On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 21:46:38 GMT, Tony Hill <hilla_nospam_20.RemoveThis@yahoo.ca>
wrote:
>On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 11:26:44 GMT, "Felger Carbon" <fmsfnf.RemoveThis@jfoops.net>
>wrote:
>>"The supercomputer industry has begun to show renewed signs of life
>>after almost a decade of decline - bolstered in part by the
>>government's efforts to develop systems to help prevent terrorism as
>>well as concerns over global economic competitiveness."
>>
>><http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/24/technology/24neco.html>
>
>Dumb question perhaps, but can anyone please give me at least a tiny
>hint as to how faster/better supercomputers help prevent terrorism?
>Anything?
>
>I could be wrong, but it seems to me like this "prevent terrorism"
>thing is being thrown around anytime someone needs to justify spending
>money these days.
>
It is by this time no particular secret that US intelligence-gathering
agencies have always been first in line for supercomputers.
Some identifiable number of <computers from well-known manufacturer>
can't be accounted for because they were swallowed by national
security black holes.
While there is a potentially Orwellian aspect to the whole
business--spying on ordinary citizens, for example--that is far from
the highest priority use for supercomuters.
A tremendous amount of encrypted or otherwise disguised communication
traffic crosses US borders and is obtained by other means every day.
Some of that traffic without the slightest doubt contains information
of urgent national importance.
Identifiying that information and decoding it is one of the most
computationally-intensive tasks there is, and it wouldn't do nearly as
much good to crack a PGP message from one Al Qaeda supporter to
another the day *after* a terrorist attack hits as it would to crack
it the day before the attack so it could be prevented. Time is of the
essence.
No matter what your politics may be or what you may think about the
how the US government is handling the "war on terrorism," there is a
network of people who are intent upon committing terrorist acts and
who often communicate with cell phones and PC's. Not to use the
fastest computers available to try to catch them making preparations
for such an act would be irresponsible.
To pursue the matter a bit further, the US has had a miserable history
in the spying business, at least Post WW-II. The best way to spy is
the old fashioned way: recruit human beings who are capable of
infiltrating the infrastructure of adversaries and reporting upon
their activities.
For all kinds of reasons, none of which would be appropriate as topics
for discussion in this forum, the adversaries of the US and its allies
have generally been better at "human intelligence" than the US has
been.
At some point in the Eisenhower administration, someone had the wits
to recognize that the history-majors running our
intelligence-gathering agencies just weren't going to solve the
problem, and the US has relied heavily on physicists, mathematicians,
electrical engineers, and rocket scientists ever since.
The situation hasn't changed all that much, really, since the
Eisenhower Administrations. The US national security apparatus has
similar challenges, similar failings, and similar means are being used
to compensate. Only the technology has changed.
RM<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
>> Stay informed about: The NYT's Markoff on supercomputing 
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