In the Terminator franchise, Skynet is an evil military computer system that launches war on humanity. And at some point, someone in the National Security Agency sat down and thought, “Damn, that’s a sick thing to name a secret system!”
Malevolent undertones of aspirations to unchecked aggression be damned, I guess, because Skynet is real.
We’ve suspected it all along—that Skynet, the massive program that brings about world destruction in the Terminator movies, was just a fictionalization of a real program in the hands of the US government. And now it’s confirmed—at least in name.
The American National Security Agency, or NSA, has a secret surveillance program called Skynet.
Skynet – a reference to the self-aware computer system that attempts to wipe out humanity in the Terminator film franchise – was used by the NSA to identify terrorist connections.
You'd think when choosing the name of a top-secret surveillance program, the National Security Agency would be careful not to choose a name synonymous with artificial intelligence gone rogue and nearly destroying humanity.You'd be wrong.