This is embarrassingly funny. The WSJ reports that the NSA's new Utah data center has suffered 10 meltdowns in the past 13 months because of electrical surges. The NSA is basically using so much power in its spying efforts that it is poetically killing its data centers. Seriously, the surges have destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in machinery.


The WSJ got access to project documents that detail the problems of its Utah data center and it's unsympathetically brutal. Apparently, arc fault failures—described by an official who spoke to the WSJ as "a flash of lightning inside a 2-foot box"—are causing fiery explosions, melting metal and destroying circuits inside the center.

The power chugging of the data center is no joke: it spends $1 million a month for power and uses 65 megawatts, enough to power a city of 20,000 people. All in the name of spying! It seems like officials are unsure how to fix the power problems as backup generators have failed tests, the cooling systems are untested and the government and contractors are disagreeing about "the adequacy of the electrical control systems".


Fun times for the NSA ahead. Read more about its data center failing at the WSJ. [WSJ]

Image by Konstantin Yolshin/Shutterstock