This X10000
They are 5 years ahead of any GOV out there, and could shut this entire planet down in an hour if pissed off enough.
Nope.
5 or 10 years ago I would have agreed that the hackers were way ahead but I would not go around thinking this way now.
They also cannot shut down the entire planet in a half hour. That's media FUD put out there by interested parties to make you think they're justified in their latest raping of the 4th amendment.
To start off, the Chinese government has gotten into the business of stealing intellectual property. There was an article recently, I think it was in the NYT actually, that was talking about travelling to China and just how careful you have to be. One group was given some RAM as a freebie at a trade show, come to find out they somehow managed to bug it to send information back to China. The state has it's hands in everything over there, so bugging hotel rooms, intercepting phone and internet traffic, etc. are not only possible but they're happening right now. Hacking in to any device you might bring over there is trivial.
The US government has been greatly ramping up it's efforts in this area and spending a colossal amount of money on it. They had some ground to make up, but they also have effectively unlimited resources.
The hackers may, after all this, be a step ahead of the government...but that doesn't mean that YOU are unless you're a hacker. Remember that all of this stuff is only as good as the trust you put into it. PGP secures the message...great...but how do you know who's key you're using? You trust various encryption schemes such as SSL, but there are weaknesses in SSL. We've already seen bogus code signed with legitimate SSL certs, what's to stop someone in the middle of all this from proxying SSL traffic and intercepting everything you send? If you want to talk about the .govs of the world it gets even easier. The FBI can easily get a valid cert and proxy SSL connections to decrypt all your traffic. The same people who you guys are referring to being a step ahead of any government are the exact same people who are breaking in to servers, stealing your credit card number, and selling it off to foreigners who can more easily exploit it.
Some of this doesn't apply to TOR and, yes, I work in Information Security and am thus very paranoid, but I think you guys are grossly overestimating the trust you can put in situations like this. I have absolutely no doubt that people have managed to procure illegal items this way. I also have absolutely no doubt that the government is working very hard on stopping people from procuring illegal items this way.
Digital sucks. Never trust it.