🚀 go-pugleaf

's most successful
* post-Cold War project for deciphering coded messages. Since the
* 1940's, the NSA reportedly rigged encryption systems sold by the
* Swiss firm Crypto A.G. so that the agency retained the ability
* to break the codes of anyone using the machines.
*
* Thus, Fort Meade was able to listen in on the coded military and
* diplomatic traffic of the more than 130 countries that were Crypto
* A.G. customers.


Initially, the NSA tried to say they couldn't decrypt Key Recovery
impaired traffic on the fly:

!   The New York Times, December 29, 19??, by David Burnham
!   "Vast Coding of Data is Urged to Hamper Electronic Spies"
!   
!   Because the National Security Agency is actively involved in the
!   design [of Key Recovery cryptography], the agency will have the
!   technical ability to decipher the messages.
!   
!   Walter G. Deeley, NSA deputy director for communications security
!   said, "It is technically possible for the Government to read such
!   messages, but it would be insane for it to do so. It would be an
!   extraordinarily expensive undertaking and would require a massive
!   increase in computer power."

Probably since noone believed that, they admitted it, and said why they
needed to decrypt in real-time:

#                  Encryption and Law Enforcement
#    
#                        Dorothy E. Denning
#                       Georgetown University
#    
#                         February 21, 1994
#   
#   To implement lawful interceptions of encrypted communications, they
#   need a real-time or near real-time decryption capability in order
#   to keep up with the traffic and prevent potential acts of violence.
#   Since there can be hundreds of calls a day on a tapped line, any
#   solution that imposes a high overhead per call is impractical.


And if uncrackable crypto were in widespread use within the U.S., the
FBI would demand that it be out