[Security Discussion] CHEF-KOCH:
Yes, but that doesn't protect anything because as long as this tool exists (or any other that "claims" to secure anything) the NSA mostly knows about it and can react on it. So any tool is more or less placebo (or with a small effect). It can inform yes, but do you really think if all people have any choice? What is the alternate, use your own satellite? As long NSA working with AT&T and other providers together (in the name of "security" ....) it will always easy to get your data, no matter which tool since in this low-level area all is useless except to encrypt all the information from IN and Outgoing and not only from Outgoing alone. Tor network is a proof for that, it's only "total" secure if you also encrypt local stuff too e.g. with I2P since the notes may could be compromised.

Most of effective malware needs root + a confirmation to watch your activities (admin enabled) for e.g. ransomeware or keyloggers. There are also other malware which does not need root but most of them simply use exploits in the OS or applications, but's very easy to detect since we can watch network stuff like traffic, running process,....

But I do, there is a lot of more spying that you think. Leaked documents are years old, do you really think they not improve there work on it. Look at the BlackHat page and watch there videos, the nsa chief said something like "Yes, we are spying as much as possible and need good hackers to secure our country" ... With such sentence all things are said.

Here are some papers and sources (unsorted because I have around 8000 papers):

https://www.eff.org/files/2015/02/0...erations_and_passive_signals_intelligence.pdf

http://securelist.com/blog/research/69203/inside-the-equationdrug-espionage-platform/

http://www.s3.eurecom.fr/docs/acsac13_zaddach.pdf

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/10/ispy-cia-campaign-steal-apples-secrets/

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/10/ispy-cia-campaign-steal-apples-secrets/

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2015/03/10/smurf-capability-iphone/

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2015/03/10/rocoto-implanting-iphone/

http://www.taz.de/Kontrolle-der-Geheimdienste/!134812/

http://blog.wawzyniak.de/wie-bitte/

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deuts...e-afghanischen-minister-farhang-a-549434.html

http://statewatch.org/news/2015/feb/eu-council-dp-reg-chapII-17072-rev3-14.pdf

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides...EP//TEXT+REPORT+A7-2013-0402+0+DOC+XML+V0//DE

https://www2.fireeye.com/WEB-2015RPTMobileThreatAssessment.html

http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-vorratsdaten

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/...s-with-blackberry-to-beef-up-android-security

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/02/jo...e-version-of-its-sailfish-mobile-os/?ncid=rss

https://www.smacktls.com/

http://cado-nfs.gforge.inria.fr/ (cracks 512-Bit keys in around 7+ hours)

http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/03/attack-of-week-freak-or-factoring-nsa.html

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2014-6593

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2015-0204

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...mano-with-nsa-director-over-crypo-backdoors/#

https://www.genios.de/document/RP__69043777 <-- I guess this is what cinnaC2C is talking about

http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/18/025/1802552.pdf (and the document for it^^)

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2015/02/19/cne-access-core-mobile-networks-2/

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2015/02/19/pcs-harvesting-scale/

http://www.popsci.com/article/techn...-cell-towers-could-be-intercepting-your-calls (about IMSI)

https://opensource.srlabs.de/projects/mobile-network-assessment-tools/wiki/CatcherCatcher

http://www.sba-research.org/wp-cont...tcher-Catcher-ACSAC2014-preprint-20140820.pdf

https://www.privacyinternational.org/illegalspying

To install any other OS does not change anything btw. sure it can help a little bit to escape from known insecure apps or leaks but as long the user have no real alternate it's a mission impossible for most of us. You can't choose any satellite, can't audit everything or don't know what the NSA have for ability's, they have billions per year and what do you have? some tools .. wow! ... Tools are general useless if it's a low level attack on hardware or the whole hdd or os is already compromised since the first day without knowing anything.