
Swiss crypto company backdoored by CIA for decades - jascii
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51467536
======
pzumk
Post from yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22309478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22309478)

And the day before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963)

[Edited to be less annoying and more useful, sorry about that]

~~~
codetrotter
> Edited to be less annoying and more useful, sorry about that

Thank you, much better :)

Changed my downvote to an upvote.

------
jonathanstrange
What I don't understand about this "news" is why it was published by
mainstream media now. Anybody interested in cryptography knew about the Crypto
AG debacle since around the late 90s, it was mentioned in every discussion
next to the infamous Clipper chip.

Could someone who followed this more closely educate me what has changed in
comparison to earlier accounts of the "news"?

------
meddlepal
If this is coming out now it means the CIA has found a better mechanism to spy

~~~
tptacek
This was "out" over a decade ago.

~~~
acqq
> This was "out" over a decade ago.

"This" _now_ was _not out until now, actually_. The "new news" are the aspects
of the _actual direct ownership_ of a "Swiss" company by the BND and CIA and a
lot of new juicy details in the Washington Post article. The readers can check
my other comment here, and then the original new coverage (by the Washington
Post and ZDF), not the "second hand" articles.

~~~
tptacek
It's newsworthy! Or at least, the original stories (from a few days ago) were.
The specifics are worth reading about.

------
pbhjpbhj
>His technology became so advanced that the US government worried it would
stop them spying on other governments' communications. //

And now it's happening again with 5G ...?!

------
DrScientist
A timely reminder never to use voting machines.

------
m_mueller
Note: By crypto they mean cryptography here.

~~~
GordonS
Have we really gotten to the stage where this needs to be said?

~~~
samdoidge
I did interpret this as being related to cryptocurrency, so quite possibly.

------
acqq
The actual title of the article is "Swiss machines 'used to spy on governments
for decades'." The title on HN currently is against the HN policy.

Also there is a washingtonpost.com original, where BBC is only talking about
it, and the original was extensively commented on HN recently:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963)

To those who earlier read about the company (even in Wikipedia!) before the
article appeared the first part of that long article had almost no big
surprises, describing more the general context. The "new" news are the BND
involvement and the actual partial ownership by the CIA, but all that lacks
the juicy details.

The _second_ part, having more details, is actually very interesting, the
things that appear like in the movies.

For example, an interesting coincidence about what happened to the son of the
company's founder:

"Hagelin had once hoped to turn control over to his son, Bo. But U.S.
intelligence officials regarded him as a “wild card” and worked to conceal the
partnership from him. Bo Hagelin was killed in a car crash on Washington’s
Beltway in 1970. There were no indications of foul play."

Or:

"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."

Or:

"The Germans were taken aback by the Americans’ willingness to spy on all but
its closest allies, with targets including NATO members Spain, Greece, Turkey
and Italy."

