Originally published on September 6, 2013

The US National Security Agency can now pry into encrypted communications previously thought to be secure, according to the latest leaked documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Commonplace Internet encryption methods used to secure emails, chats and financial transaction have been circumvented by the NSA and its British counterpart, according to simultaneous reports by The Guardian, the New York Times and nonprofit ProPublica, citing the documents.

The two governments have employed, among other methods, supercomputers to break, using "brute force", the encryption of some of the most popular online protocols and through covert partnerships have inserted vulnerabilities, or "back doors", into commercial encryption software.

The quarter-of-a-billion dollar-a-year programme dwarfs the previously revealed Prism program, which operates at a cost of $20m a year.

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