Related discussion here in WaPo article that broke some of this story: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963</a>
You’re probably wondering why this is relevant right now.<p>> In 2020, an investigation carried out by the Washington Post, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), and Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF) revealed that Crypto AG was, in fact, entirely controlled by the CIA and the BND. The project, initially known by codename "Thesaurus" and later as "Rubicon" operated from the end of the Second World War until 2018.
The fact that Crypto AG was an intelligence front has been publicly known since at least the 1990s [1]. Why did the Washington Post rehash this story recently and pass it off as news? I'm glad that they did, because it spreads awareness - I'm just confused as to why.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-12-10-1995344001-story.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-12-10-19953440...</a>
What's scary is if they willingly admitted to this, they've secured other means of decryption. American-owned technology can't be trusted any more than Chinese-owned technology.
> Buehler was interrogated for nine months but, being completely unaware of any flaw in the machines, was released in January 1993 after Crypto AG posted bail of $1m to Iran.[10] Soon after Buehler's release Crypto AG dismissed him and charged him the $1m.<p>Well that was an asshole move.
It says Crypto AG relocated to Switzerland to escape being nationalised by the Swedish government. How fun then, that it ended up being wholly state owned anyway.
The really good question is: What are they compromising now?<p>We can't know for sure, but I'd wager that most quantum cryptography companies have been well greased by spy agencies who expect to be paid back in backdoors.
No worries, though, I'm sure intelligence agencies weren't smart enough to get out ahead of things like search, social networks, password storage services and VPNs.
<i>The company’s importance to the global security market had fallen by then, squeezed by the spread of online encryption technology. Once the province of governments and major corporations, strong encryption is now as ubiquitous as apps on cellphones.</i><p>Ah. That puts the export on cryptography limitations in perspective. Don't allow new tech to compete with the source of a lot of valuable intel.