Thursday, January 03, 2008

The Greatest Con in History--The NSA-Crypto AG Sting

From Ludwig De Braeckeleer writing for Ohmynews comes this howler of a story that the NSA has been reading oh so secret and sensitive economic, diplomatic and military mail from all over the world because of a simple deal between the inventor of the encryption machines, Boris Hagelin, and the NSA. In return for the magic decryption key, the key to rule them all, the NSA promised Hagelin's Crypto AG wealth beyond his wildest avaricious dreams with exclusive export licenses to ship his machines to all entities controlled by the NSA. And so it was:
"The Swiss reputation for secrecy and neutrality lured Iranians to Crypto AG, an old and venerable company. They never imagined for a moment that, attached to the encrypted message, their Crypto machines were transmitting the key allowing the description of messages they were sending. The scheme was perfect, undetectable to all but those who knew where to look."