Slowly They Modernize: A Federal Agency That Still Uses Floppy Disks

[Silent3]

69. People should keep this in mind when they think about the NSA

Not to excuse what the NSA has been doing, but they probably aren't nearly as good at finding out so much about you as many people seem to fear.

Of course, doing what they've been doing badly or incompetently comes with its own sets of concerns -- accidental leaks of personal info, going after innocent people as security threats, missing real security threats among the stuff they should have been concentrating on instead of overstepping their bounds, etc.

One thing seems very likely to me, however. The people of the NSA aren't (collectively, at least) mad genius überhackers brilliantly infiltrating any electronic device they want to, breaking every code, decrypting every cipher, intercepting every byte and bit, able to listen at will through every microphone and peer through every camera, even when power is unplugged, the batteries are pulled out, and all of the cables cut.