{"id":1399485,"date":"2023-12-18T20:13:30","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T20:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=455534"},"modified":"2023-12-18T20:13:30","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T20:13:30","slug":"secret-pakistan-document-undermines-espionage-case-against-imran-khan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/12\/18\/secret-pakistan-document-undermines-espionage-case-against-imran-khan\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret Pakistan Document Undermines Espionage Case Against Imran Khan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A crucial document<\/span> from Pakistan\u2019s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, undermines a major plank in the high-profile prosecution of the country\u2019s former prime minister, Imran Khan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan remains behind bars while he faces trial for allegedly mishandling a secret document, known as a cypher, which the prosecution claims compromised the integrity of the encrypted communication system used by the state\u2019s security apparatus. But according to an ISI analysis leaked to The Intercept, that claim is entirely false. Internally, the agency concluded that the leak of the text of a cypher could in no way compromise the integrity of the system, an assessment contrary to public claims made repeatedly by prosecutors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main charge against Khan relates to his handling of a diplomatic cable describing a key meeting in March 2022 between U.S. and Pakistani officials in Washington. Khan, while prime minister, had repeatedly alluded to the existence of a cypher that outlined U.S. pressure on Pakistan to remove him from power in a vote of no confidence. Though he never disclosed its full contents, at times, in public speeches, he quoted statements recorded in it from U.S. officials promising to reward Pakistan for his ouster. At one rally, Khan even waved what he said was the printed text of the document, without revealing its exact contents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors assert that Khan damaged Pakistani national security by exposing the text of this encrypted document, contents they say could potentially be used by rival intelligence agencies to crack the code of a wide range of other secret Pakistani communications. A criminal complaint against Khan alleges that he \u201ccompromised the entire cypher security system of the state and secret communication method of Pakistani missions abroad,\u201d through his alleged mishandling of the cypher. The former prime minister faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty under Pakistan\u2019s Official Secrets Act<\/a> and could face the death penalty if charged with treason in the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On August 9, 2023, The Intercept published the text of the cypher outlining U.S. pressure against Pakistan to remove Khan<\/a>. Shortly afterward, Pakistan\u2019s own intelligence agency issued an assessment addressing the very question of how damaging publishing such a text would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The internal conclusion of the ISI was crystal clear: No threat to Pakistan\u2019s encryption existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Pakistan did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On August 11, two days after The Intercept story was published, an internal request for information was sent to the ISI by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The question at hand: Does the revelation of the plain text of such a cypher compromise the integrity of the system\u2019s encryption? The response, filed by the Inter-Services Intelligence Secretariat under the heading ISI-Policy Matters, and titled \u201cBreach of Crypto Security,\u201d determined that contrary to the present charges against Khan, revealing the text of a cypher poses no risk to the government\u2019s encrypted communications network. \u201cIf plain text of an encrypted message (cryptogram) \u2026 is leaked it has no effect on security of encryptor,\u201d the analysis, which was filed on August 23, concludes. \u201cLeakage of a plain text message does not compromise the algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concern about the security of an encryption system is not entirely unfounded. Some encryption systems can theoretically be compromised by what is known as a \u201cplaintext attack,\u201d in which an attacker has access to a copy of both the plain and encrypted versions of a document\u2019s text and can use the two versions to determine the encryption system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the spy agency\u2019s conclusion in the days following The Intercept\u2019s publication of the secret cypher was that the disclosure of the short piece of text alone \u2014 without the encryption key \u2014 did not pose a risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf plain text of an encrypted message (cryptogram) using DTE is leaked, it has no effect on security of the encryptor due to following,\u201d the analysis reads, referring to “an offline encryption device.