The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported that leaks by Snowden show the NSA collects intelligence around the world in five ways. A document dating from 2012 lists the collection approaches as: data provided by the third-parties, i.e. international partners of the NSA in more than 30 countries; regional collection by Special Collection Service (SCS) installations that gather intelligence in more than 80 regions, and are part of a joint CIA-NSA program funded by a secret budget; computer network hacking carried out by a special NSA department that implants malicious software to steal sensitive information from 50,000 computers worldwide -- the major targets being China, Russia, Brazil, Egypt, India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and countries in Eastern Europe; tapping into the fiber optic cables that transport Internet traffic between continents at 20 major locations, mostly inside the United States; and finally, intercepting data from foreign satellite communications in countries such as Britain, Norway and Japan.

The PRISM scandal revealed that intelligence agencies, led by the NSA in the United States, use three major approaches to conduct Internet surveillance and data collection.

-- Obtaining data worldwide from fiber optic cables. Most data flows pass through the United States, so targeting data streams is a simple matter. The NSA, the Department of Defense and other departments signed a "Network Security Agreement" in 2003 with the telecommunication company Global Crossing. Over the following decade, the United States signed similar agreements with other telecommunication operators. The agreements required the companies to build "Network Operations Centers" on the U.S. soil that could be visited by government officials with 30 minutes of warning. Allies such as Britain and Canada also agreed to provide the United States with fiber optic cable intelligence.

-- Getting direct access to Internet companies' servers and databases to retrieve intelligence. The PRISM program cooperated with nine internet companies -- Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL and Apple. The companies normally delivered data to the government electronically. Some companies established independent security access to make it easier for government agencies to extract intelligence. The intelligence agents would access the companies' servers and databases to collect emails, instant messages, videos, photos, stored data, voice chat, file transfers, video conferences, login times and social network profiles. They were even able to monitor users' Internet searches.

-- An NSA special unit was able to obtain intelligence secretly and remotely by hacking. The agency created the Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO) as early as 1997. Its main task is to hack target computers and telecommunication systems, crack passwords and security systems, steal data from the target computers, copy information from email systems and track data flows to acquire intelligence on foreign targets. The NSA refers to these activities using the technical term "Computer Network Exploitation" (CNE), but they boil down to cyber-attacks and theft of secrets.

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