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The Doughnut
The Doughnut is the nickname given to the headquarters of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British cryptography and intelligence agency. It is located on a site in Benhall, in the suburbs of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in South West England. The Doughnut houses 5,500 employees; GCHQ is the largest single employer in Gloucestershire. Built to modernise and consolidate GCHQ's multiple buildings in Cheltenham, the Doughnut was completed in 2003, with GCHQ staff moving in the same year, and fully moved into the building in 2004. It is the largest building constructed for secret intelligence operations outside the United States. The Doughnut was too small for the number of staff at its completion, and a second building in a secret and undisclosed location in the 'Gloucestershire area' now also accommodates staff from GCHQ. The Doughnut is surrounded by car and bicycle parking in concentric rings, and is well protected by security fencing, guards, and CCTV ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Expressionism
High-tech architecture, also known as structural expressionism, is a type of late modernist architecture that emerged in the 1970s, incorporating elements of high tech industry and technology into building design. High-tech architecture grew from the modernist style, utilizing new advances in technology and building materials. It emphasizes transparency in design and construction, seeking to communicate the underlying structure and function of a building throughout its interior and exterior. High-tech architecture makes extensive use of aluminium, steel, glass, and to a lesser extent concrete (the technology for which had developed earlier), as these materials were becoming more advanced and available in a wider variety of forms at the time the style was developing - generally, advancements in a trend towards lightness of weight. High-tech architecture focuses on creating adaptable buildings through choice of materials, internal structural elements, and programmatic design. It se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gensler
Gensler is a global design and architecture firm founded in San Francisco, California, in 1965. In 2021, Gensler generated $1.235 billion in revenue, the most of any architecture firm in the U.S. As of 2021, Gensler operated offices in 49 cities in 16 countries worldwide, working for clients in over 100 countries. History Art Gensler, along with his wife Drue Gensler and their associate James Follett, founded the firm in 1965. They originally focused on corporate interiors, for newly constructed office buildings including the Alcoa Building (1967) and the Bank of America Building (San Francisco), Bank of America Building (1969), both in San Francisco. The firm has since diversified into numerous forms of architecture and design, including commercial office buildings, retail centers, airports, education facilities, entertainment complexes, planning and urban design, mission-critical facilities, consulting, brand design, and other areas. Gensler grew rapidly with offices opening ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as a number of other First W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oakley, Gloucestershire
Oakley is a district of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, England. In the Domesday Book of 1086, it is recorded as held by Turstin FitzRolf. Oakley primarily consists of residential housing, including private, council-owned, and social housing. It backs onto Cleeve Hill and Harp Hill, greenbelt land, and part of the Cotswold hills, including a covered reservoir. Oakley neighbours Prestbury and Whaddon. Until December 2011, it was home to the smaller of Cheltenham's two Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) sites, Subsequently, part of the GCHQ Oakley site was reclaimed and replaced with a Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ... supermarket. References Villages in Gloucestershire {{Gloucestershire-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metonym for the Department of Defense and its leadership. Located in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., the building was designed by American architect George Bergstrom and built by contractor John McShain. Ground was broken on 11 September 1941, and the building was dedicated on 15 January 1943. General Brehon Somervell provided the major impetus to gain Congressional approval for the project; Colonel Leslie Groves was responsible for overseeing the project for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which supervised it. The Pentagon is the world's largest office building, with about of floor space, of which are used as offices. Some 23,000 military and civilian employees, and another 3,000 non-defense sup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Private Finance Initiative
The private finance initiative (PFI) was a United Kingdom government procurement policy aimed at creating "public–private partnerships" (PPPs) where private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects. Initially launched in 1992 by Prime Minister John Major, and expanded considerably by the Blair government, PFI is part of the wider programme of privatisation and financialisation, and presented as a means for increasing accountability and efficiency for public spending. PFI was controversial in the UK. In 2003, the National Audit Office felt that it provided good value for money overall; according to critics, PFI has been used simply to place a great amount of debt "off-balance-sheet". In 2011, the parliamentary Treasury Select Committee recommended: In October 2018, the then-chancellor Philip Hammond announced that the UK government would no longer use PFI; however, PFI projects will continue to operate for some time to come. In 2021, Robert Naylor warned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South West England
South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities and large towns in the region include Bath, Somerset, Bath, Bristol, Bournemouth, Cheltenham, Exeter, Gloucester, Plymouth and Swindon. It is geographically the largest of the nine regions of England covering , but the third-least populous, with approximately five million residents. The region includes the West Country and much of the ancient kingdom of Wessex. It includes two entire national parks of England and Wales, national parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor (a small part of the New Forest is also within the region); and four List of World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom, World Heritage Sites: Stonehenge, the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, the Jurassic Coast and the Bath, Somerset, City of Bath. The northern part of Gloucestershi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intelligence Agency
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, Intelligence analysis, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, signals intelligence, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public sources. The assembly and propagation of this information is known as intelligence analysis or intelligence assessment. Intelligence agencies can provide the following services for their national governments. * Give early warning of impending crisis; * Serve national and international crisis management by helping to discern the intentions of current or potential opponents; * Inform national defense planning and military operations (military intelligence); * Protect sensitive information secrets, both of their own sources and ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptography
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More generally, cryptography is about constructing and analyzing protocols that prevent third parties or the public from reading private messages. Modern cryptography exists at the intersection of the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, information security, electrical engineering, digital signal processing, physics, and others. Core concepts related to information security ( data confidentiality, data integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation) are also central to cryptography. Practical applications of cryptography include electronic commerce, chip-based payment cards, digital currencies, computer passwords, and military communications. Cryptography prior to the modern age was effectively synonymo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Communications Headquarters
Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Foreign Secretary), but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary. GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park, where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes. There are two main components of the GCHQ, the Composite Signals Organisation (CSO), which is responsible for gathering information, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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