The Danger Zone For Negroponte (Internet)

Spacewar ^ | Sep 27, 2006 | Arnaud De Borchgrave

[Ben Mugged]

The director of National Intelligence's chief concerns about the future can be summed up with a word and a stat: petabytes and 15 percent. The National Security Agency, one of 16 intelligence agencies under DNI John Negroponte, estimates by next year, the Internet will carry 647 petabytes of data each day. "That's 647 followed by 15 zeros," says Negroponte, "and by way of comparison, the holdings of the entire Library of Congress (130 million items, including 30 million books that occupy 530 miles of book shelves) represent only 0.02 petabytes."

The Internet is also the jihadis' network. "At Internet cafes," Negroponte told a blue-ribbon audience at Washington's Woodrow Wilson Center, "young jihadis, armed with laptops and DVD players, are constantly aiming to further extremist ideology and...replicate training via the Internet."

~snip~ America is losing its competitiveness in science and technology. The DNI recommends we read "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," put out by the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. In the U.S., 34 percent of doctoral degrees in natural sciences and 56 percent of engineering PhDs are awarded -- to foreign-born students.

In other words, said Negroponte, "we are confronting adversaries who are achieving exponential improvements in their operations through widely available cutting-edge technology in which their R and D costs are any CEO's dream -- zero!

U.S. national security is at risk, Negroponte argues, "unless we take steps to deal with it right away." The 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act created a Director of Science and Technology in the DNI's office. It also established the Director of National Science and Technology Committee with all the chief science officers from the entire intelligence community.

[Ben Mugged]

"we are confronting adversaries who are achieving exponential improvements in their operations through widely available cutting-edge technology in which their R and D costs are any CEO's dream -- zero!

[P-40]

"At Internet cafes,"

I guess they can go there if they want some fresh coffee while they do their terrorism...otherwise any neighborhood will have no shortage of open transmitters. Some cities even provide widespread anonymous wireless access.

[ProudFossil]

It's all Gore's fault. He invented the Internet.