even if the notion that the NSA can currently break SHA256; Bitcoin; or the entire Internet at will is still far-fetched for the time being, there's no denying how disturbing the reality of the situation is. when i see articles like these, i can't help but picture a Mirror's Edge-style future -- people bounding across rooftops with paper Bitcoin wallets stuffed in their rectums.
Correct me if I'm wrong and misread sometime off one of news sites, but I understood that the NSA was able to intercept, then index all transmissions prior to the encryption process. To me, this made perfect sense when I read it, for then it wouldn't matter what SHA(?) is used, the information would already be mirrored and stored, somehow allowing the NSA to act as the man-in-the-middle.
as long as information is being encrypted and decrypted on trusted hardware, (even if that hardware is pen and paper,) the NSA can do little to eavesdrop on your plaintext. even if the NSA compromises every computer endpoint involved in the transmission of encrypted communications, they would need to look right over your shoulder to intercept something you 'crypted by hand. that said, a Netgear router and Windows Firewall wouldn't keep the world's top cyber-intelligence agents away from your hard drive, your RAM, and everything you type.