Editing Crypto AG (section)

== Compromised machines == <!-- this section is linked from article C-52_(cipher_machine) -->
According to declassified (but partly redacted) US government documents released in 2015, in 1955 (just after encryption was added to the US Munitions List on November 17, 1954) Crypto AG's founder Boris Hagelin and William Friedman entered into an unwritten agreement concerning the C-52 encryption machines that compromised the security of some of the purchasers.<ref name=BBC-2015-07-28>{{cite news|last=Corera|first=Gordon |author-link=Gordon Corera|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33676028 |title=How NSA and GCHQ spied on the Cold War world |work=[[BBC News]]|date=2015-07-28 |accessdate=2015-10-09}}</ref> Friedman was a notable US government cryptographer who was then working for the [[National Security Agency]] (NSA), the main United States [[signals intelligence]] agency. Hagelin kept both NSA and its United Kingdom counterpart, [[GCHQ|Government Communications Headquarters]] (GCHQ), informed about the technical specifications of different machines and which countries were buying which machines. Providing such information would have allowed the intelligence agencies to reduce the time needed to crack the encryption of messages produced by such machines from impossibly long to a feasible length. The secret relationship initiated by the agreement also involved Crypto AG not selling machines such as the CX-52, a more advanced version of the C-52, to certain countries; and the NSA writing the operations manuals for some of the CX-52 machines on behalf of the company, to ensure the full strength of the machines would not be used, thus again reducing the necessary cracking effort.

Crypto AG had already earlier been accused of rigging its machines in collusion with intelligence agencies such as NSA, GCHQ, and the German [[Federal Intelligence Service]] (BND), enabling the agencies to read the encrypted traffic produced by the machines.<ref name=LT2015/><ref name=spiegel1996>{{cite magazine|title=Wer ist der befugte Vierte? |magazine=[[Der Spiegel]] |issue=36|accessdate=2020-02-13|language=de|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-9088423.html|date=1996-09-02|pages=206–207}}</ref> Suspicions of this collusion were aroused in 1986 following US president [[Ronald Reagan]]'s announcement on national television that, through interception of diplomatic communications between [[Tripoli, Libya|Tripoli]] and the Libyan embassy in [[East Berlin]], he had irrefutable evidence that [[Muammar Gaddafi]] of Libya was behind the [[West Berlin discotheque bombing]] in 1986.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dymydiuk|first=Jason|title=RUBICON and revelation: the curious robustness of the 'secret'CIA-BND operation with Crypto AG|journal=Intelligence and National Security}}</ref> President Reagan then ordered [[1986 United States bombing of Libya|the bombing]] of Tripoli and [[Benghazi]] in retaliation.

Further evidence suggesting that the Crypto AG machines were compromised was revealed after the assassination of former Iranian Prime Minister [[Shapour Bakhtiar]] in 1991. On 7 August 1991, one day before Bakhtiar's body was discovered, the Iranian Intelligence Service transmitted a coded message to Iranian embassies, inquiring "Is Bakhtiar dead?" Western governments deciphered this transmission, causing the Iranians to suspect their Crypto AG equipment.<ref name="madsen1999">{{cite news|last=Madsen|first=Wayne|author-link=Wayne Madsen (journalist)|url=http://mediafilter.org/caq/cryptogate/|title=Crypto AG: The NSA's Trojan Whore?|work=[[CovertAction Quarterly]]|access-date=February 11, 2020|url-status=dead|year=1999|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927224351/http://mediafilter.org/caq/cryptogate/|archive-date=27 September 2007}}</ref>

The Iranian government then arrested Crypto AG's top salesman, Hans Buehler, in March 1992 in [[Tehran]]. It accused Buehler of leaking their encryption codes to Western intelligence. 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.<ref name=schneier2004>{{cite web|url=http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0406.html#1 |title=Breaking Iranian Codes |accessdate=2015-10-09 |last=Schneier|first=Bruce |author-link=Bruce Schneier|date=2004-06-15 |work=Crypto-Gram |publisher=Schneier on Security}}</ref> Soon after Buehler's release Crypto AG dismissed him and sought to recover the $1m bail money from him personally. Swiss media and the German magazine ''[[Der Spiegel]]'' took up his case in 1994, interviewing former employees and concluding that Crypto's machines had in fact repeatedly been rigged.<ref name=shane1995>{{cite news|first1=Scott|last1=Shane |last2=Bowman|first2=Tom |title=No Such Agency, part four: Rigging the game |work=The Baltimore Sun|pages=9–11|date=1995-12-04|access-date=2015-10-09 |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/1995/12/10/rigging-the-game-spy-sting-few-at-the-swiss-factory-knew-the-mysterious-visitors-were-pulling-off-a-stunning-intelligence-coup-perhaps-the-most-audacious-in-the-national-security-agencys-long-war-on-f/ |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190301043044/https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-12-10-1995344001-story.html|archive-date=2019-03-01}}</ref>

