Digital Economy Act

For those who thought that there's too much data to be able to spy on it all, it seems the sky's the limit

In reference to microelectronics.cbronline.com/news/ibm-introduces-new-chip-technol...:

IBM has introduced a new chip-making technology that can be used to create advanced semiconductors to keep pace with the increasing number of Internet-connected devices and the data they are generating.

The company said that the Cu-32 custom logic offering employs its technology to increase the memory capacity and processing speeds of chips used in fibre-optic and wireless networks, routers and switches.

IBM said using Cu-32 in systems results in cellular infrastructure that can move one year's worth of text messages (six trillion, worldwide in 2010) in less than ten seconds; a consumer downloading a feature-length film on a smart phone in less than ten seconds; or a HD version in under a minute; and routers that can stream every motion picture ever produced in less than one minute.

Why is that linked to DEA? This would seem to be a new technology to allow faster communications in order to provide ever faster ways of moving data around. Surely that is primarily for speeding up communications rather than for monitoring them - and therefore the opposite of your opening sentence?

The idea that it is impossible to spy on the data due to the immense volume is no longer an issue.

But my reading of it is that this technology will further increase the amount of data that can be transmitted therefore compounding the issue of surveillance rather than make it easier. I know how you are reading it but it isn't actually the thrust of the article which is about making it possible to send more comms around the world not about making it easier to intercept the existing comms.

Technically no problem is processing the data as it stands now, just the cost of doing so and the benefit that it may bring.

Seriously doubt that the data would be processed, more likely a storage system with a way of searching for patterns at a later date.

A few 10GigE links to very fast data storage centres can do the storage, just that 3Gbps disk arrays are not cheap.

I'd certainly agree with you that the ability to transmit, and capture, more data only makes the problems worse for anyone trying to monitor it. The problem is not with transmitting data (although long-term storage is more of a difficulty) but with sifting through the increasingly large haystack to find the odd needle.

That one is easy. You just look for bigger, blunter needles so as to "justify" the cost of exercise.

I think you'll find in any system, the bottleneck is moving the data.

Not so. Just look at the supermarket checkout queues at the weekend, In any case irrelevant to my previous comment.

Edited by gomezz (Thu 11-Nov-10 16:43:20)

In reply to a post by gomezz:

Not so. Just look at the supermarket checkout queues at the weekend,

Data = Groceries.