It is one thing for the NSA to spy on everyone in the world, especially US citizens because all of them are obviously potential "terrorizers" just waiting for their opportunity to blow shit up (except for anything in close proximity to the Boston marathon - those things the NSA promptly filters out), but when the NSA itself is found to have not only known and itself abused the prevalent and widespread Heartbleed bug, but left consumers exposed, then it may be time to finally launch a class action lawsuit against Obama's favorite means to eavesdropping on the entire world.
From Bloomberg [4]:
NSA SAID TO EXPLOIT HEARTBLEED BUG FOR INTELLIGENCE FOR YEARS
The U.S. National Security Agency knew for at least two years about a flaw in the way that many websites send sensitive information, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence, two people familiar with the matter said.
And the punchline:
NSA SAID TO HAVE USED HEARTBLEED BUG AND LEFT CONSUMERS EXPOSED
Putting the Heartbleed bug in its arsenal, the NSA was able to obtain passwords and other basic data that are the building blocks of the sophisticated hacking operations at the core of its mission, but at a cost. Millions of ordinary users were left vulnerable to attack from other nations’ intelligence arms and criminal hackers.
“It flies in the face of the agency’s comments that defense comes first,” said Jason Healey, director of the cyber statecraft initiative at the Atlantic Council and a former Air Force cyber officer. “They are going to be completely shredded by the computer security community for this.”
More [4]:
The potential stems from a flaw in the protocol used to encrypt communications between users and websites protected by OpenSSL, making those supposedly secure sites an open book. The damage could be done with relatively simple scans, so that millions of machines could be hit by a single attacker.
Questions remain about whether anyone other than the U.S. government might have exploited the flaw before the public disclosure. Sophisticated intelligence agencies in other countries are one possibility. If criminals found the flaw before a fix was published this week, they could have scooped up troves of passwords for online bank accounts, e-commerce sites, and e-mail accounts across the world.
Evidence of that is so far lacking, and it’s possible that cybercriminals missed the potential in the same way security professionals did, suggested Tal Klein, vice president of marketing at Adallom, in Menlo Park, California.
The fact that the vulnerability existed in the transmission of ordinary data -- even if it’s the kind of data the vast majority of users are concerned about -- may have been a factor in the decision by NSA officials to keep it a secret, said James Lewis, a cybersecurity senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“They actually have a process when they find this stuff that goes all the way up to the director” of the agency, Lewis said. “They look at how likely it is that other guys have found it and might be using it, and they look at what’s the risk to the country.”
Lewis said the NSA has a range of options, including exploiting the vulnerability to gain intelligence for a short period of time and then discreetly contacting software makers or open source researchers to fix it.
Thank you NSA, for once again showing that you are from the government and are there to "help" and of course "protect" everyone.
How much more abuse from the government can the (granted mostly obese) US population take before it finally snaps?