the greatest gathering technique used is not hacking but simply letting the user give all details of their life to a "service" and then simply reading it in real time.
we give way more info to facebook, google, amazon, apple and so on that the cia would ever have time to put together. they just ask these companies for their file on you and they have a lot to go on. your smartphone is nothing more than a data collection tool for so many companies it's almost stupid. yet we all have one. what little they did not collect before they do now.
notice in this article it talks about hacking smart tv's. now think of how much more is included with those new google/apple/amazon things you can talk too and get it to do stuff for you. those mics are ALWAYS listening to see if you're talking to it. and all that goes to amazon/google/apple servers to be analayzed. by having one of these in your house you are literally consenting to being monitored 24/7 by anyone and everyone.
you're phone let's you activate the various siri/cortana "assistants" these also listen 24/7 to not just you but everyone around you. sends that voice data to its servers to be analyzed and stored. so we have literally entered into that 1984 scenario of being watched at all times. the difference is the gov did not set up the network, we did. the gov is just tapping into these opportunities to share in the surveillance done on us by all the companies we volunteer to give over all our life's info to. we volunteer for this constant surveillance under the guise of it being a "service" or being able to stay up to date with friends and families. it will never go away since folks are unwilling to stop posting their whole life on facebook and the 20 others things that exist to spam your friends and family with all your nonsense thoughts and pics.
can't blame the gov for taking advantage of this opportunity, but i don't have to like it.