Unternehmen BILANZ 19/13 01.10.2013 | 17:44. By Leo Müller, Photo: Getty Images

http://www.bilanz.ch/unternehmen/spionage- unheimlich-kooperativ

Espionage: A Spooky Cooperation

Secret Services’ hunger for data is enormous. The equipment feeding this appetite is provided by the software industry. This is a mega business for Silicon Valley, but also for IT companies in Europe, such as SAP in Germany and Crypto AG in Switzerland.

The people of Crypto AG are These days the people at Crypto are PowerPoint files stolen from the generally considered to be silent, no longer ridiculed. Globally among lowest echelons of the super- closed and inaccessible. Some would the leading encryption artists, their intelligence service called the even consider them slightly company is no stranger to the world National Security Agency (NSA), paranoid. Whenever they surf the of intelligence and yet it remains a Snowden has publicly described Internet, they sit in a glass cage mystery: no one knows who owns it. their standard eavesdropping and within their office complex in the Yet demand for companies like observation practices in words that business district of Steinhausen, Crypto in the secret service domain can be understood by everyone. His Canton of Zug, strictly isolated from is higher than ever. revelations have not only shown other offices and the production how the data-grabbing NSA has lines. Like outlawed smokers, who The young intelligence officer been growing and how it fishes for retire to the smoking lounge during Edward Snowden has issued a communications among their break. wakeup call that has turned an governments, businesses and uneasy feeling into certainty. With citizens. For the first time ever, the spotlight has been turned on a permitting its suppliers to advertise Thiel amassed a fortune estimated young industry that hitherto has this fact on the Internet. at $ 1.5 billion. Following law studies received little attention: the at Stanford, the philosopher Karp espionage business. Along with the joined Thiel as CEO and creative growth of the Internet, a spokesperson of Palantir. relationship between government intelligence agencies and private After fraudulent users almost drove business has developed that PayPal into bankruptcy, Thiel and heretofore was only known to exist computer scientists from Stanford between the defense industry and University, together with several co- investors, developed software to the military. It is a relationship similar to the "military industrial detect abnormal patterns in complex ", which U.S. President In 1999, for example, the CIA transactions. An additional investor Dwight Eisenhower warned could founded a venture capital fund in the project was a trust domiciled become a threat to democracy in named In-Q-Tel, which openly in Vaduz, Principality of 1961. Now, a silent but rapidly declares itself to be a contractual Liechtenstein, with a Zurich lawyer growing intelligence-industry partner promoting start-up as trustee. This project has since complex has emerged that potential businesses that develop useful become Palantir’s major business: represents a high risk. products. A quote from its website analyzing huge collections of reads: "In-Q-Tel (IQT) was created to unstructured data, detecting bridge the gap between the abnormalities, discovering trends Spy money for Start-ups technology needs of the U.S. and relationships and identifying Innocent observers were astonished Intelligence Community (IC) and patterns of behavior. In other to find out that whistleblower emerging commercial innovation.". words: looking for the needle in the Snowden was not employed by the Unlike many secretive actors in the haystack. NSA but by the consulting company venture capital scene, this CIA fund Booz Allen Hamilton. To the publishes the names of more than Palantir's name was inspired by the intelligence community this was no 90 companies in which they have "seeing stones" in Tolkien’s novel surprise. The U.S. intelligence invested. Among these are "The Lord of the Rings". Palantir’s agencies would find it difficult to specialized companies such as website has been influenced by cool imagine doing without the services A4Vision, headquartered in start-up freaks: photos show provided by Booz Allen or leading California (with a branch in Geneva), students in bathing suits and T- defense contractors such as Boeing, that develops 3D images for facial shirts, lounging around a conference General Dynamics and Siemens. recognition. Or Palantir table. You can follow them on Missile supplier Raytheon currently Technologies, a software company Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and earns almost as much revenue from well-known in professional circles. Quora and their company motto their intelligence services as they do suggests a do-gooder initiative: "We from military flying objects. are here to solve the toughest The needle in the haystack problems of the world." Their In the U.S., some 70 percent of the Palantir's products are also being mission: "To make the world a state security budget goes to the offered to the relevant authorities in better place." espionage industry, whose annual Bern. The company, which is located turnover is estimated at 75 billion at the former headquarters of dollars. Facebook in Palo Alto, employs a Princely accolade well-known former German Palantir’s products have an excellent The Internet has become a catalyst intelligence officer as its trade reputation and patents are being for this development and Silicon representative, and its top accorded on a regular basis, such as Valley is its industrial base. In the management also includes two the latest for managing bulk data melting pot of creative computer Germans: the Silicon Valley legend within a changing software developers, a strangely open culture Peter Thiel and Alexander Karp, environment. Then there are has emerged. While 20 years ago from Frankfurt, who holds a analytical tools that allow hedge service providers, such as the Texas- doctorate in philosophy. Thiel is the funds to improve their trading based E-Systems, which supplied founder of PayPal, the online strategies, obviously a useful by- wiretapping devices, took payment service, and is a major product of the investigative meticulous care to keep their clients investor in the Facebook project. applications. The services Palantir secret, the foreign intelligence With PayPal, Facebook and Palantir offers to the authorities in their fight service CIA sees no problem in against fraud were praised three years ago by no less a person than Through the Snowden revelations, a Cloud is the most dangerous U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. A more critical light has been shed on stupidity of all time," rants an princely accolade: the company such joint ventures as this, in which experienced security man. You doubles its turnover every year. CIA’s service-provider Palantir joins might as well place your hard disks However, Palantir does not release up with SAP, the world's largest on the pavement and stick a piece any financial data, nor does the supplier of business applications, of paper on them with a friendly company