Operation Rubicon

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The Hagelin CX-52

The operation Rubicon (until the late 1980s Operation Thesaurus ) was from 1970 to 1993 and 2018 ongoing secret operation of the West German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for signals intelligence from encrypted government communications of other countries. This was achieved through the sale of manipulated encryption technology ( CX-52 ) by the Swiss Crypto AG , which from June 4, 1970 had been secretly owned and influenced by both services. In a comprehensive historical CIA account of the operation that was leaked in early 2020 , it is referred to as the "intelligence coup of the century".

history

Fiche action "Code"
Name of the investigation by the Swiss authorities

BND, Siemens and Crypto AG

The origins of Crypto AG go back to the Swedish engineer Arvid Damm ; the company was founded in Switzerland in 1948 by the Swede Boris Hagelin . Crypto AG was one of the leading manufacturers of encryption technology. The company delivered to around 130 states; Operation Rubicon is said to affect around 100 states.

According to the Washington Post , among others, the nuclear powers India and Pakistan as well as the Vatican and several other countries, mostly from the global south , use devices from Crypto AG. However, through the manipulated devices of Crypto AG, the National Security Agency (NSA) and BND were also able to read the military and diplomatic communication of allied EU and NATO countries such as Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Turkey across the board. According to the ZDF, the CIA and BND repeatedly argued about this: The German secret service did not want allies to be spied on, while the CIA basically wanted to spy on every government and thus deal with allies as it did with third world countries .

According to ZDF information, the contract for the operation was signed on the German side by Horst Ehmke , then head of the Federal Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Tasks . In this respect, it can be assumed that the Federal Chancellery, as the superior authority, was informed in detail about the operation. With the beginning of the operations of the BND and the CIA in 1970, the two secret services each became half owners of Crypto AG. Within Operation Rubicon, Crypto AG was given the code name Minerva . The ownership structure has been obscured. They bought Crypto AG because Boris Hagelin was retiring and they didn't trust Hagelin's son Boris jr. had. He was sales manager for North and South America. He died in a car accident that same year. His father had the cause of the accident investigated and did not believe it was an accident. Outwardly, Crypto AG benefited from Swiss neutrality and the image of the country's integrity. Thanks to encryption technology that was sold as secure but actually manipulated, messages transmitted in this way could also be read by the secret services involved, the CIA, NSA and BND.

Munich-based Siemens  AG worked closely with Crypto AG and, among other things, produced the telex for them. Siemens was the managing director of Crypto AG for 20 years and had a five percent share in the profits. Siemens engineers helped develop the application devices.

According to reports from Deutsche Welle (DW), the two owners, BND and CIA, shared the profits of Crypto AG, which amounted to 51 million Swiss francs in 1975 (approx. 48.6 million German marks ; in 2018, taking inflation into account, the equivalent of 42.6 million) Euros ). According to DW, BND employees are said to have given the CIA their share in cash at secret meetings in underground garages.

In 1992, the Swiss employee of Crypto AG Hans Bühler was arrested in Iran. After nine and a half months in prison, he was released on January 4, 1994, on bail of 1.4 billion rials (approx. 925,000 euros or 1.5 million Swiss francs) after an original demand of one million US dollars . The amount was paid by the German BND, but Buhler was fired by his employer shortly after his release. As it turned out later, Bühler had not known anything about the manipulated devices and had started to express himself critical of the process to the media. According to the CIA, the Hydra affair, the internal code name of the Bühler events, was “the most serious security breach in the history of the program”.

In 1993 the BND sold its shares for $ 17 million. According to the former Chancellery Minister under Helmut Kohl Bernd Schmidbauer , the Chancellery decided to exit the operation because the political risks were now rated significantly higher after Bühler's arrest. Apparently, the endangerment situation for Germany after the end of the Cold War was assessed differently than in previous years, and relations between the states of Europe improved. After the US withdrew from the company, Crypto AG was split into two companies in 2018. The new management had no knowledge of the activities before 2018, the company said when asked.

On the part of the BND, the Central Office for Encryption (ZfCh) apparently played an important role in carrying out Operation Rubicon. Apparently, the weakened encryption algorithms were provided by this. The Central Office for Information Security (ZSI) emerged from the ZfCh, which later became the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). Until 1972, after the operation began, the head of the ZfCh was Erich Hüttenhain , later Otto Leiberich , who also became the founding president of the BSI.

