As Germany’s “Handygate” has become a mass phenomenon bordering on hysteria, one of the strangest aspects has been the fact, which I’ve noted previously, that Chancellor Angela Merkel was using a quite insecure cellphone to conduct government business. According to numerous media reports, the cellphone in question, said to have been intercepted by NSA for years, was used by Merkel for political party affairs, and was supposed to be used only to the classification level of VS-NfD, which is roughly equivalent to the U.S. category of For Official Use Only (FOUO), in other words, not actually classified at all.
Except the actual story is coming into focus now and it’s a rather different one than what Berlin’s been complaining so loudly about. While Merkel has indeed had a quite vulnerable cellphone, her “real” Chancellor-Phone, as the Germans call it, is quite secure from interception.
As reported in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the manufacturer of Merkel’s “real” phone, a Düsseldorf firm called Secusmart, is the provider of choice to the German government as well as some private firms who worry about data security (at a cost of 2,500 Euros per handset, there aren’t many private buyers). Secusmart supplied Merkel with a voice encryption solution four years ago, based on software and a cryptographic chip, which was updated this year and works on all new BlackBerry handsets. Secusmart’s CEO, Hans-Christoph Quelle, maintains that Merkel’s calls using his firm’s phone are quite secure, even against NSA.
As explained by Secusmart, their phone’s AES encryption with 128 bits makes it possible to generate 340 sextillion different keys, that is to say 340 followed by 36 zeros. “Even with supercomputers, according to today’s technical standards it would theoretically take 149 billion years to crack this code” — in other words, 10,000 times longer than the age of the universe. As CEO Quelle put it, “that should keep even the United States going for a while.”
And indeed it would. So what, again, is all this fuss about … ?
The XX Committee 
Good article. However, the universe is approximately 14.8 billion years old. For something to take 149 billion years to crack would be roughly 10 times the age of the universe. Not 10,000.
Thanks – I’m a spook, not an astrophysicist.
I believe the original article says 149 trillion, not 149 billion, which would explain the 1000 fold discrepancy
Right-o
Per my previous query, perhaps one might surmise those haggling over the new coalition are hearing grim economic news indeed.
Very possibly yes.
Hmmmm……..Who on earth would peddle disinformation to the world’s media -AND try to compel the US to shut down any effective intelligence gathering ? (he asked sarcastically).
I wonder what a short list would look like…
Sorry, but the new Secusmart phone is only ‘VS-NFD’ , see https://www.secusmart.com/uploads/media/131024_Merkel_handy_abhoersicher_01.pdf Her old Nokia phone had no security clearance at all.
Well then the CEO has some explaining to do ….
He only said that AES is hard to crack. Implementation on a phone is another matter.
Great reporting I have not seen in the mainstream media. Thank you.
Reblogged this on Living in "The Kingdom of Wonder". and commented:
What is all this fuss about … ?
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