Read any good books lately? Oh yeah, by the way, Amazon is controlling the CIA. Okay, so maybe the e-commerce company’s isn’t actually running the CIA, but its secure cloud hosting services will soon support the CIA’s own in-house private cloud infrastructure.
Instead of trying to convince 40-year-old housewives to read 50 Shades of Grey , the company will be securing some of America’s most well kept secrets. Amazon on Tuesday announced a new $600 million contract with the CIA that will extend for 10 years.
Over the period of the contract, Amazon will help the CIA construct its own cloud services that will help with data mining tasks in a cost effective manner.
The CIA is hoping that Amazon can help it scale its data mining services at a level never previously thought possible.
According to a CIA spokesperson, “As a general rule, the CIA does not publicly disclose details of our contracts, the identities of our contractors, the contract values, or the scope of work.”
The CIA has worked on its own cloud services in the past but this new deal marks the first time the company has announced the type of scale it is now hoping to achieve. The CIA’s previous effort was not successful in cross-referencing trends and identity issues for national security issues, a fact that likely led the CIA to its current Amazon partnership.
According to a press release the cloud effort would be governed by the IC Information Technology Enterprise (IC ITE) strategy which “focuses on enabling greater integration, information sharing, and information safeguarding through a common IC IT approach that substantially reduces costs.”
No further details are available about the new cloud platform at this time, and it is very likely that any new possible details will be suppressed.
If Amazon starts recommending anti-privacy books during my future orders, I’m going to start doing all my shopping at Target.
