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By Scott Scheffer
Long-held suspicions that a joint operation between the U.S. CIA and Germany’s spy agency, the BND, stole access to communications of adversaries and allies alike have now been acknowledged in a Feb. 11, 2020, Washington Post article by Greg Miller. The information theft was accomplished through a Swiss company called Crypto AG, which the two spy groups secretly purchased in 1970 and ran for nearly five decades. The spying was deemed “Operation Rubicon.”
U.S. and German intelligence agencies partnered on a scheme to dupe dozens of nations into buying rigged encryption systems — taking their money and stealing their secrets.
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.
The account identifies the CIA officers who ran the program and the company executives entrusted to execute it. It traces the origin of the venture as well as the internal conflicts that nearly derailed it. It describes how the United States and its allies exploited other nations’ gullibility for years, taking their money and stealing their secrets.
The operation, known first by the code name “Thesaurus” and later “Rubicon,” ranks among the most audacious in CIA history.
The papers largely avoid more unsettling questions, including what the United States knew — and what it did or didn’t do — about countries that used Crypto machines while engaged in assassination plots, ethnic cleansing campaigns and human rights abuses. The revelations in the documents may provide reason to revisit whether the United States was in position to intervene in, or at least expose, international atrocities, and whether it opted against doing so at times to preserve its access to valuable streams of intelligence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/
Minister cancels meeting with her Swiss counterpart after Bern slapped export ban on company accused of links to the CIA.
It's been three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but a spat between Sweden and Switzerland shows that Cold War spy stories can still chill diplomatic relations in Europe.
Late last week, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said she had canceled a meeting with her Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis slated for this month after Switzerland placed an export ban on Crypto International, a Swiss-based and Swedish-owned cybersecurity company.
The ban was imposed while Swiss authorities examine long-running and explosive claims that a previous incarnation of Crypto International, Crypto AG, was little more than a front for U.S. intelligence-gathering during the Cold War.
Linde said the Swiss ban was stopping “goods” — which experts suggest could include cybersecurity upgrades or other IT support needed by Swedish state agencies — from reaching Sweden.
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CIA Tricks Governments
The Swiss firm Crypto AG made millions of dollars selling encryption equipment to more than 120 countries from the 1950s through to 2018.
It sold equipment to many governments including Iran, Latin America, India and Pakistan.
The customers didn’t know that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA and West German intelligence. These spy agencies ensured the equipment and software was designed so…
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Crypto AG : la máquina espía suiza que fue utilizada por los regímenes militares de Sudamérica para coordinar el infame Plan Cóndor
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El general chileno Augusto Pinochet y su colega argentino Jorge Rafael Videla.
En los últimos días, se destapó un entramado de espionaje que reveló cómo los servicios de inteligencia de los gobiernos de EE.UU. y Alemania espiaron durante décadas las operaciones de cerca de 100 países, mediante un dispositivo de encriptación que producía la empresa suiza Crypto AG.
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