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How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

washingtonpost.com

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Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#21

Post by PhantomGremlin »

I have to disagree with the headline. The "intelligence coup of the century" came much earlier, during WWII.

The Allies were reading a good deal of both Japanese and German encrypted communications. This saved the lives of many Allied solders and, perhaps, tipped the balance of the war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(cryptography) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra

David Kahn's book, the Codebreakers, is a good introduction to cryptography and has a lot of this history in it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Codebreakers

Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#22

Post by rtkwe »

snowwrestler wrote: post #19

Gives you a sense of why the U.S. intelligence community is so nervous about having Huawei at the core of the domestic 5G network. Would not be fun for the U.S. to have done to them what they've done to others. And as a U.S. resident, even as I acknowledge and deplore what the U.S. intelligence services have done to others, I still don't want China to do that to me. This is not an area where equitable (but bad) treat…

It wouldn't be so bad with ubiquitous end to end encryption though right? If everything was encrypted in transit it wouldn't really matter if Huawei (and by extension the supposition goes the Chinese government) because they'd just see noise.

Guess they would also be able to do location tracking though and that's not so easily solved.

Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#23

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

just_steve_h wrote: post #6

It certainly does make one wonder who else in the worlds of high technology (and journalism!) May be – wittingly or unwittingly – working for Uncle Sam. I've seen some deep integrations that have made me despair of any organization being free from the overweening influence of the "security services." I'm talking about groups as large as multi-billion dollar public US technology infrastructure companies and as small a…

US Telcos have been jointed at the hip w/ the USIC for generations. AT&T's history of proactively helping the US spy on US Citizens+Everyone hints at the company's deep desire to be a spy entity in it's own right.

Even though the knowledge of that is/was public, it wasn't widely know until the Edward Snowden revelations - largely due to the relative disinterest of US news orgs (even when faced with clear evidence of US's ethical lapses -- eg: Mark Klein whistleblows AT&T's NSA taps on the internet backbone).

Most of the US Press still behaves as if USIC's primary goal was safeguarding the public instead of furthering the interests of US Gov & political financiers.

Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#24

Post by fanf2 »

blattimwind wrote: post #7

It has been known for a pretty long time that the Crypto AG is affiliated with or controlled by intelligence services. It was also always firmly in the "security through obscurity of our own cipher designs" department. Their C-52 (52 as in "1952") cipher machines were designed to enable decryption by Western intelligence. > Le Temps has argued that Crypto AG had been actively working with the British, US and West Ger…

Also https://web.archive.org/web/20130902003901/https://ciphermac...

Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#25

Post by mxcrossb »

> U.S. officials were even more alarmed when Wagner hired a gifted electrical engineer in 1978 named Mengia Caflisch. ... But NSA officials immediately raised concerns that she was “too bright to remain unwitting.”

Wow, those are words to aspire to

Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#26

Post by Psyladine »

>Their [Soviet Union & China] 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.

Fascinating use of 'negative space' in intelligence. Also appreciated the dig at Reagan, apparently gross intelligence breaches at the highest levels aren't anything novel.

Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#27

Post by raxxorrax »

snowwrestler wrote: post #19

Gives you a sense of why the U.S. intelligence community is so nervous about having Huawei at the core of the domestic 5G network. Would not be fun for the U.S. to have done to them what they've done to others. And as a U.S. resident, even as I acknowledge and deplore what the U.S. intelligence services have done to others, I still don't want China to do that to me. This is not an area where equitable (but bad) treat…

Funny, I don't really care China spying on me as much since they just don't have any handles that would be relevant. Your own government spying on you is much more dangerous. And since I don't have influence on policies of China, I can at least hold domestic politicians that strive for more surveillance accountable. At least theoretically.

History shows that government isn't your friend at all. The US might be a rare exception from time to time. But even that would be very, very limited.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't mind 5G spyware from another country.

Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#28

Post by tptacek »

apexalpha wrote: post #8

What a treat to read a well written piece based on decent research. It's a long read but well worth your time. Kudo's to the journalists who helped uncover it. And the 'coup of the century' is far from clickbait, it's definitionally warranted for what the CIA and BND did here. It's a little ironic as well, especially since the US is so keen on blocking Huawei over espionage concerns.

The fact that the US has repeatedly succeeded in SIGINT capers like this makes their concern about Huawei kind of un-ironic, right?

Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#29

Post by tptacek »

edm0nd wrote: post #17
NamTaf wrote: post #2

Reading between the lines on this, it's plainly apparent why there's been repeated attacks on encrpytion by the US government. From this, through RSA's Dual_EC_DRBG, to the present day, it's obvious that the US highly values rigging the deck to aid their decryption, and that the current democratisation of encrpytion protocols is a threat to them. I mean, you only need to read their repeated admissions that without MI…

I'm pretty sure the US government is why the TrueCrypt devs stopped all work. They got hit with a national security letter (NSL) or heavily leaned on and pressured to stop making their product so awesome and un-breakable.

Of all the cryptographic tools to mythologize, a crappy last-generation full-disk encryption tool?

Re: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades

#30

Post by reddog »

It follows that private VPN firms would be a similar target for deep pocketed state intelligence agencies. What do you think the chances are that the VPN service or software you use hasn't been co-opted, compromised or is outright owned by state actors in China, Europe or the US?
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