The Shorter Matt Blaze: NSA Hacking Is OK, As Long As We Take Away Its Best Hacking Tools

Matt Blaze, a well-known public cryptographer and NSA critic, offered what seemed like a modest concession in the relentless campaign against NSA intelligence gathering:

The NSA's tools are very sharp indeed, even in the presence of communications networks that are well hardened against eavesdropping. How can this be good news? It isn't if you're a target, to be sure. But it means that there is no good reason to give in to demands that we weaken cryptography, put backdoors in communications networks, or otherwise make the infrastructure we depend on be more "wiretap friendly". The NSA will still be able to do its job, and the sun need not set on targeted intelligence gathering.

Don't get me wrong, as a security specialist, the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) scare the daylights of me. I would never want these capabilities used against me or any other innocent person. But these tools, as frightening and abusable as they are, represent far less of a threat to