
PRISM: The Amazingly Low Cost of ­Using Big Data to Know More About You - JeffDClark
http://highscalability.com/blog/2013/7/1/prism-the-amazingly-low-cost-of-using-bigdata-to-know-more-a.html
======
skwirl
According to the PRISM slides, the program costs $20 million per year. This
article doesn't mention that, although it should, because it is telling. If
the author believes that this program could be implemented at a minimum of
$187 million per year, then that $20 million claim is problematic.

Either the $20 million claim is wrong, and then all the information on the
slides is suspect, or it is correct, and the scope of PRISM is much smaller
than is widely believed and is believed by the author of this article. Or the
author of this article properly understands the scope and is in error in his
calculation.

~~~
mtgx
PRISM is probably just a small part of the all-encompassing spying program.

~~~
sp332
Right, PRISM is just the project that gives the NSA access to data stored on
other (Google, Facebook et al.) servers. The active eavesdropping and other
systems aren't included.

~~~
sneak
The data storage, processing, and development costs for the bulk of the
programs that intercept/store the raw data are likely not included, either.

Based on the new slides[1] from WaPo, PRISM collection spans many other non-
PRISM programs, such as the now-known MAINWAY (internet metadata), MARINA
(internet content), and NUCLEON (voice content).

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/m/)

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sneak
From TFA:

> Do you think that PRISM can be built using a different tech stack?

From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Accumulo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Accumulo)
:

> Apache Accumulo is a sorted, distributed key/value store based on Google's
> BigTable design. It is a system built on top of Apache Hadoop, Apache
> ZooKeeper, and Apache Thrift. Written in Java, Accumulo has cell-level
> access labels and server-side programming mechanisms.

> Accumulo was created in 2008 by the National Security Agency and contributed
> to the Apache Foundation as an incubator project in September 2011.

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capkutay
I would assume the government would require services and large teams to help
them make sense of the data along with the low the infrastructure described by
the article.

~~~
Sven7
I am pretty sure they can't make sense of the data, nor can they afford the
sort of talent that might be able to make sense of the data. So they do whats
easy...just keep collecting more.

It's much more efficient as an employment/pension guarantee scheme than an
efficient intelligence tool.

Reminds me of the qoute from Yes Minister - Something must be done. This is
something. Therefore we must do it.

~~~
dreamfactory
According to an ex-Stasi chief on these revelations: “It is the height of
naivete to think that once collected this information won’t be used”.

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57591551-83/ex-stasi-
boss-g...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57591551-83/ex-stasi-boss-green-
with-envy-over-nsas-domestic-spy-powers/)

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ww520
The low cost is probably because the partner commercial companies are
"donating" their vast collecting resources to help the program.

~~~
AsymetricCom
Well, eliminating redundant or spurious data further down the stack can make
these kinds of big data operations very cheaply. It's the difference between
parsing unstructured logs and a flat file. There is no resources being spent
if the data is proactively being maintained and curated.

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droz
The developer salary costs seem really outlandish. 500k euro for a "top notch
developer" and 250k euro for "supporting developers". Where are these
estimates coming from?

~~~
angersock
This is what's referred to as "blood money".

I wouldn't sell out my fellow man for anything less.

~~~
bigiain
If anybody's buying, I'd consider selling out my fellow man for $490K (with
suitable benefits). ;-)

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mitchi
Please, our CANADIAN Firearms Registry program cost 66M a year. And that's
Canada, the gun land!

I would expect Prim to at LEAST cost more than Instagram, no? :)

