British intelligence agency GCHQ is not just in the data spying game. It recently provided the talent to crack the password of a notorious "determined pedophile", Ian Watkins.

The evidence was stored in a cloud account that the GCHQ had to crack in order to access it.

Watkins pleaded guilty to 13 sexual offenses, including two of attempting to rape a baby. He denied a charge of rape.

He will be sentenced on 18 December.

Sir Iain Lobban, director of the UK's eavesdropping nerve center, explained that GCHQ's signals intelligence work extends beyond counter-terrorism.

It is not simply about terrorism; it is also about serious crime. I could mention some of the work we do with the Child Exploitation Online Protection Agency; in terms of working with them to uncover the identities and track down some of those who are involved in online sexual exploitation of children within the UK, including from overseas. There is a recent case where we managed to do that, where we used our intelligence capabilities to identify those and with the help of the foreign partner then to bring them to justice and two people are now in jail.

Google and Microsoft recently bowed to political pressure in the UK by agreeing to make it harder for perverts to find child abuse images online.