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Swiss spy chief exits after reports of row over CIA-linked firm
- natmaka 6y agoThis is a very old and well-known case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG
- himinlomax 6y agoYes, I was surprised when it resurfaced as news recently, having learned about it last millennium. I'm still not clear about what's new here (apart from the Swiss politics angle).
- boomboomsubban 6y agoThe political angle is pretty significant, it's basically stating the Swiss intelligence agencies were more loyal to the CIA and BND than their own government.
- 1cvmask 6y agoThere is no jail time for such a “crime”.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoNo, but it's reasonable to expect the Swiss government won't happily continue employing you.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- himinlomax 6y agoYeah, sure, but why is it coming up 25 years later?
- makomk 6y agoAs I understand it, one of the things that was only discovered recently is that the Swiss intelligence services knew about this and kept their own government in the dark.
- makomk 6y agoWhat's new is that (amongst other things) evidence has come to light proving that they were literally owned by the CIA for most of their operational lifetime
- dredmorbius 6y agoThe story was broken in 2015, though only the bare outlines were disclosed then. A much fuller disclosure came a year ago. I would doubt that the general public is aware of it at all. Dismissing this as "old" and "well known" seems highly inaccurate.
- morsch 6y agoOh, it's way older than that. Here's a story from 1996: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/wer-ist-der-befugte-vierte-a-681416ee-0002-0001-0000-000009088423?context=issue https://www.spiegel.de/politik/wer-ist-der-befugte-vierte-a-...
- natmaka 6y agoWay, way older. At least 10 years. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG#Compromised_machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG#Compromised_machines Excerpt: Crypto AG had already earlier been accused of rigging its machines in collusion with intelligence agencies ((...)) Suspicions of this collusion were aroused in 1986
- dredmorbius 6y agoSuspected, as early as 1986. Confirmed via memo in 2015, exposed in 2020. Degrees of proof and documentation differ among these. And this still fails to establish the "well-known" aspect.
- natmaka 6y ago>>> This is a very old and well-known case > Suspected AFAIK in those circles "suspected" creates a "case", and this one was quite big given the suspect (the US) and the period (before the fall of the USSR). > as early as 1986 AFAIK in those circles 1986 is, from now, "very old".
- FreshFries 6y ago"Oh the consequences of my own actions!" -- Jean-Philippe Gaudin, most likely. I am proud that he has been removed from his position. The initial reaction of my beloved government to this case was not so strong and open as I had hoped, but this is at least a "clear" statement that his betrayal is not tolerated / swept under the carpet. Now let's hope that this is the end of the drama that "Swiss encryption" has been exposed to and the brand "Swiss neutrality" does not suffer more.
- z3ncyberpunk 6y agoHow are the Swiss neutral? Chaotic neutral? They are some of the biggest, corrupt money launderers known the world over?
- Krasnol 6y agoOh somehow I expected it to be Threema GmbH but it's still just old, plain Crypto AG.
- rnestler 6y agoI'm not sure if this is a joke or a legitimate concern about Threema. Care to elaborate?
- giuolioN 6y agofrom Threema own homepage: "100% Swiss Made" "Threema is a true Swiss company hosting its own servers in Switzerland." After Omnisec AG and Crypto AG, how is anyone falling for that cliché again...
- dbrgn 6y agoIn contrast to Omnisec and Crypto AG with their security by obscurity, the Threema apps are fully open source with reproducible builds: https://threema.ch/en/open-source/ https://threema.ch/en/open-source/
- giuolioN 6y ago1. Only the client apps are open source, not the server side. 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underhanded_C_Contest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underhanded_C_Contest
- greatgib 6y agoIt is crazy that the only consequence for I'm is to by fired. I would have hoped that he be sent to justice for treason charges or at least for "nefarious incompetence".
- comboy 6y agoI would guess that for CIA operations, it's pretty non-trivial to prove something. On paper everything probably looked neat, and they likely have some basic set of rules that prevents stuff like discussing treason on twitter from happening. But I agree and NBD should be clever too.
- hutzlibu 6y ago"According to a Swiss parliamentary investigation, "Swiss intelligence service were aware of and benefited from the Zug-based firm Crypto AG’s involvement in the US-led spying"" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG
- gccs 6y agoThe government does not persecute itself. That is how it is able to continuously break the law.
- bobthepanda 6y agoGovernment persecuting former officials is a tricky problem, because it‘s hard to strike a balance between * government officials should be held accountable for legitimate issues of legality * government officials should not be totally paralyzed by fear of being on the wrong side of the law * government officials should not be targeted for prosecution by vindictive successors just based on disagreement
- dragonwriter 6y agoGovernment prosecuting citizens is a tricky problem because: * citizens should be held accountable for legitimate issues of legality * citizens should not be totally paralyzed by fear of being on the wrong side of the law * citizens should not be targeted for prosecution by vindictive bureaucrats just based on disagreement None of these issues, however, are particular to citizens who happen to also be government officials at the time of the alleged incident provoking the prosecution.
- markus_zhang 6y agoGuess it's sort of post cold war operation gladio
- croes 6y agoGladio and Echelon are almost forgotten, even Snowden's revelations lose effect.
- markus_zhang 6y agoI guess intelligence and military intelligence live in their own worlds and are above the laymen's world. Back in the 70s and 80s even most politicians didn't know about Gladio, regardless of their political stand (left or right). If you are not proved to be one of them, you won't even hear about it.
- FridayoLeary 6y agoI was surprised to learn Switzerland even had a spy agency.
- frankfrankfrank 6y agoThe real news here is the crumbling facade of neutrality and trust that the Swiss have for a while now been allowing to crumble and run right through their fingers. They are playing with fire in many ways, especially since much of their soft defences have also eroded.
- soziawa 6y ago> The real news here is the crumbling facade of neutrality and trust that the Swiss have for a while now been allowing to crumble and run right through their fingers. What else except the Crypto AG case is there? And if it is just Crypto AG it seems folish to assume that a company is good just because it originated in a certain country. But Switzerland still seems like a fairly easy country to deal with.
- kodah 6y agoRather than rehash all this here, there are a lot of posts about ProtonMail and the foundational claims they make about being a company operated out of Switzerland. I'd suggest reading those critiques. The process of becoming a surveillance state is a slow one, you don't just wake up with government operated/connected cameras on every corner. Apparently rehashing is what we want to do. Here's some links: Switzerland's laws are the foundation of ProtonMail: https://protonmail.com/blog/switzerland/ https://protonmail.com/blog/switzerland/ ProtonMail must comply with Swiss law, regardless of what people think, and as Switzerland progressively becomes surveillance state it will have to comply more: https://www.securityweek.com/protonmail-accused-voluntarily- https://www.securityweek.com/protonmail-accused-voluntarily-... This post on Reddit sums up, fairly well, what I usually hear from privacy interested users of ProtonMail: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/49u8vy/protonma https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/49u8vy/protonma... For some more direct points: https://privacy-watchdog.io/truth-about-protonmail/ https://privacy-watchdog.io/truth-about-protonmail/ While it may not be immediately obvious, if you follow each of these points they connect back to compliance in some way
- soziawa 6y ago
- aritmo 6y agoThis is bad for the image of Switzerland. How can you trust them with security sensitive issues ever again?
- capableweb 6y agoI think you're overreacting. If the Snowden leaks thought us anything, is that countries can spy on other countries and their own citizens and eventually most people will forget about it. Same with this story. Eventually, people will forget about it ever happening, and everyone will have the same view of Switzerland as they had before.
- anamexis 6y agoWhy would you have trusted them before?
- soziawa 6y agoWhy trust anyone ever?