A list of GCHQ projects leaked to journalist Glenn Greenwald has shown the snooping agency developing an array of tools targeting dozens of common internet activities.
The document, dated back to July 2012, shows more than 100 pieces of software being developed to monitor users of social media, help agents working in online games, and change the result of online polls, among other activities.
Alan Woodward, a security consultant who has done work for GCHQ, told the BBC: "If you read the mission statement of any signals intelligence organisation, all the listed techniques are what you’d expect them to be doing."
He added that it was "very unhelpful" for details to be leaked, as it influences the behaviour of those attempting to avoid being tracked.
Greenwald described the latest release as "some of the most startling methods of propaganda and internet deception contained within the Snowden archive" and "a sort of hacker’s buffet for wreaking online havoc".
Many of the tools had eccentric names such Dancing Bear, Hacienda and Spring Bishop, which Greenwald described as "boastful".
The journalist made famous by the Snowden leaks also drew attention to British and American use of some of the techniques they have prosecuted activists for employing, including distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
