Wanted: Help to analyze (backdoored) Omnisec devices

coderman coderman at protonmail.com
Fri Nov 27 08:41:41 PST 2020


more fun history:

Controversy

In relation to the above, it is worth noting that both the initial owner of Omnisec, Urs Ingold, and the first director, Pierre Schmid, are mentioned in the CIA documents about [Operation RUBICON](https://cryptomuseum.com/intel/cia/rubicon.htm), as being well-known by the American intelligence community, whatever that means [8](https://cryptomuseum.com/manuf/omnisec/index.htm#ref_8).

Another name that turns up in relation to Omnisec, is Ueli Maurer, Professor at the ETH in Zürich, and between 1988 and 2015 technical advisor at Omnisec. Although he previously denied it, he now confirms that he was approached by the [NSA](https://cryptomuseum.com/intel/nsa/index.htm) in 1989, but had turned them down [10](https://cryptomuseum.com/manuf/omnisec/index.htm#ref_10)[11](https://cryptomuseum.com/manuf/omnisec/index.htm#ref_11).

Further suggestions that he and/or his colleages might have cooperated with the intelligence services, are found in the [Operation RUBICON](https://cryptomuseum.com/intel/cia/rubicon.htm) documents [8](https://cryptomuseum.com/manuf/omnisec/index.htm#ref_8). In 1993, shortly after release of [Crypto AG](https://cryptomuseum.com/manuf/crypto/index.htm) sales representative [Hans Bühler](https://cryptomuseum.com/people/buehler/hans.htm) from an Iranian prison, 3 the Swiss Bundespolizei (BuPo) investigated the allegations that [Crypto AG equipment](https://cryptomuseum.com/crypto/hagelin/index.htm) might have been rigged by foreign intelligence services. Swiss military officials subsequently informed the [CIA](https://cryptomuseum.com/intel/cia/index.htm) that they had:

"the ability to ensure that the official results of any
investigation will show no manipulation of the gear"

They also informed the [CIA](https://cryptomuseum.com/intel/cia/index.htm) that, should the investigation be subcontracted to the ETH in Zürich, they could handle four of the five cryptomathematicians who could become involved in the investigation. In other words: the ETH was in their pocket.

- https://cryptomuseum.com/manuf/omnisec/index.htm
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