Snowden Documents: NSA Laughing at World

english.farsnews.com

The documents show that the NSA surveillance programs were only the beginning of their efforts to create sophisticated digital weapons for their internet war efforts. One of the goals included is to be able to infiltrate and disable computer networks, thereby giving them the ability to disrupt utilities and other infrastructure.

The US is already capable of launching complex digital attacks that can cause physical harm, such as a computer virus known as Struxnet that was deployed in a joint operation between the US and Israel. It sought to destroy Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility and its nuclear centrifuges. However, now the NSA has begun to boast of having newer and more powerful digital weapons.

A major theme of the new documents involves ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence, or the ability to exploit the methods of its adversaries. Basically spies spying on spies. The NSA calls this capability ‘fourth party collection’.

Apparently fourth party collection is so successful, the NSA and GCHQ have been making jokes about it.