>>>http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/12/30/1646227/the-startling-array-of-hacking-tools-in-nsas-armory
>>>
>>>Yet more erosion of trust in the entire IT industry.
>>
>>Considering the stale joke "The best job application for the NSA is to hack it's database" - does it really surprise you that the NSA has all these 'tools'?
>
>Intellectually I knew they had certain capabilities. But some of them are surprising to me e.g. intercepting shipment of routers, servers etc. from mfr to customer and installing software and/or hardware backdoors. How can stuff like that be legal? Are they a rogue operation?
>
>This is getting serious.

'Getting' ?
You must be kidding. Are you genuinely surprised ?

After so many other deadly serious things that happened past 10-15 years, NOTHING is really surprising. Are they rogue ? Or Illegal ?
Hard to say. They managed to elevate themselves above the law while ago. And that is it for now.
One thing is sure. It is HUGE operation. Whole industry if you will.

http://rt.com/usa/quantum-computer-nsa-encryption-100/
http://rt.com/usa/nsa-gchq-encryption-snowden-478/

Uh Oh, Oh uh... I know, I know. It is all dirty/deceitful Soviet propaganda news operation.
However, any mature/witty intellectual can certainly filter out grains of truth out of this despicable, almost Al-Jazeera style
propaganda/indoctrination!
Shoddy sources like this, (and various other stinky conspiracy theory websites) have been writing about these
things for years! But that is below our intellectual level level huh ? 8-)
Even Washington Post did huge article on it (one with nice interactive graphics), but you had to be naive pinko-leftist-liberal to buy (or worse disapprove! {g}) any of that stuff. So it is ok to be surprised, perhaps even slightly worried. Ain't that right ? :))