Stefan Mileschin

The United States' National Security Agency has collaborated with technology companies and internet service providers to build the typically accepted standards of web security itself, and reportedly has the means to brute force encryption standards it itself had a hand in building.

New revelations from the Snowden cables reveal the NSA has cracked most encryption that was considered a safeguard for commerce and banking systems around the world, and the very same encryption that was supposed to protect sensitive data like medical records, as well as email, web searches, online chats, and phone calls - of Americans and others, globally.

Beginning in 2000, according to the New York Times, the NSA went about building supercomputers that were capable of breaking complex codes and encryption. Additionally, the secretive but bloated agency collaborated with US technology companies to build backdoors directly into their products and services.

These new revelations fly in the face of strings of denials from US internet companies after the initial Snowden leaks. Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and the gang were all adamant that there were no delibate backdoors built into software or hardware. Whether they were willing collaborators or had their hands forced in the name of "national security" is up in the air.

http://news.techeye.net/security/nsa...tech-companies