asciilifeform: starting with 1940s crypto-ag and going on to today.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: more dire, even, than this, we aren't dealing with 20 years of disinfo artistry, but ~70 ! hagelin, crypto-ag, etc. and the entire poppycock of transposition ciphers surviving into computer age

asciilifeform: $s crypto ag

asciilifeform: in even lulzier noose, http://thefactcoalition.org/worlds-largest-banks-endorse-ending-anonymous-shell-companies <<< does this mean that Crypto Ag will be unmasked??!1111

asciilifeform: re earlier, i never quite grasped why every 'classy' diddled crypto peddler has to move to geneva. just because nsa-operated crypto AG corp. is there ?

asciilifeform: pitch that Crypto AG was a neutral company and its equipment was the best. They were Swiss, after all. [3] Crypto AG eventually paid one million dollars for Buehler's release in January 1993, then promptly fired him once they had reassured themselves that he hadn't revealed anything important under interrogation, and because Buehler had begun to ask some embarrassing questions.'

asciilifeform: 'Iran demonstrated its suspicion about the source of the leaks, when it arrested Hans Buehler, a top salesman for Crypto AG, in Teheran on March 18, 1992. During his nine and a half months of solitary confinement in Evin prison in Teheran, Buehler was questioned again and again whether he had leaked Teheran's codes or Libya's keys to Western powers. Luckily Buehler didn't know anything. He in fact believed in his own sales

asciilifeform: as the infamous crypto ag did (does!)

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: they bought (with guess what kind of money) sizeable stakes in various swiss concerns (including, best-known publicly, crypto ag)

asciilifeform: case in point: where is crypto ag corp. headquartered? and why

asciilifeform: (and yes, 'crypto ag' - nsa shill - sold diddled cipher machines for half a century and (!) counting. not counting shams-by-design here, only surreptitiously-modified products)

asciilifeform: gpg.. yachtful << nope. they'd rather buy pwndildoes from 'crypto ag.' it's a 'technolordosis' signal to their master.

asciilifeform: crypto ag.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: the unsettling discovery is that mass-derp can continue far longer than the example under consideration. e.g., 'crypto ag' still exists, multi-$b, 'unknown' ownership, and... multi-decade loyal customers.

asciilifeform: or witness 'Crypto AG' - swiss company; founded by best friend of the founder of... nsa. owned by: no one knows, probably usg.