[newman8r]

You are right, the leaks weren't that surprising (I had not read the actual ant papers until recently, they are pretty cool) - I do actually question the possibility that the leaks themselves were psy ops though, here's my reasoning:

The power of the NSA, et al. was probably overstated up until a few years ago - for example, if you're so powerful and omnipotent, why trust your top stuff to booz allen contractors? Also, Natanz was amateur hour - inside sources have essentially admitted that - it's not the sign of a robust or mature operation that had been in place for a decade. Also, only a small amount of the software/tools that the papers mention has actually been verified (if any at all, I have not been following it recently).

But that's unlikely and I do support a pardon if the accepted version of the events is true. Even if it did end up being psy ops, they might have jut been showing nefarious material to enough contractors until one inevitably leaked it. Honestly the way they are written is kind of odd, not like technical manuals an engineer would use. edit* - and yeah they're not even billed as manuals, just as a catalog. They kind of strike me as realistic ideas or concepts, maybe even with some prototypes - thrown in with a couple of things that do exist. There's nothing technically amazing about any of the things it describes though - if you watch old def con videos you could probably figure out how to do a lot of that stuff anyway (which you alluded to)