When the Office of Personnel Management began investigating a data breach, it was already a dire situation, with 4.2 million US federal workers’ information stolen. Then things got worse. And worse.
Anti-virus software is supposed to keep computers safe from intruders, but spy agencies in the US and UK tried to break into these softwares for exactly the opposite purpose: To track their users.
Another day, another cynicism-inducing reminder that the NSA hasn’t just been unlawfully dragnet spying on our digital lives — it has also rigged up new and complicated techniques to do so, like hijacking app stores to put spyware on smartphones.