You might not have heard about the latest revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) because the banner headlines lasted all of five minutes. No one really cares any more, partly because certain reporters over-played their hands and saturated a half-a-year's worth of news cycles with articles that made so much ruckus that, combined, was reduced to white noise, and everyone other than the truly paranoid went back to blurting their private details all over various social platforms.
Regardless, there was indeed another NSA eavesdropping story that briefly made its rounds on Monday, via Reuters. The Huffington Post ran an all-caps screamer front-page headline: "EXPOSED: WORLDWIDE NSA SPYING PROGRAM," clearly suggesting that NSA has been spying on everyone including you, even though the actual article contained zero proof.
The article profiled a report by the anti-virus company Kaspersky Lab. The company described "an almost omnipotent cyberespionage organization" dubbed "Equation." Cutting to the chase, Kaspersky has been tracking a series of malware threats distributed by Equation which have infected computer hard drives in 30 nations such as Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. The computers are mainly used by government, military and telecom agencies, along with "Islamic activists and scholars."
Sounds scary. First of all... CONTINUE READING