The NSA isn’t exactly at the top of everybody’s Christmas list at the moment, and it doesn’t look like the situation is getting any better. Considering the recent leaks, it’s honestly not surprising that the the agency has infected as many as 50,000 networks, but it’s still a very disturbing thought.

NSA Has 50,000 ‘Digital Sleeper Agents’ Via Computer Malware, Says Latest Snowden Leak

Sleeper agents are among the most sinister spy assets: they lie in wait, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and then deliver a critical blow when activated. The NSA has 50,000 of those waiting for the literal push of a button, according to the latest batch of leaked Snowden documents, as seen by Dutch daily evening newspaper NRC. But these aren’t people, like Keri Russel and Matthew Rhys in The Americans – these are computers, infected with malware and untroubled by conscience or the risk of going native.

The NSA reportedly infected 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malicious software with the sole aim of harvesting sensitive information it wasn’t privy to, which is basically what you’d call textbook spy work in the digital age, from an agency tasked with spying. That’s not to excuse or dismiss the significance of this revelation, but we’ve heard from the Washington Post previously that the NSA was working on this sort of thing and that at least 20,000 computers had been infected by the program as of 2008. So to hear from Snowden documents via the NRC that it’s now climbed to 50,000 is hardly surprising.

Many people are still skeptical about Bitcoin at this point, but the recent high of $900 has certainly increased interest in the cryptocurrency. Now Bitcoin has a new supporter, none other than the maverick Sir Richard Branson himself.

Whether you’re planning to invest in it; mine it; or ignore it, it’s probably a good idea to find out more about it.

In his own words:

Bitcoins in space

I have invested in some bitcoins myself, and find it fascinating how a whole new global currency has been created. For people who can afford to invest a little in bitcoins, it’s worth looking into.

The battle for privacy continues.

Forward Secrecy at Twitter

On top of the usual confidentiality and integrity properties of HTTPS, forward secrecy adds a new property. If an adversary is currently recording all Twitter users’ encrypted traffic, and they later crack or steal Twitter’s private keys, they should not be able to use those keys to decrypt the recorded traffic.

Apple finally releases Clumsy Ninja and this latest Editor’s Choice app debuts with a video trailer.

This is a big change in how developers can showcase their apps.

Dropbox has released a new look for its iOS app..

The new iOS 7-inspired design is gorgeous.

The addition of AirDrop support is great news. I hope this marks the start of greater adoption of AirDrop as a way of sharing files on iOS.

The American Physical Society interviewed Elon Musk.

But even if someone has no intention of ultimately being a physicist, I still believe that the training of physics is excellent. So as they’re going through their academic career I would recommend studying physics as a good base and then a broad range of engineering courses and then some degree of specialization in an engineering field where it fulfills someone’s interest, and then arts and sciences courses, particularly history. And a few business courses are helpful so you at least know the terminology. You can probably do it with one accounting course, [although] I hate accounting. It’s worth it to have some business courses but you don’t need too many. And I wouldn’t recommend an MBA. I’d say no MBA needed. An MBA is a bad idea.

It teaches people all sorts of wrong things. They don’t teach people to think in MBA schools. And the top MBA schools are the worst. Because they actually teach people that you must be special, and it causes people to close down their feedback loop and not rigorously examine when they are wrong.

I hire people in spite of an MBA, not because of one. If you look at the senior managers of my companies, you’ll see very few MBAs there.