[jhall1468]

> They might have, but it's also entirely possible they would have decided it wasn't worth it

That's an enormous assumption based on zero evidence. The only resource the NSA is limited by is time. Money and man power (up to diminishing returns) are effectively limitless.

They were trying to skip a step, but there's absolutely no reason to believe they could have (and would have) done without through reverse engineering the binary. The NSA guy implied time was the major factor, and wanting the source certainly implies that was the case.