Swiss Review 3/2020

Swiss Review / June 2020 / No.3 13 Politics MARC LETTAU Ostensibly, Zug-based Crypto AG was a respectable Swiss company and technology leader. It had a very niche special- isation in encryption devices. These products were sold to countries whose armies and intelligence services wanted to hide confidential communications from prying eyes. However, Crypto AG was anything but a normal Swiss company adhering to normal Swiss values. Its business – cryptic in the truest sense – was secretly owned by the CIA and its West German counterpart, the BND, from 1970 on- wards. Both intelligence agencies were able to introduce back doors in the company’s supposedly uncrackable Swiss- made encryption systems. Through their deliberate manipulations, the CIA and BNDwere able to eavesdrop on 148 countries – both friend and foe – for decades. All these countries investedmillions inCrypto’s rigged devices, believing that theywere getting trustworthy technology fromneutral Switzerlandwhen in fact they were paying for the dubious pleasure of being spied on. The revelations became public inmid-February of this year – the result of a joint investigation by Swiss television (SRF), German broadcaster ZDF, and the “Washington Post”, based firstly on leaked CIA documents and, secondly, on interviews with former Crypto AG employees and their families. The “intelligence coup of the century” – as the CIA called it – evidently has far-reaching implications. It turns a spot- light on the tension-filled ColdWar era, with the extent of the CIA/BND collusion casting new light on many histori- cal events of the last 50 years. However, the extent towhich recent world history needs rewriting will only become clear once the Crypto affair has been thoroughly digested. The question of whether Switzerland needs to redraft its The CIA used a Swiss company to spy on over 100 countries A spy scandal has rocked Switzerland. For decades, US and German intelligence surreptitiously harnessed Swiss technology to snoop on a multitude of countries. Did the Swiss government turn a blind eye? Mechanical encryp- tion machine dating back to 1952 – the year Crypto AG was established. Crypto remained a market leader during the digital era. Photo: Keystone