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> Typical American companies aren't controlled by the CIA or other government agencies.

Unless the CIA has any interest in them, in which they get pwned pretty quickly.




No. That's my exact point. The CIA can't just get control of a company because they want to. Not that it's impossible, but there isn't a reliable mechanism for doing so.

They would need to somehow subvert key executives and subvert key employees to convince them to add back doors and keep quiet about it.

Their levers on such people (carrots and sticks, threats and bribes) aren't that easy to deploy either, especially en mass and in the US. There are a lot of legal hurdles. (The CIA has a lot more legal latitude outside the US than in -- that's very likely an important reason AG Crypto is a Swiss company and not an American one.) Not that the CIA always scrupulously follows the law -- they don't -- but they have to be careful about it.

I suppose you can just believe the CIA hits the "pwn" button anytime they like. But that doesn't have anything to do with the way things work.




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