NSA Spying Makes the Internet and Computers LESS Safe

(Washington’s Blog)

 Mass Surveillance Makes Us More Vulnerable to Bad Guys on the Web and On Computers

Spying makes us vulnerable to hackers and other bad guys:

IT and security professionals say spying could mess up the safety of our internet and computer systems
For example, the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes:
“By weakening encryption, the NSA allows others to more easily break it. By installing backdoors and other vulnerabilities in systems, the NSA exposes them to other malicious hackers—whether they are foreign governments or criminals. As security expert Bruce Schneier explained, ‘It’s sheer folly to believe that only the NSA can exploit the vulnerabilities they create.’’

The NSA’s big data collection itself creates an easy mark for hackers. Remember, the Pentagon itself sees the collection of “big data” as a “national security threat” … but the NSA is the biggest data collector on the planet, and thus provides a tempting mother lode of information for foreign hackers

Article appeared first on Washington’s Blog