NSA Spies Can Hack Any Computer in ‘A Few Mouse Clicks’

NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden to the Guardian in 2013 described a covert program called XKEYSCORE (XKS) and showed how the US government can see almost everything one does on the internet; the new portion of the classified files published by The Intercept now reveals how easily it can be done: “as easy as typing a few words in Google.”

XKEYSCORE was one of the first covert programs that the Guardian wrote about when Snowden began leaking NSA documents two years ago, in 2013.

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The NSA’s TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency’s top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting.

In January 2010, numerous homeowners in San Antonio, Texas, stood baffled in front of their closed garage doors. They wanted to drive to work or head off to do their grocery shopping, but their garage door openers had gone dead, leaving them stranded. No matter how many times they pressed the buttons, the doors didn’t budge. The problem primarily affected residents in the western part of the city, around Military Drive and the interstate highway known as Loop 410.