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The interception was possible thanks to the Swiss company Crypto AG, which the special services owned since 1970.
The United States Central Intelligence Agency, together with the Federal Intelligence Agency of Germany (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND), has for decades intercepted secret messages from officials in more than 120 countries. This is stated in a joint investigation by The Washington Post and German television station ZDF.
The interception was possible thanks to the jointly owned special services Swiss company Crypto AG, which supplied communications encryption equipment to governments in more than a hundred countries.
According to The Washington Post, which analyzed the internal documents of special services that it had at its disposal, the CIA and BND manipulated the technology to break encryption and gain access to sensitive information. Departments tracked correspondence from 1970 to 2018. This special operation was originally called Thesaurus, but was later renamed the Rubicon.
From the 1950s to the 2000s, Crypto AG encryption equipment was used by more than 120 countries, including Iran, India, Pakistan, Latin America and the Vatican (except for the USSR and China).
Former government Secretary of State Bernd Schmidbauer, who coordinated the work of German intelligence, confirmed that such an operation did take place. According to him, it was discontinued in 1993.
Meanwhile, the Swiss government has already ordered an investigation and verification of the published information.
The Crypto AG company itself, whose equipment is still used in dozens of countries, was liquidated in 2018. According to companies that bought most of its assets, they do not maintain contacts with any intelligence services.
The United States Central Intelligence Agency, together with the Federal Intelligence Agency of Germany (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND), has for decades intercepted secret messages from officials in more than 120 countries. This is stated in a joint investigation by The Washington Post and German television station ZDF.
The interception was possible thanks to the jointly owned special services Swiss company Crypto AG, which supplied communications encryption equipment to governments in more than a hundred countries.
According to The Washington Post, which analyzed the internal documents of special services that it had at its disposal, the CIA and BND manipulated the technology to break encryption and gain access to sensitive information. Departments tracked correspondence from 1970 to 2018. This special operation was originally called Thesaurus, but was later renamed the Rubicon.
From the 1950s to the 2000s, Crypto AG encryption equipment was used by more than 120 countries, including Iran, India, Pakistan, Latin America and the Vatican (except for the USSR and China).
Former government Secretary of State Bernd Schmidbauer, who coordinated the work of German intelligence, confirmed that such an operation did take place. According to him, it was discontinued in 1993.
Meanwhile, the Swiss government has already ordered an investigation and verification of the published information.
The Crypto AG company itself, whose equipment is still used in dozens of countries, was liquidated in 2018. According to companies that bought most of its assets, they do not maintain contacts with any intelligence services.