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From: stekas@hou2g.UUCP (J.STEKAS)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: Big Brother
Message-ID: <381@hou2g.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Dec-84 16:16:57 EST
Article-I.D.: hou2g.381
Posted: Mon Dec 10 16:16:57 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Dec-84 04:02:52 EST
References: <237@celerity.UUCP>, <221@looking.UUCP>, <839@houxf.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
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>  I am amazed at the naivete of those who underestimate the capacity
>  of the NSA.    ...         You better believe they're listening
>  to everything, including encrypted messages especially.

To monitor "everything",  the NSA would have to be doing keyword searches
on about 10^12 bps of data during the busy hours of each business day.
Figuring that each byte of data needs at least 8 clock cycles to process,
that translates into more than 10^6 MIPS worth of processing.  That's
about 1000 Crays and we haven't even begun to talk about encrypted data
(and won't all the interesting stuff be encryted) or the network that
ties them to the telephone network.

Considering what it cost the Bell System to put together a network
which could recognize the numbers 0-9 and close the right relays,
it is impossible to believe that the NSA could be doing speach recognition
on EVERY line.

Jim