Electronics Giant Philips Helped the CIA Spy on Turkey

World | February 17, 2020, Monday // 16:14
Bulgaria: Electronics Giant Philips Helped the CIA Spy on Turkey www.pixabay.com

The Dutch electronic giant Philips has repeatedly weakened the encryption standard fof devices that were intended to communicate securely and the watered-down equipment was provided to Turkey, a former company official told Vpro

The cryptographer Cees Jansen said the company has weakened its Aroflex device, a telex intended for secret communication between NATO allies, Sabah reported.

The Turkish government was so pleased with the device that it wanted to order additional units for communication between their embassies and internal communications for the military. The Americans, however, wanted to provide a "watered-down" version so that they could access Turkish communication. According to Jansen, however, Germany refused to cooperate.

Together with Siemens the company have already produced less sophisticated version for the civil market called "Beroflex".

"That was on some internal documents, but it was not generally known," he said.

Because the Turkish government was already using the Aroflex, the Turkish Intelligence Service, would have understood if a Beroflex had been delivered.

"So I was confronted with the request to make an Aroflex, which looked like an Aroflex but was actually a Beroflex," he stated.

According to the former employee, the CIA provided meeting rooms to discuss a plan, such as in the Holiday Inn hotel in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. National Security Agency staff also attended these meetings, Daily Sabah reported.

"At that time I looked at it differently than now," Jansen said. "I did what the boss asked me and made what needed to be made."

"Because it has been so long ago, we have checked with the company archive. However, our archivists have not been able to find information on this issue," a spokesperson for Philips said.

 

 

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Tags: Phillips, CIA, spy, US, turkey

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