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 Swiss company, Crypto AG,
made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century.
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.
Great article, but I wouldn’t call it bad news!!
This organization, disbanded? Wonderful!
Also, it’s a super call to reality!
If the CIA or US gov, or the NSA, uses a service, maybe it’s best for me to steer clear of that service!
Anyway thanks @desk777 for this heartening article!! Nice to read. Wonderful warning; let it warn and guide our choices!
I called it bad news because also Germany and Swiss seems to be involved, countries usually considered safe and privacy-conscious.
Do you think it has implications for the reliability of German and Swiss services such as tutanota, posteo, protonmail and others?
As a rule of thumb, I don’t perceive a country’s intelligence service to be “privacy-conscious”. I would still consider Germany and Switzerland to be privacy friendly based on its laws, but as every other nation have their own interests and there are lines they are willing to cross.
I don’t think there are any implications for private companies such as Tutanota, because this was all top-secret and therefore these companies wouldn’t know about it unless they had been approached earlier on by intelligence agencies. They are also open-source, independently audited and operate in the internet era where everyone can take a look at anytime, as opposed to the few that could realistically follow the progress of the machines sold by Crypto AG.
EDIT: By the way Tutanota seemed to have been blocked by AT&T which makes me think they are reliable, although also casts some doubts about the internet freedom today and upcoming years.
Yes, this’s great.
My rule of thumb is, if US or DE, CH or FR, or RU, CN blocks a service, it’s credibility goes up in mymind.
EXAMPLE: Russia and Iran both allow Whatsapp, but not Telegram. ??? It must be that Telegram ismore secure than Whatsapp. Sweet!
That’s my rule of thumb.
