. The Russians have demanded that the US extradite the Chechen terrorist envoy Ilyas Ahmedov to their country for years, but Zbigniew Brzezinski who lobbied to keep him in America is too powerful so they won't do it. A terrorist PAID for by the US taxpayer.

It's the same old story: Al-Qaeda attacks the enemies of the US. It attacked Russia through Chechnya, Serbia via Kosovo, they tried to kill Gaddafi in the mid 1990's; the David Shayler story etc. Al-Zawahiri's cousin can be found in the KLA so it's basically an arm of Al-Qaeda.

Al-Zawahiri played a role in the assassination of Anwar Sadat so his record is not pretty.

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MRB_Doom said:
The Russians have demanded that the U.S. extradite the Chechen terrorist envoy Ilyas Ahmedov to their country for years, but Zbigniew Brzezinski who lobbied to keep him in America is too powerful so they won't do it. A terrorist PAID for by the U.S. taxpayer.

Snowden might go to Ecuador if Ecuador accepts, and the US told Ecuador that they should return Snowden to the US as quickly as possible if he sets foot on Ecuadorian soil. Ecuador replied:

We would have loved it if the same urgency required of us to deliver Mr. Snowden upon entering Ecuadorian soil, as politely requested in the notice (...) from the US Embassy in Ecuador, had been delivered to many fugitives of the law of Ecuador sheltered in the United States, particularly the corrupt bankers who knowingly casued the country to go bankrupt in 1999, whose extraditions have been repeatedly denied by the United States.

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Interesting about the bankers, not surprising though. Those men who control the money supply controls the planet and they will not go away without a fight that's for sure. But one wants to solve the food crisis in North Korea, the US should just ship over that monstrous blob Michael Moore.

But seriously, this Ahmedov has a travel budget, his own secretary, a nice apartment in Woodley Park Zoo in Washington DC, a Reagan-Fascell grant etc. He is living like royalty while terror attacks occur in the Caucasus that's giving Putin some hard time while trying to push back that insane attempt of a people power coup against him during the elections last year.

Brzezinski almost started World War III back in 2004 during the Orange revolution (CIA color revolution) during the election in Ukraine. If the pro-Moscow part of the country had seceded and become of a part of the Russian Federation, we might have seen Polish NATO troops enter the country from the West and Russian troops from the East, that's World War III no?

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We would have loved it if the same urgency required of us to deliver Mr. Snowden upon entering Ecuadorian soil, as politely requested in the notice (...) from the US Embassy in Ecuador, had been delivered to many fugitives of the law of Ecuador sheltered in the United States, particularly the corrupt bankers who knowingly casued the country to go bankrupt in 1999, whose extraditions have been repeatedly denied by the United States.

Oh God yes!

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I love Ecuador's reply. But, I don't want to see Snowden go to Ecuador. Due to the fact there is a very, very high chance the US gov will make a move on Snowden. Be it a kidnapping or assassination. I really hope Russia is buying time, allowing Snowden to move off the grid in Russia. He could pull it off and its one of the few countries the US is unwilling to go toe to toe with.

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Satyr000 said:

I love Ecuador's reply. But, I don't want to see Snowden go to Ecuador. Due to the fact there is a very, very high chance the US gov will make a move on Snowden.

I agree, especially so close to Mexico.

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NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

“What you really want to know, I would think, is how many innocent U.S. person communications are, one, collected at all, and two, subject to scrutiny,” said Julian Sanchez, a research scholar and close student of the NSA at the Cato Institute.

The documents provided by Snowden offer only glimpses of those questions. Some reports make clear that an unauthorized search produced no records. But a single “incident” in February 2012 involved the unlawful retention of 3,032 files that the surveillance court had ordered the NSA to destroy, according to the May 2012 audit. Each file contained an undisclosed number of telephone call records.

In dozens of cases, NSA personnel made careless use of the agency’s extraordinary powers, according to individual auditing reports. One team of analysts in Hawaii, for example, asked a system called DISHFIRE to find any communications that mentioned both the Swedish manufacturer Ericsson and “radio” or “radar” — a query that could just as easily have collected on people in the United States as on their Pakistani military target.

Read full article for complete story.

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Doesn't surprise me in the least, it's the sort of outcome I expect from an organization that's shielded from public scrutiny and allowed to break the law.

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Only thousands of times per year? Such restraint. I expected numbers in the millions.

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