Here's how the NSA is doing its part to sink the American tech sector by ensuring no one ever buys American products anymore. Ars Technica reports
the NSA is intercepting hardware and implanting its backdoors ("beacons") before they are rerouted back to the original destination - the customer. This quote is taken from
Glenn Greenwald's No Place to Hide book detailing his investigations and Snowden's allegations. The statement was made by an NSA rep:
Here's how it works: shipments of computer network devices (servers, routers, etc,) being delivered to our targets throughout the world are intercepted. Next, they are redirected to a secret location where Tailored Access Operations/Access Operations (AO-S326) employees, with the support of the Remote Operations Center (S321), enable the installation of beacon implants directly into our targets' electronic devices. These devices are then re-packaged and placed back into transit to the original destination. All of this happens with the support of Intelligence Community partners and the technical wizards in TAO.
Already, most of the world has decided that storing data on American servers or using American service providers is a risk. Thanks, NSA, for making sure no one buys American hardware either.