Wal-Mart Partners With Army Reserve

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Wal-Mart Partners With Army Reserve

(Wal-Mart is known to be the largest computer data storage center FOR THE US MILITARY – each Wal-Mart warehouse basement is filled with super computers directly connected to the Pentagon and Department of Defense)






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Wal-Mart Partners With Army Reserve
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Associated Press
November 12, 2008

http://www. military. com/news/article/wal-mart-partners-with-army-...

BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
has signed on to an Army Reserve program that allows the company and the Army to work together to recruit and train people interested in serving in the military and working for the giant retailer

Wal-Mart, the world's largest private employer, has more than 1.4 million U.S.
employees

An agreement signed Tuesday obligates Wal-Mart to interview and consider all qualified, participating soldiers for employment after they complete military occupational specialty training

Lt. Gen. Jack C.
Stultz, chief of the Army Reserve, was in Bentonville for the Veterans Day signing of the agreement

When a reserve soldier who works at Wal-Mart is called to service, the company can draw on 1 million or so citizen soldiers to help identify a qualified replacement to work in the soldier's place.
The arrangement is expected to lower costs of recruiting and training for Wal-Mart

The Army Reserve launched the program in April and has already linked with numerous companies, including Lowell-based J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc., Sears Holding Corp., Manpower Inc. and Northrop Grumman Corp.
, among others

The program also helps the Army find trained professionals

"I'm honored to officially begin an enduring partnership with a company of such impressive stature, the nation's largest private employer," Stultz said.
"Wal-Mart has been a great friend to the military, and I look forward to collaborating with our newest valued partner to achieve mutual goals to attract, develop and retain a quality workforce"

Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott said the agreement fits with Wal-Mart's way of providing employment

"Our company has a longstanding commitment to providing employment opportunities in the community.
We have also long recognized those who serve in the military, and it is a privilege to assist the troops and their families with this new initiative," Scott said

Wal-Mart has taken part in a number of other military-related programs, including one to help children deal with the stress of military life and providing pre-paid phone cards to deployed troops

The right wavelength: Wal-Mart and the U. S. military provide a big...
Read The Rest HERE



Globe File The Wal-Mart Data Center in McDonald County is deemed so secret the county assessor was required to sign a non-disclosure statement before entering the site to determine property value The photo was taken in 2004, when the center was nearly complete

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Wal-Mart's data center remains mystery
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The Joplin Globe
By Max McCoy
Globe Investigative Writer

http://www. joplinglobe. com/local/local_story_148015054

JANE, Mo.
- Call it Area 71

Behind a fence topped with razor wire just off U.S.
Highway 71 is a bunker of a building that Wal-Mart considers so secret that it won't even let the county assessor inside without a nondisclosure agreement

The 125,000-square-foot building, tucked behind a new Wal-Mart Supercenter, is only a stone's throw from the Arkansas line and about 15 miles from corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark

There is nothing about the building to give even a hint that Wal-Mart owns it

Despite the glimpses through the fence of manicured grass and carefully placed trees, the overall impression is that this is a secure site that could withstand just about anything. Earth is packed against the sides. The green roof - meant, perhaps, to blend into the surrounding Ozarks hills - bristles with dish antennas.
On one of the heavy steel gates at the guardhouse is a notice that visitors must use the intercom for assistance

What the building houses is a mystery

Speculation

Wal-Mart's ability to crunch numbers is a favorite of conspiracy theorists, and its data centers are the corporate counterpart to Area 51 at Groom Lake in the state of Nevada.
According to one consumer activist, Katherine Albrecht, even the wildest conspiracy buff might be surprised at just how much Wal-Mart knows about its customers - and how much more it would like to know

"We were contacted about two years ago by somebody who runs a security company that had been asked in a request for proposals for ways they could link video footage with customers paying for their purchases," Albrecht said. "Wal-Mart would actually be able to view photos and video of customers paying, say, for a pack of gum.
At the time, it struck me as unbelievably outlandish because of the amount of data storage required"

But Wal-Mart, according to a 2004 New York Times article, had enough storage capacity to contain twice the amount of all the information available on the Internet. For the technically minded, the exact amount was for 460 terabytes of data.
The prefix tera comes from the Greek word for monster, and a terabyte is a trillion bytes, the basic unit of computer storage

Albrecht, founder of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, said she never could confirm the contractor's story.
That is not surprising, since Wal-Mart seldom comments on its data capabilities and operations

A Globe request for information about the Jane data center was referred at Wal-Mart headquarters to Carrie Thum, a senior information officer and former lobbyist for the retailer

"This is not something that we discuss publicly," Thum said. "We have no comment.
And that's off the record"

