(USA Today) U.S. and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption designed to provide online privacy and security, documents leaked by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden show.
In a clandestine, decade-long effort to defeat digital scrambling, the National Security Agency, along with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), have used supercomputers to crack encryption codes through "brute force" and have inserted secret "back doors" into software with the help of technology companies, The Guardian,The New York Times and ProPublica reported Thursday.
The NSA has also maintained control over international encryption standards.
As the Times points out, encryption "guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world."
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a federal suit challenging the government's collection of telephone communications data, called the NSA's efforts to defeat encryption "recklessly shortsighted'' and said they make the Internet less secure for all.
In a statement, the ACLU said the actions will "further erode not only the United States' reputation as a global champion of civil liberties and privacy but the economic competitiveness of its largest companies.''
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