Crypto AG rejected these accusations as "pure invention", asserting in a press release that "in March 1994, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office initiated a wide-ranging preliminary investigation against Crypto AG, which was completed in 1997. The accusations regarding influence by third parties or manipulations, which had been repeatedly raised in the media, proved to be without foundation."{{Citation needed|date=February 2020}} Subsequent commentators<ref>{{cite news|first=Ludwig|last=De Braeckeleer|title=The NSA-Crypto AG Sting |url=http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?no=381337&rel_no=1 |work=OhmyNews |date=2007-12-29 |archive-date=29 December 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081229021050/http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?no=381337&rel_no=1 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref name=grabbe1997>{{cite web|url=http://www.aci.net/kalliste/speccoll.htm |title=NSA, Crypto AG, and the Iraq-Iran conflict |accessdate=2020-02-13|last=Grabbe|first=J. Orlin |author-link=James Orlin Grabbe|date=1997-11-02|publisher=Associated Communications Internet |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070607184244/http://www.aci.net/kalliste/speccoll.htm |archive-date = 2007-06-07}}</ref><ref name=schneier2008>{{cite web|title=NSA Backdoors in Crypto AG Ciphering Machines |url=http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/nsa_backdoors_i.html |accessdate=2015-10-09|last=Schneier|first=Bruce|date=2008-01-11 |publisher=Schneier on Security}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|first=Laszlo|last=Baranyi |title=The story about Crypto AG |url=http://biphome.spray.se/laszlob/cryptoag/crypto_ag.htm |date=1998-11-11 |via=biphome.spray.se|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101214091525/http://biphome.spray.se/laszlob/cryptoag/crypto_ag.htm |archive-date=14 December 2010 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> were unmoved by this denial, stating that it was likely that Crypto AG products were indeed rigged. ''[[Le Temps]]'' has argued that Crypto AG had been actively working with the British, US and West German secret services since 1956, going as far as to rig instruction manuals for the machines on the orders of the NSA.<ref>{{cite news|first=Mehdi|last=Atmani|title=Depuis 1956, l'entreprise suisse Crypto AG collaborait avec le renseignement américain, britannique et allemand|url=http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/dcf2ecc0-352f-11e5-a242-ec54c1dd3068/Depuis_1956_une_entreprise_suisse_collaborait_avec_les_renseignements_am%C3%A9ricain_et_britannique|work=Le Temps|date=2015-07-28|access-date=2020-02-13|language=fr|archive-date=16 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150816193353/http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/dcf2ecc0-352f-11e5-a242-ec54c1dd3068/Depuis_1956_une_entreprise_suisse_collaborait_avec_les_renseignements_am%C3%A9ricain_et_britannique|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Steven|last=Bammerlin|title=Cryptologie: un lecteur du "Temps" raconte les dessous de l'alliance entre la Suisse et les Anglo-saxons|url=http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/2f083bce-36a6-11e5-a242-ec54c1dd3068|work=Le Temps|date=2015-07-30|access-date=2020-02-13|language=fr|archive-date=17 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150817133917/http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/2f083bce-36a6-11e5-a242-ec54c1dd3068|url-status=dead}}</ref> These claims were vindicated by US government documents declassified in 2015.<ref name=BBC-2015-07-28 />

In 2020, an investigation carried out by ''[[The Washington Post]]'', [[ZDF|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.<ref name="Miller"/><ref>{{cite news |title=#cryptoleaks: Wie die Crypto AG weltweit agierte |url=https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute-sendungen/videos/crypto-karte-100.html |accessdate=12 February 2020 |work=[[heute]] |publisher=ZDF|date=11 February 2020 |language=de}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite news |title=Operation Rubikon |url=https://www.zdf.de/politik/frontal-21/operation-rubikon-100.html |accessdate=12 February 2020 |publisher=ZDFmediathek |date=11 February 2020 |language=de}}</ref>

The Swiss government's decision to impose export controls on [[Crypto International AG]] in the wake of the Crypto AG disclosures caused diplomatic tensions with Sweden, reportedly leading to the latter cancelling plans to celebrate 100 years of diplomatic relations with Switzerland.<ref name=swissinfo>{{cite news|url=https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/crypto-affair-prompts-tensions-between-switzerland-and-sweden/46045926|title=Crypto affair prompts tensions between Switzerland and Sweden|website=[[Swissinfo]]|date=2020-09-20|accessdate=2020-09-22}}</ref><ref name=svt>{{cite news|url=https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/uppgifter-sveriges-regering-avbokade-firande-med-schweiz|title=Uppgifter: Sverige avbokade firande med Schweiz efter konflikt om kontroversiellt krypteringsföretag|date=2020-09-22|accessdate=2020-09-22|author1=Mikael Grill Pettersson|author2=Fredrik Laurin|website=[[SVT Nyheter]]|language=sv}}</ref> The export controls preventing Swedish authorities from obtaining equipment from Crypto International was reportedly a reason behind Sweden's decision.<ref name=swissinfo /><ref name=svt /><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/2024/04/02/el-arma-mas-letal-de-los-ingleses-en-malvinas-como-descifraban-los-mensajes-en-clave-de-argentina-casi-en-tiempo-real |title=El arma más letal de los ingleses en Malvinas: cómo descifraban los mensajes en clave de Argentina casi en tiempo real |date=2024-04-02|accessdate=2024-04-02|author1=Mariano Sciaroni |author2=|website=[[infobae]]|language=es}}</ref>