Decryption and geopolitical significance

On behalf of the German federal government, the BND received diplomatic and military radio communications from many countries that encrypted with devices from Crypto AG. Thanks to manipulated encryption methods, the BND was able to read this communication across the board.

According to the leaked documents, over 40 percent of the entire machine decryption of the NSA could be traced back to Operation Rubicon, which was regarded as an “irreplaceable resource”. For the BND, the operation was even more important as the centerpiece of cooperation with the Americans, since, according to the CIA, it made up 90 percent of reports on diplomatic events. According to media reports, the weakness of the algorithms of the exported devices from Crypto AG was used by the BND well after it withdrew from the operation in 1992. For example, Italian traffic is said to have been deciphered around 2001.

The German and American governments were much better informed about domestic and geopolitical events in many countries than was known until the operation was discovered. This then raised questions about the action or inaction of the actors involved.

Coup in Chile

In the US intervention in Chile , the US relied on decrypted communications from the government of Salvador Allende .

Negotiations on the Middle East conflict

In the course of the negotiations on the Camp David Agreement in 1978, the NSA was able to read the communication from the Egyptian side and therefore knew their negotiating position. The agreement negotiated under the then American President Jimmy Carter culminated in the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty .

Falklands War

During the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom, a large part of Argentina's encrypted communications could apparently be deciphered by the NSA and BND, as weakened Crypto AG devices were also used there. The knowledge gained from this was made available to the British.

US conflict with Libya

After the attack on the La Belle discotheque in Berlin in April 1986, the BND and NSA intercepted communications between the Libyan embassy in East Berlin and Tripoli. The then American President Ronald Reagan said he had clear evidence that dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi was behind the operation and that his country could follow all Libyan communications. The disclosure of one's abilities was associated with the necessary justification of the American attacks on the country ( Operation El Dorado Canyon ).

US invasion of Panama

In 1989 the USA invaded Panama ( Operation Just Cause ). Through Operation Rubicon, American secret services knew that the wanted President Manuel Noriega was in the Vatican embassy in Panama City.

Exposure

In 1996, Der Spiegel reported for the first time that Crypto AG had sold manipulated encryption devices by the end of the 1980s, and established the connections to the BND and the CIA. In his print edition No. 36 (1996) under the title “Who is the Authorized Fourth?” Secret services undermine the protection of encryption devices , he dedicated an article to the business conduct of Crypto AG.

In 2000, a report on SIGINT activities of Anglo-Saxon services in the context of Echelon in Europe was debated in the European Parliament . The report states that Crypto AG sells manipulated devices.

Operation Rubicon was actually uncovered in February 2020 through joint research by Swiss radio and television , ZDF and Washington Post . They evaluated a 280-page intelligence dossier, which proves that the BND and CIA were fully behind Crypto AG. This is evidenced by the fact that, as part of Operation Rubicon, Crypto AG sold encryption devices to around 130 countries that had been manipulated. The communication encrypted with the devices could be read by the services without any problems. According to the Austrian secret service expert Siegfried Beer, such devices were also in use in Austria .

Bernd Schmidbauer , Chancellery Minister under Helmut Kohl , confirmed the Rubikon campaign to ZDF in 2020 and claimed that it had contributed to making the world a little "safer and more peaceful".

criticism

As a result of Operation Rubicon, which lasted for decades, various German and American governments had extensive detailed knowledge of human rights violations worldwide. The armed forces of Argentina used the technology of Crypto AG during the Argentine military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 . The junta had thousands of regime critics thrown alive into the sea from military planes over the Atlantic; around 30,000 people fell victim to the dictatorship. Although the federal government under Helmut Schmidt knew about it through the eavesdropping technology of Crypto AG, the German national soccer team took part in the 1978 soccer world championship held in Argentina . It must be noted, however, that an obvious use of the information obtained would with a high probability have resulted in the unmasking of the politically highly sensitive and extremely important operation for the intelligence services involved.

Research by ZDF shows that the weaknesses of the algorithms in the manipulated devices could also be exploited by opposing intelligence services. In the 1980s, the Ministry for State Security of the GDR and the KGB succeeded in continuously deciphering the encryption of Turkish diplomatic reports and thereby reading them along. Turkey was also one of the countries that bought encryption devices with weakened keys from Crypto AG, among others. Thus, the weakened crypto products delivered to alliance partners endangered the security of the alliance as a whole due to the increased risk of the information being skimmed off by third parties.

