[gwern]

'were', I think, may be more operative. I first heard that statistic about a long time ago, more like the '70s. Mathematicians don't seem to be very useful to the NSA's current hacker paradigm. (Note what we haven't gotten from the Snowden leaks so far: any sort of major mathematical or theoretical advance. Amazing hacking infrastructure, though.)

[Estragon]

Given Snowden's stated values, it's highly unlikely that he would report such a breakthrough.