The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Australia's electronic spy agency, the Australian Signals Directorate, was forced to rely on diesel backup generators when the nation's power supply came under intense pressure during last month's heatwave. The Department of Defence Directorate is a heavy user of power, probably related to the use of powerful computers.
ASD shifted to generators as a precautionary measure because it was concerned about the reliability of the grid, where the local power supplier feared it would be required to conduct rolling blackouts across Canberra, where ASD is housed, to meet the demands of the Australian Energy Market Operator to help stabilise the network.
However it suffered only minor outages after households, businesses and government agencies helped reduce demand.
Politicians are using the event to argue about renewable energy.
There are no indications anyone missed out on being spied on while this occurred.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01 2017, @08:20PM (2 children)
It's got such momentum, I think they've forgotten why they're hoovering up all the data. It's just a habit. One day someone is going to realize we are paying a fortune to store peta bytes of useless noise and then dump all the disks in a landfill.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday March 01 2017, @09:21PM
Your comment reminded me of the storming of the Stasi headquarters in 1989.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1990-0115-030,_Berlin,_Stasi-Zentrale_gest%C3%BCrmt.jpg [wikimedia.org]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1990-0115-034,_Berlin,_St%C3%BCrmung_Stasi-Zentrale.jpg [wikimedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:45PM
Do not forget that the effort to maintain the system is not on those who benefit from it. It is on the ordinary citizen.
No data is unnecessary now that AI can process terabytes of data.
In other words they are storing as much as possible like everybody else is doing.
I am repeating myself but the real circles of hell are money wealth power control, everything in the system is ultimately about control.
Account abandoned.