Thanks to a presentation done on the surveillance abilities that the NSA possesses, by Jacob Applebaum, at the Chaos Communications Congress, we know that it is possible for the NSA to infiltrate your Wi-Fi from up to 8 miles away.

Applebaum, who also co-wrote the article in Der Spiegel which shed light on the catalog that the NSA had, went into more depth during his presentation and gave information on some of the hacking devices that the NSA were using in their surveillance.

Some of the devices he talked about include ones capable of taking over the various iOS platforms, intercepting communications with phones that are using GSM, and also another device which allows the user to hack Wi-Fi connections from a distance of 8 miles away — a device that has been “deployed in the field” already. There is even a possibility, for the last device, to be used via drones.

Already there are investigations being done by those affected by NSA surveillance. Cisco, one of the companies in which the NSA installed backdoors into its products, is doing just that.

“On Monday, December 30th, Der Spiegel magazine published additional information about the techniques allegedly used by NSA TAO to infiltrate the technologies of numerous IT companies,” Cisco’s senior VP John Stewart wrote. “As a result of this new information coming to light, the Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) has opened an investigation.”

We don’t expect these investigations to result in much of anything. Why? Simply because in today’s day and age, national security tops all — whether you like it or not.

[via The Verge, Der Spiegel, image via frederic.jacobs’ flickr]