C. Wiebes - Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992-1995. De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten - Engels

224range of the RC-135 and U-2R reconnaissance aircraft, as these usually flew over the Adriatic. Due toall these reasons, a detailed and substantial Sigint coverage of Serb military activities was fairly difficult.The previously mentioned taps on hardware sometimes presented an alternative.The cryptography offensive against the SerbsThe use of cryptography equipment by the Serbs also made it harder to monitor their communicationstraffic. Despite this it was possible to discover weak points: in the past the VJ and the former Yugoslavgovernment had bought most of their equipment from Crypto AG in Switzerland. The VRS and thecurrent Serbian government inherited most of this equipment. It is now known that this company had asecret agreement with the NSA to build in a ‘back door’ in the computer software of the suppliedencryption equipment. This enabled the Americans to read the coded messages. 1189 Interviewed personsin Washington and London claimed that as a result of this secret agreement the coded traffic betweenBelgrade and various Serbian embassies abroad was systematically intercepted and read by the NSA,thanks in part to the use of Crypto AG equipment. Other countries were also ‘victims’. Officials at theVatican even labelled Crypto AG as ‘bandits’. 1190 Representatives of a European intelligence serviceconfirmed this weak link in the Serb communications, but they also point out that in the past theCroats had supplied much computer equipment to Belgrade. This equipment too was provided with a‘back door’. 1191Another relevant fact in this context is that the western (and above all the French) intelligenceservices had long suspected that the NSA had made an agreement with the producer of the most widelyused computer software, Microsoft. According to a report by the French Ministry of Defence, thisagreement meant that Microsoft reportedly provided all its Windows software with a ‘back door’.Microsoft immediately denied all the accusations and stated it was prepared to cooperate with theFrench Government. The author of the French report, Admiral J. Marguin, was frank in his commentsto journalists: ‘After all, what would we do if we possessed such an effective group as Microsoft?’ 1192Furthermore the NSA is said to have made agreements with American, British, Swiss, Dutch, Belgian,Swedish, Italian, Finnish and Hungarian software companies engaged in marketing encryptionprograms. 1193The scandal in Washington involving the Cylink Corporation is another indication that both therequired encryption software and the encryption equipment can be penetrated from outside. Cylink hasbeen producing encryption software for foreign governments and companies for more than 16 years.However, the company had always managed to export its products, even to countries officially subjectto a trade embargo, such as Libya, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq and probably also Serbia. Followingall events around Cylink, the Cryptome website put the question: ‘How is Cylink able to freely exportsecurity products, while other encryption companies were punished?’ 1194 It is in fact also known fromother sources that Washington constantly encourages companies making code equipment or encryptionsoftware to include a back door in their products; this was confirmed to the US Congress by FBIdirector Freeh. 11951189 Interview with Wayne Madsen, 21/06/99.1190 Confidential interviews (6), (11) and (91) and interview with Wayne Madsen, 21/09/96. See also: Wayne Mdsen, ‘CryptoAG. The NSA’s Trojan Horse?’, Covert Action Quarterly, No. 63 (Winter 1998), passim and ‘Huge NSA Encryption Scam’,GSReport, 10/02/99.1191 Confidential interview (48).1192 Charles Bremner, ‘French accuse Gates of bugging software’, The Sunday Times, 23/02/00.1193 Madsen, Data, pp. 6-7.1194 ‘Cylink decrypted?’, op: http://cryptome.org/cylinked.htm, 10/03/00. Cylink’s lawyers - Morrison & Foerster –threatened to take the owner of this website, John Young, to court for libel. However, nothing more has come of this threat– which is unusual for American circumstances. See letter Morrison & Foerster to John Young, 09/03/00.1195 E-mail from Stephen Peacock about Encryption on Intelforum, 10/03/00.