Snowden in Moscow: An Unexpected Windfall for Russian Spies
securityweek.com
securityweek.com
If this situation is a miscalculation on Snowden's part, then it's also a miscalculation of the USA national security apparatus. By locking down all allies and neutrals with arm-twisting treaties and extradition agreements, the USA has guaranteed that national security whistleblowers will only ever seek asylum with the committed enemies of the USA. These nations are far more likely to do something nasty with the information such a whistleblower represents than e.g. New Zealand or Finland would be.
Do we have solid confirmation that he was in Russia? He could've seeded different locations to different newspapers, and could've even bought different plane tickets, and under different names, to misdirect the US government. He's probably smart enough to do all that.
Either way, I fear that the outcome of the massive spying apparatus of US will be for every country to isolate "its own Internet" as much as possible from the "global Internet". They could all claim "national security", because US has proven that it's very easy to spy on and hack any country. That would be especially damaging to US' own economy, so maybe they will see reason before that happens.
A preferable outcome would be the rise of a much more secure fully decentralized and encrypted Internet where wiretapping is almost impossible, which means every country is a lot more "secure" from every enemy or even "ally".
On the other hand Assange seems to think Snowden is in good hands.