communicate the number which processes the data of 248 500 invitation to ‘help yourself’." of its employees or any other data. customers in 188 countries. Critics World-wide, it counts many cannot ignore the weekly governmental institutions among its PowerPoint slides, which Snowden customers, including intelligence publishes with the help of the and investigative agencies, as well American documentary filmmaker as banks and hedge funds. The Laura Poitras. The slides report how Palantir people help in the fight the NSA and CIA access the against terrorism and in combating databases of internet giants such as financial crimes; they were Facebook, Google and Yahoo, or of successful in cyber warfare, telecom companies such as Verizon unmasking Chinese cyber spies for and AT & T, how they read emails at Palantir and SAP, as well as the U.S. authorities. Internet hubs, spy out credit card Snowden's ex-employer Booz Allen, transactions, listen in on telephone are among the top service providers There are very tight connections conversations or decrypt smart to the intelligence services. between the company and the phones like BlackBerrys and However, the range the espionage government. At its headquarters in iPhones, things they sometimes industry covers is broad and Palo Alto, California, Palantir co- carry out legally, in accordance with encompasses everything that the founders have launched the secret agreements, at other times services require: encryption and Institute for Security & Analysis as a using trickery and by-passing decryption, investigators’ databases tax-exempt, non-profit organization. American laws. and visualization software for crime The Institute has declared its research, pattern recognition, mission to be the support of the U.S. speech recognition, face government in the development of Controversial «Clouds» recognition, network analysis, as new technologies, helping it to take SAP would unquestionably be a well as all sorts of modern a leading role in the utilization of desirable goal. Clandestine access to hardware, whether for the use of Silicon Valley software. However, the group would provide U.S. covert espionage or for judicially when software developers were intelligence services insights into a authorized scanning of computers. hired to investigate the WikiLeaks huge economic universe – a revelations, a shit storm broke out nightmare scenario for many "We live in a golden age of across the Internet; bright spark companies. "Palantir normally works espionage," says the cryptographer Alex Karp apologized to the Internet directly with the client on a project Paul Kocher, who has been involved community. and uses only such data that the in the encryption technology for the customer has submitted to it for the SSL protocol, which is intended to In May 2011 the managers of agreed purposes," says a spokesman secure e-mail communications. He Palantir gained a powerful European for SAP: "So far we have not has had to realize that, with the help ally. Together with SAP, the world's received a request by the NSA to of their service providers, the NSA leading company for business transmit data." has managed to weaken the SSL key software, they are now jointly to such an extent that it can filter offering their information analysis Nonetheless, IT security engineers out any information it desires. The application to national security and have been turning up their noses for same applies to VPN connections, intelligence services under the name some time at a trend that SAP and which many companies use both of "SAP Intelligence Analysis for the many other IT companies are internally and externally. The NSA Public Sector by Palantir". They state pushing: cloud storage. Such clouds spends $250 million annually for that "with this product our store customer programs and their "Sigint Enabling Project" customers can gather information databases in virtual clouds, huge program, in order to find loopholes efficiently, evaluate it and thus server farms that are installed to hack encrypted networks. And, if increase public safety." The somewhere out there. "SAP Cloud" you believe the Snowden application supports the authorities for example is already being used by revelations, the NSA does not in "sovereign security tasks." 30 million SAP customers. "The differentiate between friend and foe, between private and end, using only devices that have no Only this much is known: The government matters. Whether it is connections to the outside world or company was registered in 1950 in tourist and airline reservation to the net. Among these are the Vaduz by Crypto-founder Boris systems, telecom companies or the military encryption devices Hagelin. Rumors about the identity European monetary transaction manufactured by Crypto AG in Zug of the presumed owner have been network Swift, nothing seems to be and supplied to the Swiss Army, as circulating for decades. Sometimes safe from the reach of the well as to numerous governments it is said that it is the German secret eavesdroppers. Fundamental trust is and military agencies. service, sometimes Siemens AG, at being destroyed; a user no longer other times the Americans. Crypto knows whether he’s holding an AG has always vehemently denied Apple or an NSA phone in his hand. Mysterious owners these rumors, but it has never But can Crypto AG be trusted? The named its shareholders. The revelations have led to managers in Steinhausen point out Indisputable is the fact during WWII contradictory effects: they both that their devices may not be company founder Boris Hagelin promote the business of the delivered to the United States. supplied the U.S. Army with a espionage industry and also Permission is only given for legendary cipher machine. He encourage distrust toward the same encryption devices whose worked on it together with the industry. "We are at a turning encryption algorithm is stored with cryptologist William Friedman, who point," says Franz Grüter of the U.S. authorities. There is later became a leading NSA Green.ch, a Swiss company that something else, however, which for developer. For intelligence operates large data centers for decades has been keeping Crypto historians only one thing is certain: clients such as Hewlett-Packard, AG a mystery: no one knows who already in the 1950’s, the NSA used Axpo or North Stream. "People are owns Crypto AG. Even the their large Harvest computer to bound to renew their demand for company’s managers maintain they crack encryption devices. Maybe sovereignty over their data." Users don’t know who the real owner is. A there is a secret service man sitting are asking themselves whether single board member acts as in a glass cage in "Crypto City", the encryption still makes sense. shareholder representative on headquarters of the NSA at Fort Security experts answer that only behalf of the parent Crypto Group Meade, who knows precisely who those users may feel reasonably AG and holds the bearer shares owns the Trading Institute in safe who encrypt their data on their through the "European Institute Liechtenstein. own hardware using robust systems, Trading Company" in Liechtenstein. and then decrypt it at the receiving