NSA to open a $60.75 million "data analysis" (spy) center at North Carolina State University
N.C. State University has announced a partnership with the National Security Agency (NSA) to help address big data problems.
It will be the largest sponsored research contract in the university’s history, according to NCSU, and will bring 100 or more jobs to the Triangle.
The NSA has received a lot of national press lately after Edward Snowden leaked documents that the NSA was collecting data, though not recordings, of cellphone calls as well as some Facebook and email postings.
The NCSU announcement did not directly address Snowden or the leaked documents, but university spokesman Mick Kulikowski offered the following assurance: “The faculty, staff and students in this lab will not work on any operational intelligence problems or use the data related to those problems,” he wrote in an email.
The partnership will establish the Laboratory for Analytic Sciences (LAS) on N.C. State’s Centennial Campus with a main goal to promote new advances in the science of analysis through innovative collaborations between industry, academia and government.
NCSU has been on the front lines of big data analytics for years. Jim Goodnight famously started analytics giant SAS out of the university. Also, N.C. State offers an intensive 10-month Master of Science in Analytics degree that boasts before-graduation job-placement rates of more than 90 percent.
http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2013/08/15/nc-state-partners-with-nsa-on-big.html
NSA's press release: NSA creates partnership with North Carolina State University
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/press_room/2013/nc_state_partnership.shtml
SDS protests NSA research lab, holds encryption clinic:
A group of N.C. State students protested the University’s August announcement that the National Security Agency is open a research lab on Centennial Campus.
NCSU Students for Democratic Society led a Cryptoparty Monday to teach attendees about protecting themselves from governmental surveillance and show their frustration with recent revelations about the NSA’s data collection methods. The event culminated in an artistic demonstration at the Bell Tower.
http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_d4842976-4050-11e3-bcd9-0019bb30f31a.html