I don't know anything about the focus on the chips in particular. I never did anything like that in my destruction and I cannot comment credibly on that part o

I don't know anything about the focus on the chips in particular. I never did anything like that in my destruction and I cannot comment credibly on that part of the story. I can only comment on why the magnetic media had to be destroyed. The how they went about is fair game for people on HN to speculate and question. I am not trying to stop anyone. I also never said people should not be paranoid. I actually wrote a recent article saying that people should question their intelligence services. However, they also have a responsibility to read the answers that are provided via legislative and parliamentary vehicles. If the majority of the HN audience were invited to a tour of GCHQ, given free reign to explore and then access to the myriad databases and tools - they would be bored within hours, look up and say "Now take me to the real secret stuff." It honestly is not that exciting. It is just a massive bureaucracy with various departments, some of which are doing bleeding edge stuff. When it comes to security it is all very routine and in line with standardised frameworks.