What a coincidence, the feds just admitted they had all their security clearance forms hacked by China.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/personal-information-u-s-intelligence-military-personnel-may-chinese-hackers-hands/

Looks like they decided to blame Snowden instead.

In the past few months I've sided more closely with the view that Snowden is still working for the US government; that the leaks are intentional -- either to let the world know that America/UK are an empire with these capabilities, to measure US reaction and prove that rebellion won't be happening any time soon, or to advertise capabilities they don't actually have.

The only sources here are unnamed. "Cracking" encryption isn't easy or what you see in the movies. If we're talking AES256 with strong passwords; it's possible if they're pouring a large amount of compute resources into it for years, but still unlikely.

I have trouble believing anything that comes out of the propaganda machine today. This is probably just to stir up shit and then use the surveillance network to just how people react.

"That Sun Times article [the one dutifully referenced without fact checking or critical analysis by the article in this post] is filled with so many factual errors- demonstrable ones- along w/the worst journalism. Will be fun writing about it." Glenn Greenwald https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/609912455419011072