There are a lot of security analysts who say the target of the operation was indeed that database, and there's certainly a good chance of that, but still, it's definitely not the same as a backdoor.
I will leave the semantic discussion to whether such a system constituted a 'front door' or a 'back door' to folks who enjoy such deliberations.
Ultimately I hope that readers see how hacking of 'side systems' built for intelligence agencies to make full data requests have been used to gain access to the larger systems they connect - in the spirit of the original thread.
Er, what? No one would call it a front or back door. If someone gets root access to my machine and uses that to get access to data on my machine, that data was not the entry point. The phrase "without oversight or a lengthy and transparent approval process with the requirement for a warrant" shows what a red herring this is.
If you didn't understand that this was a separate system with separate access data, specifically for law enforcement requests, then that should clear it up.
If not we can go over semantics a ton but I don't like those games (everyone loses [time]).