Operation Rubicon
[1] In a comprehensive CIA historical account of the operation leaked in early 2020, it was referred to as the "intelligence coup of the century" in a Washington Post article.
[1] The Maximator alliance, which in addition to (West) Germany also includes Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Sweden, was also familiar with the vulnerabilities and used it in their intelligence gathering.
[3][4] 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.
According to The Washington Post, the nuclear powers India and Pakistan as well as the Vatican and several other countries, mostly from the global south, used devices from Crypto AG.
[2] Through encryption technology sold as secure, but in reality manipulated, messages transmitted could be read by the CIA, NSA and BND intelligence agencies involved.
For example, the threat situation for Germany was apparently assessed differently after the end of the Cold War than in previous years, and relations between the states of Europe improved.
[11] On the part of the BND, the Zentralstelle für das Chiffrierwesen (ZfCh) apparently played an important role in the execution of Operation Rubicon.
On behalf of the German government, the BND received diplomatic and military radio traffic from many states that encrypted with Crypto AG equipment.
[12] According to the leaked documents, at times over 40 percent of the NSA's total machine decryption could be traced back to Operation Rubicon, which was considered an "irreplaceable resource".
[1] At the same time, the weakness of the algorithms of the exported Crypto AG devices continued to be exploited by the BND well after the operation was terminated in 1992, according to media reports.
[6] Even before the war, the intelligence services of the Netherlands had gained access to Argentinian communications using Crypto AG devices, being familiar with its weaknesses as part of the Maximator alliance.
[12] Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan stated that he had clear evidence that dictator Muammar Gaddafi was behind the operation, and his country could track all Libyan communications.
Through Operation Rubicon, U.S. intelligence agencies knew that wanted President Manuel Noriega was in the Vatican embassy in Panama City.
In 1995, hot on the heels of the Hans Bühler affair (HYDRA), The Baltimore Sun reported for the first time that Crypto AG had been selling manipulated cipher devices until the late 1980s, and made the connections to the NSA and CIA.
Bernd Schmidbauer, Minister of State to the Federal Chancellor under Helmut Kohl, confirmed the Rubikon operation to ZDF in 2020, claiming that it helped make the world a little "safer and more peaceful".
The junta had thousands of regime critics thrown alive into the sea from military planes over the Atlantic; around 30,000 people in total fell victim to the dictatorship.
Although the German government under Helmut Schmidt was aware of this through the interception technology of Crypto AG, the Germany national football team participated in the 1978 World Cup held in Argentina.
[2] However, an obvious use of the information obtained would most likely have resulted in the unmasking of the politically highly sensitive operation, which was extremely important for the intelligence services involved.
[6] Thus, the weakened crypto products supplied to Allies ultimately jeopardized the security of the Alliance as a whole due to the increased risk of third parties skimming the information.