Investigations

On January 15, 2020, the Swiss Federal Council decided to entrust the former federal judge Niklaus Oberholzer with an investigation. On February 13, 2020, an investigation was also initiated by the Parliament’s Business Audit Delegation (GPDel) under GPDel President Alfred Heer . GPDel decided to merge Niklaus Oberholzer's Federal Council investigations with theirs, Oberholzer continues to work under the leadership of GPDel. Some parliamentarians are calling for a parliamentary commission of inquiry (PUK), this would be the strongest investigation. For the time being, the office of the National Council spoke out against a PUK; they should wait for the GPDel report first.

literature

Videos

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Greg Miller: The intelligence coup of the century: How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades. In: The Washington Post . February 11, 2020, accessed on February 21, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Elmar Theveßen , Peter F. Müller, Ulrich Stoll: #Cryptoleaks: How BND and CIA deceived everyone. In: zdf.de . February 11, 2020, accessed February 16, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Martin Holland: #Cryptoleaks: CIA and BND were behind the encryption company for decades. In: heise.de . February 11, 2020, accessed February 16, 2020 .
  4. ^ Operation Rubicon. Retrieved March 18, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c Christopher Nehring: The secret service coup of the century. In: dw.com . February 12, 2020, accessed February 16, 2020 .
  6. ^ Res Strehle : Encrypted: The case of Hans Bühler . Werd Verlag, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-85932-141-2 , p. 172 .
  7. ^ Res Strehle : Encrypted: The case of Hans Bühler . Werd Verlag, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-85932-141-2 , p. 175 .
  8. ^ Res Strehle : Encrypted: The case of Hans Bühler . Werd Verlag, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-85932-141-2 , p. 53 .
  9. ↑ Leah Simpson: CIA secretly owned Swiss company that ruled global spy comms. In: dailymail.co.uk . February 11, 2020, accessed on February 13, 2020 .
  10. ^ Res Strehle : Encrypted: The case of Hans Bühler . Werd Verlag, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-85932-141-2 , p. 81-82 .
  11. ^ A b Monique Ryser: Crypto AG: Switzerland under a blanket with the CIA. In: infosperber .ch. February 12, 2020, accessed February 16, 2020 .
  12. ^ Rubicon campaign: Long-term shading by the BND. February 12, 2020, accessed February 16, 2020 .
  13. ^ Operation Rubicon. Retrieved March 18, 2020 .
  14. ↑ BND and CIA spied states through a joint company. In: tagesspiegel.de . February 11, 2020, accessed February 16, 2020 .
  15. ↑ a b Operation Rubicon. In: zdf.de . March 18, 2020, accessed March 18, 2020 .
  16. ^ Operation Rubicon - The most important espionage operation in history? How the BND and the CIA overheard the whole world. In: German Spy Museum. February 11, 2020, accessed on July 6, 2020 (German).
  17. ↑ Oliver Zihlmann, Res Strele: Cryptoleaks: Where the secret services overhear everywhere. Tages-Anzeiger, February 12, 2020.
  18. ^ Operation Rubicon - The most important espionage operation in history? How the BND and the CIA overheard the whole world. In: German Spy Museum. February 11, 2020, accessed on July 6, 2020 (German).
  19. ↑ a b “Who is the authorized fourth?” In: Der Spiegel . No. 36 , 1996, pp. 206-207 ( online ).
  20. ^ Secret service affair - Worldwide espionage operation with Swiss company uncovered. February 11, 2020, accessed February 11, 2020 .
  21. ↑ wiretapping affair for experts "largest espionage case in world history". In: vol.at. February 13, 2020, accessed February 16, 2020 .
  22. ↑ #Cryptoleaks: How BND and CIA deceived everyone. Retrieved February 13, 2020 .
  23. ^ Operation Rubicon. Retrieved March 18, 2020 .
  24. ^ Fiona Endres, Nicole Vögele: Worldwide espionage operation with Swiss company uncovered. In: srf.ch. Swiss radio and television , February 11, 2020, accessed on February 16, 2020 .
  25. ↑ Business audit delegation investigates crypto affair. In: srf.ch. Swiss radio and television , February 13, 2020, accessed on February 13, 2020 .
  26. ↑ GPDel also takes over crypto investigation by the Federal Council , SRF, February 26, 2020
  27. ^ Office of the National Council against a PUK , SRF, February 26, 2020
  28. ↑ A Technician's Tragedy. Tages-Anzeiger, February 12, 2020.
  29. ↑ about the film