IP: NSA System Inoperative for Four Days

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

NSA System Inoperative for Four Days

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, January 30, 2000; Page A2

 From Monday evening through early Friday morning last week, the main 
computers of the National Security Agency failed, causing an unprecedented 
blackout of information at Fort Meade, where signals intelligence 
intercepted around the world is processed, officials said last night.

As a result, NSA analytical reports from Fort Meade that turn intercepted 
foreign telephone, cable and radio messages into meaningful data for the 
government were halted for four days, a senior intelligence official said. 
"Other NSA analysis kept flowing from other parts of the world," he added, 
"but this was not a trivial failure."

The computer shutdown, which was first reported yesterday by ABC News, was 
caused by a "system overload," one source said, and was not the result of a 
Y2K problem, sabotage or hackers invading the system. Another official, who 
described it as a "software anomaly," put knowledge of the cause more 
cautiously. "As of now," he said, "there is no evidence other than this was 
a system stressed to meet day-to-day operational pressures."

<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49286-2000Jan29.html