Skeleton crew


The Jane data center is an enigmatic icon to the power of data, which has helped Wal-Mart become the largest retailer in the world, and to the corporation's growing secrecy since founder Sam Walton's death in 1992.
When Wal-Mart constructed its primary data center at corporate headquarters in 1989, it wasn't much of a secret: It was the largest poured concrete structure in Arkansas at the time, and Walton himself ordered a third story

"Not only had we completely designed it, we were under construction," said Bill Ferguson, a founder of Askew Nixon Ferguson Architects in Memphis, Tenn.
"They were pouring foundations, and Sam walked across the parking lot one Friday at the end of the day and said, 'You know, let's add a third floor and put some people up there'"

Ferguson said the Bentonville data center is built on bedrock and is designed to withstand most natural and man-made disasters, but is not impregnable.
The biggest danger, he said, is the area's frequently violent thunderstorms

"We studied making it tornado-proof, which is difficult," he said. "We calculated the probability of a category 5 tornado hitting it, which was less likely than an airplane crashing into it head-on.
At the time, they decided not to"

Since then, Ferguson said, changes have been made to increase the integrity of the structure.
The data center was designed with backup generators, fuel on site, and room and board for a skeleton crew in the event an emergency required an extended stay

Ferguson said his firm learned to design data centers by working with FedEx, which also is based in Memphis, and that the 1989 Wal-Mart data center was built so that it could communicate via any means available - including copper wire, fiber optics and satellites

The firm no longer works with Wal-Mart, and Ferguson said he had no knowledge of the design or purpose of the data center in Jane.
But he suggested that Jim Liles, a Memphis engineer, might know

Liles said he was a consultant on the Jane project, and that Crossland Construction was the contractor, but he was reluctant to say much else.
"As far as what its purpose is, all that has to come from Wal-Mart," Liles said

Crossland Construction, based in Columbus, Kan., said Tim Oelke of the company's Rogers, Ark., office had been in charge.
Oelke did not return a phone call seeking comment

'Never saw a plan'

The data center was completed in 2004 and was part of a project that included the Supercenter, which opened early last year, and a warehouse.
The resulting economic impact on McDonald County, known for its rolling hills and lazy rivers, is difficult to underestimate, said Rusty Enlow

"Just a few years ago, one new store would have been a big deal," Enlow said. "And I'm not talking about a Supercenter.
Just a gas station would have generated excitement"

Now, Enlow said, the county's tax base has doubled, and land is going for about $2,100 an acre, about twice what it was before the project was announced in 2001

Enlow is chairman of the county planning commission, a body created by popular vote in 1964 but which had not met until this month. Enlow said he doesn't know why the commission never met, but he believes it was because whatever problem prompted its creation was solved before the board was appointed.
He also said he's not sure the planning commission has any real authority, or would want any (there is no zoning in the county), but that he and the other 18 members are eager to bring even more business into the county

Read The Rest HERE



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Wal-Mart Spying: Good, Bad, Or Just The Future?
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RINF
Friday, January 18th, 2008

Mel Duvall

Wal-Mart is used to finding its name on the front page of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, but in March of 2007 it found itself making news under very different circumstances

Wal-Mart officially apologized to the Times and retail reporter Michael Barbaro after a member of its internal security organization was found to have secretly taped conversations between Wal-Mart employees and the Times reporter. Not only did Wal-Mart apologize to the reporter, chief executive H.
Lee Scott phoned the chief executive of The New York Times to personally offer an explanation and convey the information that the technician involved, who had 19-years with the company, as well as a supervisor, had been fired

But the matter did not end there. Weeks later, the fired technician, Bruce Gabbard, went public, telling The Wall Street Journal he was part of a larger, sophisticated surveillance operation at Wal-Mart.
Gabbard said the retailer employs a variety of means, including software that can monitor every key stroke on the retailer’s network, to keep tabs not only on employees but also on its board of directors, stockholders, critics of the company, and in at least one instance, on a consultant, McKinsey & Co

Wal-Mart later denied some of Gabbard’s allegations, in particular statements made that Wal-Mart had spied on its own directors as well as shareholders, but the incident cast a spotlight on the retailer’s normally secretive security organization. McKinsey & Co.
was contacted by CIOZone to confirm Gabbard’s statement that Wal-Mart spied on its consultants, but spokesman Mark Garrett said because of the confidential nature of McKinsey’s work with clients, the firm declined to comment

Kenneth Senser, a former top official at the C.I.A., heads the company’s global security operations. His lieutenants include a number of former government and defense department security specialists. David Harrison, a former member of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, heads the company’s analytic research center, which has a mandate to identify threats from suspect individuals and groups. Joseph Lewis, a 27-year FBI veteran, heads corporate investigations.
And Steve Dozier, former director of the Arkansas State Police, is a VP in charge of corporate investigative services

