https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/2020/0315.html#cg15
More on Crypto AG
<https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/03/more_on_crypto_.html>[2020.03.06]
One follow-on to the story of
<https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/02/crypto_ag_was_o.html>Crypto
AG being owned by the CIA:
<https://www.npr.org/2020/03/05/812499752/uncovering-the-cias-audacious-operation-that-gave-them-access-to-state-secrets>this
interview with a Washington Post reporter. The whole thing is worth
reading or listening to, but I was struck by these two quotes at the end:
...in South America, for instance, many of the governments that were
using Crypto machines were engaged in assassination campaigns.
Thousands of people were being disappeared, killed. And I mean,
they're using Crypto machines, which suggests that the United States
intelligence had a lot of insight into what was happening. And it's
hard to look back at that history now and see a lot of evidence of
the United States going to any real effort to stop it or at least or
even expose it.
[...]
To me, the history of the Crypto operation helps to explain how U.S.
spy agencies became accustomed to, if not addicted to, global
surveillance. This program went on for more than 50 years, monitoring
the communications of more than 100 countries. I mean, the United
States came to expect that kind of penetration, that kind of global
surveillance capability. And as Crypto became less able to deliver
it, the United States turned to other ways to replace that. And the
Snowden documents tell us a lot about how they did that.