How a Wild Theoretical Claim About the NSA Magically Transformed Into Factual Reality
** Interesting breakdown of how information is distorted by news sources quoting one another a la the children's game "telephone"
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/07/how-a-wild-theoretical-claim-about-the-nsa-transformed-into-factual-reality/
For the last month or so, we’ve talked a lot about how sloppy, scattered reporting has served to mislead readers — perhaps deliberately — about the details of various bombshell National Security Agency (NSA) stories presented by Glenn Greenwald and others. Outrage-porn and link-bait has on more than one occasion miraculously transformed into factual reality. The following is a case study in how it happens.
On Thursday, I watched a video monologue by Cenk Uygur via the following tweet:
“Millions Of Gigabytes Collected Daily UNDERWATER By US, England http://bit.ly/1aToyme via @CenkUygur”
There’s one major problem with Cenk’s big screamer headline: it’s simply incorrect.
----snip
Based on the post by The Atlantic, Cenk reported that, yes, the GCHQ taps into underwater cables and subsequently shares its intelligence with NSA
Nevertheless, Cenk’s monologue finally arrived at the content of his headline: the “millions of gigabytes” of information that’s evidently being “collected daily.” Again, drawn from The Atlantic‘s article, Cenk said that this operation, called “Tempora,” is literally gathering 21 million gigabytes, or 21 petabytes of data per day. That’s 21 times more data than the entire Netflix streaming library. Per day. Here’s The Atlantic:
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“[T]he tapped cables had the capacity, in theory, to deliver more than 21 petabytes a day…” In theory. The entire 21 million gigabytes line was drawn from a theoretical notion presented by the five reporters who authored the article for The Guardian. Put another way, no! NSA and GCHQ are absolutely not gathering and/or analyzing that much data per day.
This entirely invalidates Cenk’s screamer headline and the central focus of his rant. But it grew out of a wild, theoretical assertion by The Guardian, which was later transformed into a fact by the New Scientist and repeated by The Atlantic. Had any of the subsequent writers bothered to read the original piece in The Guardian they would’ve discovered that it was a theoretical claim — not a statement of fact.
To recap the “Telephone” game:
= new reply since forum marked as read
But there's just too damned much wild speculation on this issue. That hurts our case!!
Thanks for your reply.
He gets the layperson because they don't have a grasp of the size of communication networks.
Shit, one piece of multi-mode fiber and some DWDM gear would blow the layman's mind much less undersea cable routes LOL.
Go look at Level 3's website. They have maps of their fiber routes around the World. And trust me. If you are going to spend Billions of dollars laying a route across an ocean, it's more than one strand of fiber.
When Ted Stevens said the Internet is a series of tubes, in retrospect I'm think a LOT of folks had no right making fun of him. I know see that most people really do think the Internet "is a bunch of tubes" 
I've posted numerous threads since Snowy hit the scene.
There is a big difference from being able to "process" information and "collecting" all the data in the World. I can walk down the hall here and grab one of our sequel server gurus and be able to process all kinds of data.
You know how many class5 switches exist in the United States? You know how CALEA really works? You ever work with trusted third parties? How many hops does a phone call take when you pick up your Sprint Cellphone and call somebody who has a POTS line with Birch Communications?
Don't worry though, it's just a series of tubes, like 7 LOL. PM me your phone number and I'll show you a cool trick, actually, give me two numbers and I'll do a really cool trick for you
1) Do you believe that NSA can and does intercept the data (the "take"
that flows through fiber cables, as illustrated in the slide below?
2) Do you believe that NSA can and does "process" that data, i.e., data mines it in whole or part?
3) Do you believe that NSA can and does "store" that data, i.e., warehouses it in whole or part?
Kapeche? And, please answer the other questions as well as you can.
Interesting. Since we pioneered the technology in the 1960's, improved it through the 1970's, and 1980's. God and those with Top Secret Clearances probably know what it is capable of today.
Operation IVY BELLS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells
Underwater Telephone Cable Tap Pod from the 1970's. This one is in a Russian Museum because they found and captured and after examining the technology, put it on display to prove American criminal invasions of Russian Territorial Waters. So that way it was easy to prove the Americans were breaking international law to spy on the Soviets, because we were breaking international law to spy on the Soviets.
But somehow we've gone backwards in technology. Now, we couldn't possibly invent a similar pod that would capture all that data and sort it out. RIGHT.
As our technology intelligence increases our ability to store and sift data decreases. That's why we need "The Cloud".
Duhhhh... the cloud is effervescent. It allows data to flow through the air without being molested by prying eyes{spies}.
Uhhhhnnn... Nerd Bumps*
*Nerd Bumps: Much like goose bumps but exist and spread across the brain synapses.
K & R 