It is not unusual for Fortune 500 companies to hire law enforcement or intelligence experts for their security departments, but Wal-Mart actively recruits those with military or intelligence backgrounds.
Last March it posted ads on its Web site and on sites for security professionals for “global threat analysts” with backgrounds in government or military intelligence

“Like most major corporations, it is our corporate responsibility to have systems in place, including software systems, to monitor threats to our network, intellectual property and our people,” Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark said in a statement in April. Following the Gabbard firing, Wal-Mart said it conducted a review of its monitoring activities.
“There have been changes in leadership, and we have strengthened our practices and protocols in this area,” Clark said

When contacted by CIOZone, Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley restated the company monitors threats using a variety of techniques, as would any company its size. “Every company has an obligation to its shareholders and to its employees to ensure that its information isn’t compromised,” Simley said.
Simley would not, however, provide details on the security department reorganization

To be fair, Wal-Mart is not the only company involved in a spying controversy.
Other high-profile corporate spying incidents have drawn public attention to the fact that companies are using an increasing array of methods to snoop on, or monitor as is the preferred term, the everyday activities of employees, suppliers and customers on their networks

In December a researcher in the anti-spyware unit of Computer Associates, revealed that Sears Holdings Corp.
had installed spyware software in a program offered to customers via its “My SHC Community” shopping network that allowed Sears to track its members online browsing behavior

Sears says it does disclose the tracking software in a privacy statement, but Harvard Business School assistant professor Ben Edelman has criticized the retailer, saying the disclosure is difficult to find and consumers rarely read such statements

Boeing was the subject of a Seattle Post Intelligencer investigative story in November, which questioned its monitoring activities, including the reading of emails and videotaping of employees. Boeing spokesman Tim Neale said when employees log on to the corporate network they are fully informed that their activities are being monitored. He said only authorized personnel have the capability to monitor corporate systems and they do so only when they have reason to suspect abuse or misuse. “For example, it is against company policy for an employee to use company systems to run his or her own business,” Neal said.
“Of course, it is also against company policy to share proprietary information with parties outside the company, unless authorized by management to do so
”
And, in probably the most publicized example, Hewlett-Packard found itself in hot water with California regulators in 2006 after it initiated an investigation of its own board of directors to discover the source of leaks to the media. The investigation included monitoring of emails and instant messages, as well as using illegal means to obtain telephone records of employees and journalists. The company was ordered to pay $14.
5 million in fines and bring its internal investigations into compliance with California laws

Most employees have now come to expect that their activities on corporate computers are being monitored to a certain degree

But in 2008 CIOs will be increasingly drawn into discussions about who should be in charge of monitoring employees, what software tools should be deployed to protect corporate resources, and which electronic activities corporations should or shouldn’t watch. “There used to be an argument over whether we should be doing this at all,” says Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, an industry-sponsored research group and computer security training body.
“It rarely comes up as an issue any more
”
David Zweig, an associate professor of organizational behavior with the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto who has written books on the issue of workplace monitoring, says that it is now believed close to 75% of employers have some form of electronic monitoring in the workplace

Zweig is not against monitoring. He believes in today’s environment, where companies face a wide range of internal and external threats, some levels of monitoring are necessary. However, he believes the monitoring should be in relation to the risk, and that companies need to do more to inform employees exactly how they are being monitored and why. “If you give people a rational explanation for monitoring, they will at least see why the company is doing it,” he says.
“But you should be open and inform them exactly how it’s being done and what controls are in place

“It’s easy to monitor—it’s much more difficult to develop proper controls and processes,” he says

Ira Winkler, president of Internet Security Advisors Group of Baltimore, Md., and author of books such as “Spies Among Us” and “Zen and the Art of Information Security,” doesn’t believe in coddling employees with lengthy disclosures and explanations for why monitoring is taking place. “Get over it. Companies need to protect themselves,” says Winkler.
“The fact is nobody should have any expectations of privacy when they’re using the company’s computers
”
In fact, Winkler advocates companies apply a blanket approach to security and use of the Internet in particular. Simply tell employees or suppliers accessing a corporation’s network, they are being monitored and non-approved activities will not be tolerated.
End of story

Is that fair? “I think it’s totally fair,” he says.
“If I want to go shop on eBay or download porn on a company computer, that’s my stupidity, not the company’s,” he says

For many organizations the line will probably be drawn somewhere between Zweig’s and Winkler’s viewpoints.
But what is clear is a mounting body of evidence points to the need for network monitoring against a wider definition of internal and external threats

