Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who first revealed the story of Edward Snowden and revalations of NSA spying, is now alleging that the US government implants backdoor surveillance tools into “routers, servers, and other network devices” that are slated for export to foreign countries. Greenwald's book, titled No place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the Surveillance State , says the NSA somehow puts itself in the supply chain for exported networking products, intercepting shipments, tinkering with the devices to allow intrusion, and then repackaging the equipment with the original factory seal.
According to a story by Greenwald in the Guardian, information on the government’s secret program to tamper with networking devices comes from a 2010 memo from the head of the NSA’s Access and Target Development department. The story quotes the memo as providing an example of the program at work: “After several months, a beacon implanted through supply-chain interdiction called back to the NSA covert infrastructure. This call back provided us access to further exploit the device and survey the network.”
Greenwald makes much of the fact that the US has been complaining for years about allegations of similar tampering by the Chinese government with devices made in China.