It's almost(?) getting boring to see one article after another about the ubiquitous abuses by the NSA.
The last time I remember such a drip, drip, drip of exposés were the Watergate crimes of Richard Nixon.
This 4 page article is based on the documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, and
describes the front-door, back-door, and digital methods that NSA is using to decipher
every coded message and to collect and store any/every message that the NSA, itself, decides.
The NSA apparently asked the news media to NOT PUBLISH
this article because it exposed things they wanted kept secret.
In this article, the Times tells why they have gone ahead with publication.
NY Times
NICOLE PERLROTH, JEFF LARSON and SCOTT SHANE
September 5, 2013
N.S.A. Foils Much Internet Encryption
Quote:
The National Security Agency is winning its long-running secret war on encryption,
using supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion
to undermine the major tools protecting the privacy of everyday communications in the Internet age,
according to newly disclosed documents.
The agency has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling,
that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records,
and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls
of Americans and others around the world, the documents show.
<snip>
Beginning in 2000, as encryption tools were gradually blanketing the Web,
the N.S.A. invested billions of dollars in a clandestine campaign to preserve its ability to eavesdrop.
Having lost a public battle in the 1990s to insert its own “back door”
in all encryption, it set out to accomplish the same goal by stealth.
The agency, according to the documents and interviews with industry officials,
deployed custom-built, superfast computers to break codes, and began collaborating
with technology companies in the United States and abroad to build entry points into their products.
The documents do not identify which companies have participated.
The N.S.A. hacked into target computers to snare messages before they were encrypted.
And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker
to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware
and software developers around the world.
Etc.,
Etc.,
Etc.,...
<Snip>
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