“Eine Person, die den Bericht gesehen haben will, spricht von einer «Sprache, die in Groschenromanen zu lesen ist». Zudem seien auffällig viele Ausrufezeichen verwendet worden. Beides sei ungewöhnlich in einem Geheimdienstpapier.”
[A person, who claims to have seen the report, speaks of a «language that can be read in cheap novels». In addition, a striking number of exclamation marks were used. Both are unusual in a secret service paper.]
NZZ am Sonntag (February 16 2020)
“It was the intelligence coup of the century. Foreign governments were paying good money to the U.S. 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.”
“MINERVA A History” — CIA report (WP February 11 2020)
“It may be the greatest intelligence scam of the century: For decades, the US has routinely intercepted and deciphered top secret encrypted messages of 120 countries. These nations had bought the world’s most sophisticated and supposedly secure commercial encryption technology from Crypto AG, a Swiss company that staked its reputation and the security concerns of its clients on its neutrality.”
CRYPTO AG: The NSA’s Trojan Whore? — Covert Action Quarterly (1998)
The 83-year-old electrical engineer, physicist and mathematician Peter Frutiger worked for Crypto AG until 1977. This Sunday, Frutiger revealed that he has received death threats from the CIA.
A decade ago, I argued that Crypto AG had rigged the equipment used by diplomats around the world allowing US Intelligence Agencies to decode in real-time their messages. Last week, Swiss Media Group SRF Rundschau, German public broadcaster ZDF and the Washington Post have confirmed many details of the story after gaining access to a classified, comprehensive CIA history of the operation codenamed “Thesaurus” and later “Rubicon”. What do we actually know about this “CIA document”? Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →
Intel Today 