WP: 'The intelligence coup of the century’ For decades, the CIA read the encrypted communications of allies and adversaries.

[Cooked Crack]

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 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.

 

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.

 

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.

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The program had limits. America’s main adversaries, including the Soviet Union and China, were never Crypto customers. Their well-founded suspicions of the company’s ties to the West shielded them from exposure, although the CIA history suggests that U.S. spies learned a great deal by monitoring other countries’ interactions with Moscow and Beijing.

 

There were also security breaches that put Crypto under clouds of suspicion. Documents released in the 1970s showed extensive — and incriminating — correspondence between an NSA pioneer and Crypto’s founder. Foreign targets were tipped off by the careless statements of public officials including President Ronald Reagan. And the 1992 arrest of a Crypto salesman in Iran, who did not realize he was selling rigged equipment, triggered a devastating “storm of publicity,” according to the CIA history.

 

But the true extent of the company’s relationship with the CIA and its German counterpart was until now never revealed.

 

The German spy agency, the BND, came to believe the risk of exposure was too great and left the operation in the early 1990s. But the CIA bought the Germans’ stake and simply kept going, wringing Crypto for all its espionage worth until 2018, when the agency sold off the company’s assets, according to current and former officials.

 

The company’s importance to the global security market had fallen by then, squeezed by the spread of online encryption technology. Once the province of governments and major corporations, strong encryption is now as ubiquitous as apps on cellphones.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/

 

 

 

[TradeTheBeal!]

Sneaky spy stuff!

[Llevron]

We are the good guys though. 

 

Whats really fun about reading this stuff is it backs up everything they tell us not to do. And they know to tell us not to do it cause thats exactly how they get their info from other people 😯

 

I think this stuff is so cool 

[NickyJ]

It really is fascinating. Especially how they repeatedly dunked on the Iranians, even after the Iranians interrogated one of the salesmen lol

 

My favorite part though:

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Each year, the CIA and BND split any profits Crypto had made, according to the German history, which says the BND handled the accounting and delivered the cash owed to the CIA in an underground parking garage.

 

In every TV crime series or movie where there's a cash drop-off in a parking lot, I couldn't help but roll my eyes because they all use the same idea. Now it turns out the government used the same idea too lmao

[Springfield]

These are the things that I’m TOTALLY in favor of but not quite sure I want announced to the world.

 

Also, **** all the other nations that would even think about doing something like this.

[Destino]

That explains why the US is so adamant that the western world not allow Huawei to provide critical communications equipment.  Can’t let yourself get got by your own scam.

[Xameil]

I read about this and ask myself...

How is this a surprise to anyone..

 

This has been a theme in multiple spy movies...we already know Hollywood cant come up with original ideas so they obviously got it from somewhere...😋

[NickyJ]

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To the CIA, Widman had an even more important attribute: an affinity for the United States that he had formed while spending a year in Washington state as an exchange student.His host family had such trouble pronouncing his Swedish name that they called him “Henry,” a moniker he later used with his CIA handlers.

 

 

If this isn't in a movie or Netflix series in the next 5 years, I'm going to feel cheated.

[Renegade7]

I wonder the governments response to post-quantum encryption will be...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography

[Corcaigh]

2 hours ago, Destino said:

That explains why the US is so adamant that the western world not allow Huawei to provide critical communications equipment.  Can’t let yourself get got by your own scam.

The source has not disclosed but the implication of a recent briefing is that  the US security agencies KNOW that there is a backdoor in Huawei, not simply that the Chinese government may have access and there may be a threat.

[Springfield]

4 hours ago, Destino said:

That explains why the US is so adamant that the western world not allow Huawei to provide critical communications equipment.  Can’t let yourself get got by your own scam.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-accuses-huawei-of-spying-through-law-enforcement-backdoors-2020-2?utm_source=reddit.com

 

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According to The Journal, US officials say Huawei has had this technology for over a decade. The US kept this information highly classified until it started sharing it last year with allies like Germany and the UK in a bid to get them to freeze out Huawei equipment from their 5G networks, the report said.

The information doesn't seem to have troubled the UK, however, as the country announced last month that it would allow Huawei to build a limited amount of its "non-core" 5G infrastructure.

The US has long accused Huawei of acting as a conduit for Chinese government spying, but this is the first time it's provided details about how it thinks Huawei does this. Huawei has repeatedly denied that it spies for China.

Specifically, officials told The Journal that Huawei built equipment allowing it to tap into telecoms using interfaces designed only for law enforcement without alerting the carriers. "Huawei does not disclose this covert access to its local customers, or the host nation national-security agencies," a senior US official told the newspaper.

 

[Llevron]

They just brought this up at RSA. Fun when my social media life smashes into my business life. Some of y’all would like this stuff. I wish it wasn’t so expensive cause it’s a really good conference. 

 

 

Keynote speaker recommends reading this. Y’all should check it out 

 

https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/09/10/moving-encryption-policy-conversation-forward-pub-79573