Saul Loeb

Here's a fun one: The folks over at Federal Computer Week got their hands on a hot rumor about Amazon supposedly building a cloud service for the spooks over at the Central Intelligence Agency, a project estimated to be "worth up to $600 million over 10 years."

Amazon Web Services will help the intelligence agency build a private cloud infrastructure that helps the agency keep up with emerging technologies like big data in a cost-effective manner not possible under the CIA's previous cloud efforts, sources told FCW.

Given how Amazon usually considers everything -- including the state of the current weather in Seattle -- as something of a state secret, odds are we'll never hear much more. We've contacted Amazon for comment and will update the post when there's more information. In its post, FCW pointed to a recent appearance by the agency's chief information officer, Jeanne Tisinger, at the Northern Virginia Technology Council Board of Directors, where she reportedly explained that the CIA wants to take advantage of innovations in the commercial sector to cut IT costs and leverage software-as-a-service.