{"id":6261,"date":"2013-06-09T12:03:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T19:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=3293"},"modified":"2025-12-14T13:25:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T21:25:40","slug":"is-the-nsa-using-backblaze-storage-pods-for-prism-surveillance-data-heres-what-we-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/is-the-nsa-using-backblaze-storage-pods-for-prism-surveillance-data-heres-what-we-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Backblaze Did NOT Provide Any Data to NSA PRISM"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The leaked presentation<\/a> about PRISM detailed the ability for the NSA to collect emails, photos, videos, and more from nine companies including: Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple. There has been a tremendous amount of debate about whether PRISM allows \u201cdirect\u201d access to these companies\u2019 servers, somewhat limited access through some type of intermediate portal, or only the fulfillment of individual legally required requests. There have also been denials by all nine of the companies listed as \u201ccurrent providers\u201d regarding whether PRISM actually has direct access.<\/p>\n

(Note: Backblaze did not share customer data with PRISM<\/a>. This post is about whether the NSA is using Backblaze Storage Pod<\/a> technology that we open sourced.)<\/p>\n

Regardless what the NSA actually has<\/em> gotten access to and how they have done so, it\u2019s clear that their intent<\/em> is to collect an astounding amount of digital data. How much data?<\/p>\n

On November 1, 2009, TechCrunch reported (based on a book review of “The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency<\/a>“) that the NSA intends to build a new $2 billion Utah-based data center to store a yottabyte of surveillance data<\/a> by the end of 2015.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nearly impossible to wrap your head around how much data is in a yottabyte, but since Backblaze<\/a> is in the business of backing up mass volumes of data, we decided to give some context with a blog post a couple weeks later: “The NSA Might Want Some Backblaze Pods<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

We estimated it would cost over $100 trillion and require data centers the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined to store that much data.<\/p>\n

To put it in other terms, Facebook announced that it has 250 petabytes<\/a> of data. A yottabyte is a billion petabytes. The NSA intends to have the capacity to store all of Facebook’s data four million times over.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, why do we think the NSA may be using Backblaze Storage Pods?<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the goal of storing an outrageous amount of data, there would be several design goals:<\/p>\n