Cracking the code

In this case, the NSA cracking various encryptions ...
Let's assume the media has the details right (which can be a pretty big if) and take a looksey.

"U.S. and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption designed to provide online privacy and security, documents leaked by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden show." - USA Today.

They then go on to say that they actually mean individual keys. This is very different. There's no question that given enough effort, the NSA could reverse engineer a private key. Really, lots of people could ('people' here means those with access to serious computing power, though I wonder if you could successfully run cracking codes on Azure, EC2, etc?)

The article goes on to say that the NSA has maintained control over international encryption standards. I don't think that's actually true, that's NIST's job (and it's not 'control'). The NSA weighs in on the quality of new algorithms, etc, but they don't set the "rules" ... after all, people can use whatever they want. So we already have some bad info.

So far the NSA has done nothing that anyone else isn't trying to do. Then there are the allegations of back doors (either by hacking or pressure). Hacked back doors are, well, possible by anyone. China hacks stuff all the time. So does the USA. Nothing novel going on here.

The only allegation that's interesting is the possibility that backdoors are being added as a result of pressure from government agencies. This I like a lot less .... for obvious reasons.