We have all heard of the NSA surveillance due to the Snowden leaks. One aspect of their spying apparatus was their ability to collect information from people up to “3 hops” away from their target. This means that legally, the NSA was able to collect data on their target, his/her friends, all the friends of the friends, and all of the friends of the friends of the friends. It should be noted that it is not limited to “friends,” but rather anyone the target has spoken to.

This network of people who could be legally placed under surveillance grows quickly under this 3 hops strategy. For example we can look at the typical facebook user who has 190 friends (hop 1), at the second hop (friends of friends), the number grows to slightly over 31,000. At the third hop, the friends of the friends of the friends, the number of people who are legally allowed to have their data collected is over 5 million.

With just 3 degrees of separation, an enormous network of people can be created. Even if the target has only one friend, by the third hop the average network is over 26,000 people.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/28/nsa-files-decoded-hops

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