Operation RUBICON: The secret purchase of Crypto AG by BND and CIA
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Source: boingboing
By XENI JARDIN | TUE, FEB 11, 2020
For more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted a single company to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret. That company was secretly run by the CIA, which had the ability to read all those communications for decades.
Greg Miller at the Washington Post:
The company, Crypto AG, got its first break with a contract to build code-making machines for U.S. troops during World War II. Flush with cash, it became a dominant maker of encryption devices for decades, navigating waves of technology from mechanical gears to electronic circuits and, finally, silicon chips and software.Read more:
The Swiss firm made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican.
But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence. These spy agencies rigged the company’s devices so they could easily break the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages.
The decades-long arrangement, among the most closely guarded secrets of the Cold War, is laid bare in a classified, comprehensive CIA history of the operation obtained by The Washington Post and ZDF, a German public broadcaster, in a joint reporting project.
'The intelligence coup of the century'
[washingtonpost.com, Greg Miller Feb. 11, 2020, via techmeme, image modified from a photograph by theglobalpanorama CC BY-SA 2.0 ]
In case you've ever wondered why the US national security community is always so freaked out about Huawei... https://t.co/GjHgMUczIg— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) February 11, 2020
For more than half a century, countries all over the world trusted a single company to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret.— Greg Miller (@gregpmiller) February 11, 2020
The Swiss company, Crypto AG, was secretly owned by the CIA.https://t.co/tStuLX9xgs pic.twitter.com/MBdnKK4rRm
— Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP) February 11, 2020
"what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence."— C. Stelzenmüller (@ConStelz) February 11, 2020
Holy cow. WHAT a story. It's loooong—but a real thriller. Must read by @gregpmiller https://t.co/6ZjL5Y3F80
Please go to boingboing to read the entire article and tweets.
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Source: AFP
US, German spies plundered global secrets via Swiss encryption firm: report
AFP | February 11, 2020
US and German intelligence services raked in the top secret communications of governments around the world for decades through their hidden control of a top encryption company, Crypto AG, US, German and Swiss media reported Tuesday.
© SAUL LOEB The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seal displayed in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia
The Swiss company was a top supplier of devices for encoding communications to some 120 countries from after World War II to the beginning of this century, including Iran, South American governments, and India and Pakistan.
Unknown to those governments, Crypto was secretly owned by the US Central Intelligence Agency together with Germany's BND Federal Intelligence Service.
Together they rigged Crypto's equipment to be able to easily break the codes and read the government's messages, according to reports by the Washington Post, German television ZTE and Swiss state media SRF.
- 'Coup of the century' -
Citing a classified internal CIA history of what was originally called operation "Thesaurus" and later "Rubicon," the reports said that in the 1980s the harvest from the Crypto machines supplied roughly 40 percent of all the foreign communications US codebreakers processed for intelligence.
© JOHN MACDOUGALL Germany's BND Federal Intelligence Service once was part owner with the CIA in a leading supplier of encryption equipment to governments around the world
Meanwhile, the company took in millions of dollars in profits that went to the CIA and BND.
"It was the intelligence coup of the century," the history says, according to the Washington Post.
"Foreign governments were paying good money to the US and West Germany for the privilege of having their most secret communications read by at least two (and possibly as many as five or six) foreign countries."
Please go to AFP to read the entire article.
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Here is the real problem Americans have to contend with: getting sold out by mercenary computer engineer geeks.
COMPLICIT ENCRYPTION GEEKS ENABLE THE AMERICAN SPY STATE
What were these mercenary geek computer engineers doing when this went down?
DOJ Charges 4 Chinese Military Hackers In Equifax Breach
This is from Wikipedia but it's a start...located in Switzerland.
Crypto AG
For decades, US and Germany owned Swiss crypto company used by 120 countries
Well it's known that the usa and germany where always partners after ww11, just follow the gold, Morgan, Rockafella, Rothchild, they l sold their people out, thus the name Holocaust, each of these Upstanding Names with other and the usa knew the profit margins at the expense of their own people.
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