There is very good reason to believe that once you have developed something someone else is close too. The reason is you found it.
If you check some scientific breakthroughs during the Cold War they were very close on the both sides in the matter of months.
Also with 5% of the world population NSA have limited talent pool. Assuming you are first to the goal in that case is ... overly confident. (Even if we correct for a lot of people that are not easy to tap in the outside populations chances are not on the NSA side). And I am sure a lot of the messages in other countries communications are fake and testing just to see if someone is snooping.
Comments
There is very good reason to believe that once you have developed something someone else is close too. The reason is you found it.
If you check some scientific breakthroughs during the Cold War they were very close on the both sides in the matter of months.
Also with 5% of the world population NSA have limited talent pool. Assuming you are first to the goal in that case is ... overly confident. (Even if we correct for a lot of people that are not easy to tap in the outside populations chances are not on the NSA side). And I am sure a lot of the messages in other countries communications are fake and testing just to see if someone is snooping.