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US, UK spies 'crack Web encryption'
WASHINGTON - United States and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption that secures a wide rang of online communications, including e-mail, banking transactions and phone conversations, according to newly leaked documents.
The documents, provided by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden to The New York Times, non-government organisation ProPublica and The Guardian, suggest that the spy agencies are able to decipher data even with the supposedly secure encryption to make it private.
The US National Security Agency (NSA), working with its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, accomplished the feat by using supercomputers, court orders and some co-operation from technology companies, the documents said.
If the reports are accurate, the highly secretive programme would defeat much of the protection that is used to keep data secure and private on the internet, including communications using smart-phones.
The Guardian report said the two spy agencies had "convert partnerships" with technology firms and Internet providers which allowed the insertion of "secret vulnerabilities - known as backdoors or trapdoors - into commercial encryption software".
The reports noted that US intelligence officials asked the Times and ProPublica not to publish articles on the subject, fearing it would prompt foreign targets to switch to new forms of encryption or communications that would be harder to collect or read. Investigative journalism group ProPublica said it decided to go ahead with the article because of its importance to the public. Contacted by Agence France-Presse, US intelligence officials had no immediate comment on the reports.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE