Swiss government files criminal complaint over Crypto AG scandal involving CIA

Re:Swiss government files criminal complaint over Crypto AG ... by LatteLazy on Tuesday March 03, 2020 @05:31AM (#22473305)

After WW2 we (brits) sold enigma machines to the countries gaining independence from the empire and never mentioned we could read everything they were used to communicate. This is why no one should outsource vital functions to competitors...

This should be embarrassing for the Swiss intelligence services whose job it was to detect and prevent these sorts of shenanigans...

Also, have I misunderstood? The criminal case should be against the company executives surely, not "persons unknown". Or is that just to include whoever bribed them?

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Re:Swiss government files criminal complaint over Crypto AG ... by andreasley on Tuesday March 03, 2020 @05:48AM (#22473373)

> This should be embarrassing for the Swiss intelligence services whose job it was to detect and prevent these sorts of shenanigans...

Some alledge that the NDB/FIS (Federal Intelligence Service) knew about the operation. [1]

> The criminal case should be against the company executives surely, not "persons unknown".

At this point, it is not known who was involved in what way exactly. Some executives? Definitely. All executives? Maybe not.

A former employee believes that only 2-3 executives knew about the whole scheme and maybe 10-15 technicians put two and two together or suspected something. [2]

[1] https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/geheimdienstaffaere-cryptole... (german)

[2] https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/17-jahre-bei-der-crypto-ag-e... (german)

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Re:Swiss government files criminal complaint over Crypto AG ... by mytailorisrich on Tuesday March 03, 2020 @10:18AM (#22475069)

> The criminal case should be against the company executives surely, not "persons unknown"

I don't know about Switzerland, but in some European countries this enables a judge to be designated to carry out a formal investigation and to then decide who to specifically go after. In addition, filing a complaint against a specific person opens you to be sued back if that person is then shown to have done nothing wrong. This means that it is very common for criminal complaints to be initially filed against "persons unknown".

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Re:Swiss government files criminal complaint over Crypto AG ... by farseer on Tuesday March 03, 2020 @09:19AM (#22474596)

I don't think anyone believes that the Swiss didn't know.

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Re:Swiss government files criminal complaint over Crypto AG ... by markus_zhang on Tuesday March 03, 2020 @08:26AM (#22474237)

tracking the history of CIA black operations e.g. Operation Gladio in Europe in the cold war, I'm almost sure that someone from the Swiss side knew this from the beginning.

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Re:Swiss government files criminal complaint over Crypto AG ... by cognaitiv on Tuesday March 03, 2020 @12:00PM (#22476297)

Operation Gladio is the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that was planned by the Western Union (WU), and subsequently by NATO, for a potential Warsaw Pact invasion and conquest in Europe. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, "Operation Gladio" is used as an informal name for all of them. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and some neutral countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

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