As the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart does often find itself a target for a wide range of protests and potential security threats. Its stores have been targeted by groups who feel its low wages contribute to the working poor and it has been the subject of frequent union protests over its healthcare policies. In December alone, Wal-Mart stores were evacuated for periods of time after bomb threats were reported at stores in Somerworth, N.H., Noblesville, Ind., Viera, Fla., Fruitland, Md., Fayetteville, Ark., Garden City, Kan.
, and Halifax, Nova Scotia


At a gathering of security specialists in New York City in January of 2006, David Harrison, the former Army military intelligence officer who was hired by Senser to head Wal-Mart’s analytical security research center, provided a rare glimpse into the company’s monitoring operations.
Harrison told the gathering Wal-Mart faces a wide range of threats: “A bombing in China, an armed robbery in Brazil, an armed robbery in Las Vegas, another bomb threat, and that was just yesterday,” Harrison said


To safeguard its employees and operations Wal-Mart has tapped its massive data warehouse of information, now believed to be larger than 4 petabytes (4,000 terabytes), to look for potential threats. It tracks customers who buy propane tanks, for example, or anyone who has fraudulently cashed a check, or anyone making bulk purchases of pre-paid cell phones, which could be tied to criminal activities.
“If you try to buy more than three cell phones at one time, it will be tracked,” he reportedly told the audience


Read The Rest HERE




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At Wal-Mart, Worlds Largest Retail Data Warehouse Gets Even Larger
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By Evan Schuman
2004-10-13

http://www. eweek. com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/At-WalMart-World...

At more than one-half a petabyte—or more than 500 terabytes—the warehouse dwarfs other retail databases

Its only fitting that the largest retailer should have the worlds largest database, but at more than one-half a petabyte, thats a lot of information, even for Wal-Mart

The vendor that is supporting those many bytes of data—NCRs Teradata division—begged for the extraordinary permission from the normally secretive Wal-Mart to announce this achievement Wednesday to make a point: It is arguing that its systems can scale without hiccups even at an extreme number

But Wal-Mart being Wal-Mart, its not saying much. While confirming that it does even now have the worlds largest datawarehouse—and that it permitted its supplier to announce that—it wont say anything other than "to acknowledge an important milestone," said Gus Whitcomb, Wal-Marts director of corporate communications.
He referred questions to Teradata, saying its their announcement

Beyond issuing a news release that Wal-Mart is "increasing its lead as the largest retail data warehouse in the world," it gave no details as to the size or specifics.
The "more than 500 terabytes" figure came from a source who didnt want a name or a company linked to the figure

The statement did, however, point out that this massive data warehouse is not solely a customer CRM system, but also serves as the base for Wal-Marts Retail Link decision-support system between Wal-Mart and its suppliers.
Retail Link allows suppliers to access large amounts of online, real-time, item-level data to help those suppliers improve operations


Back at Teradata, officials are prohibited from discussing what they have done for Wal-Mart, but one vice president did take the opportunity to argue what it means from an IT perspective

"The issues we encounter at Wal-Mart are really not all that different from smaller retail data warehouses," said Rob Berman, vice president of Teradatas retail operations.
He contrasted Wal-Marts current data warehouse size with its earliest stage, when it was literally less than one-thousandth of its current size

"When Wal-Mart started with a 320-GByte data warehouse, it used one database administrator [DBA].
Today, the number of DBAs is still fewer than five," Berman said

Unlike a typical database that can get slower as it expands—and requires more time to complete backups and virus scans, for example—Berman argues that Teradatas approach sidesteps those growth issues. "Our system is nearly 100 percent linear-scalable.
Its designed to scale without the management restrictions of other databases"

How so? "Every time we add a node, we add an equal amount of bandwidth," he said. "Every time we add a component of processing power, we add another component of bandwidth. We just grow the highway.
Every time they grow in DASD [direct-access storage device], we add I/O bandwidth"

Retail Center Editor Evan Schuman can be reached at [e-mail]





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What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits
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New York Times
By CONSTANCE L HAYS

http://www. nytimes. com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/14wal. html

Published: November 14, 2004


URRICANE FRANCES was on its way, barreling across the Caribbean, threatening a direct hit on Florida's Atlantic coast. Residents made for higher ground, but far away, in Bentonville, Ark.
, executives at Wal-Mart Stores decided that the situation offered a great opportunity for one of their newest data-driven weapons, something that the company calls predictive technology

A week ahead of the storm's landfall, Linda M. Dillman, Wal-Mart's chief information officer, pressed her staff to come up with forecasts based on what had happened when Hurricane Charley struck several weeks earlier.
Backed by the trillions of bytes' worth of shopper history that is stored in Wal-Mart's computer network, she felt that the company could "start predicting what's going to happen, instead of waiting for it to happen," as she put it

Read The Rest HERE




WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price – trailer