In 2013, Edward Snowden, a contractor working for the National Security Agency (NSA), fled to Hong Kong and then Russia, revealing that America and its allies were collecting a large portion of the world’s communications. The disclosure sent shockwaves throughout the intelligence community as agencies warned of dire consequences. However, the impact was not as severe as feared. While they could no longer access all the data they needed, they were still able to obtain a significant amount of information.
In the past two decades, SIGINT has undergone significant transformation. The internet replaced radio and telephone traffic in the 1990s, and now, a decade after Snowden’s revelations, most internet traffic is encrypted, and data is stored in new locations like the cloud. These changes have blurred the lines between cyber-espionage and cyber-attacks as computer networks that transport data have become intertwined with physical systems like cars, power grids, and military systems. Despite these shifts, SIGINT agencies remain powerful intelligence-gathering entities capable of extracting valuable information from the digital realm.
