[Cryptography] "‘The intelligence coup of the century’"

[Thierry Moreau]

On 12/02/20 02:45 AM, Charles Jackson wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 2:16 PM Jerry Leichter <leichter at lrw.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> No kidding!  How long has this been widely known?  Apparently not very
>> long, to WaPo.
>>
>>                                                          -- Jerry
>>
> Here's a 2015 BBC piece.  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33676028
>
> But ISTR that there were hints of this in Kahn's 1968 book---*Codebreakers*.
>    My copy is 30 miles away--so I cannot check it.
>
> Chuck
>

A purpose of one aspect of my life has been to build crypto-based 
protections, and I have been through these years when single DES was 
strong encryption subject to export controls.

With regards to data communications encryptors sold by Switzerland-based 
suppliers, I recall that after the Falklands war, the interception of 
messages by the UK has been traced to some events like the Crypto AG 
deception reported in the above 2015 BBC inquiry into de-classified NSA 
documents.

However, I am not sure if another Switzerland-based supplier (?? by the 
name of Cryptech ??) was involved or it was Crypto AG. It *might* be 
that this other supplier went out of business and Crypto AG reputation 
remained intact.

I recall a journalist interview with a former software specialist of the 
defaulted supplier reporting having someone coming from nowhere and 
introduced by the company management and dictating the encryption 
algorithms to use, while the young software specialist has prior 
education about cryptography (he was competent to see what was going on).

Basically, I was bored when I read a John le Carré novel -- real events 
are more interesting!

Regards,

- Thierry Moreau

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