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe encryption algorithm,\u201d it goes on to explain, \u201cis designed with an assumption that the plain\/cipher text pairs and algorithms are known to the adversary, the security lies in the secrecy of the key. Therefore leakage of a plain text message does not compromise the algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the agency’s own analysis, to launch a plaintext attack an adversary would need a minimum of 2256<\/sup> bits of “plain\/cipher text data encrypted with the same key” to figure it out. That would be an amount of text that exceeds not just the length of Khan\u2019s diplomatic cable, but also the total amount of digital storage space available worldwide. In other words, there was never any risk whatsoever that publishing the contents of the cypher could allow an adversary to crack the state\u2019s encryption system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot Compromised\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The cypher published by The Intercept deals with a March 7, 2022, meeting between a senior State Department official, Donald Lu, and Pakistan\u2019s then-ambassador to the U.S. The document describes a tense meeting in which State Department officials expressed their concerns about Khan\u2019s stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and threatened that Pakistan could face isolation from the U.S. and European allies. According to the cable, Lu tells the Pakistani ambassador that \u201call will be forgiven<\/a>\u201d if Khan were removed from power by a vote of no confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day after the meeting described in the cypher, on March 8, 2022, Khan\u2019s opponents in Parliament moved forward with a key procedural step toward a no-confidence vote against him \u2014 a vote largely seen as having been orchestrated by Pakistan\u2019s powerful military establishment. A month later, Khan was ousted from power, time during which he tried to blow the whistle on U.S. involvement <\/a>in his removal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan had said that the meeting detailed in the cypher showed proof of a U.S.-led conspiracy against his government. The text of the document published in August 2023 by The Intercept broadly validated his account of that meeting, with portions of it matching word for word what little Khan had quoted from it. (The cypher was leaked to The Intercept by a source within Pakistan\u2019s military, not by Khan.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Khan, according to prosecutors, did not declassify the cypher document while in office, even as it had become a major part of his battle for political survival. At several points while he was in power, representatives of other branches of the government expressed opposition to declassifying the document, including at a critical March 30 cabinet meeting, arguing that revealing the text of the document would compromise Pakistan\u2019s national security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan\u2019s former foreign secretary echoed these claims, saying that Khan’s government discussed revealing the full text to quiet critics who said he was fabricating the U.S. pressure, but had been informed that doing so might endanger Pakistan’s encrypted communication systems. A probe by Pakistan\u2019s Federal Investigation Agency this November into Khan\u2019s handling of the document also cited a former aide to the prime minister, Azam Khan, who reportedly told investigators that he warned that the \u201ccipher was a decoded secret document and its contents could neither be disclosed nor be discussed in public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The allegation that Khan undermined the cryptographic security now forms a major part of state security charges against the former prime minister, who remains Pakistan\u2019s most popular politician<\/a>. A conviction on the charges would likely prevent Khan from being able to contest future elections, including those expected early next year.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Smoke\n
Smoke from a fire billows during a protest by angry supporters of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan as police fire tear gas to disperse them after the arrest of Khan, in Peshawar, Pakistan, on May 9, 2023.Photo: Muhammad Sajjad\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

\u201cRegime Change\u201d Cypher<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The scandal over the cypher and Khan\u2019s claim that it described a \u201cregime change\u201d conspiracy has gripped Pakistan since his removal from power in 2022. In public statements, Khan had claimed that attempts had been made by foreign powers \u201cto influence our foreign policy from abroad.\u201d After his removal the U.S. subsequently assisted Pakistan in obtaining a generous IMF loan<\/a>, while Pakistan began producing ammunition for the war in Ukraine. Khan had sought to keep Pakistan neutral in the conflict, a stance the State Department had angrily objected to in the meeting described in the cypher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Following Khan\u2019s removal, Pakistan has been gripped by a series of political, economic, and security crises<\/a>. The country has experienced record-breaking inflation, social unrest, and a wave of terrorist attacks by the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan\u2019s current army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, visited the U.S. last week to build ties with U.S. policymakers, even as the country continues to be nominally led by a civilian caretaker government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan was arrested on August 5, 2023, after being sentenced to three years in prison over a politically dubious corruption case. That conviction was suspended by the High Court later that month, yet he has remained behind bars ever since thanks to subsequent charges made against him over his handling of the cypher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan\u2019s lawyers have criticized his jailing as illegal and unconstitutional. Legal proceedings against him have been mired in secrecy, legal irregularities, and accusations of abuse, including violations of his privacy while imprisoned. Khan\u2019s trial has been under strict controls that have impeded media coverage. During his imprisonment, supporters of his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, continue to hold large rallies in the country despite attempts at government suppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a long delay, Pakistan is expected to hold elections early next year, though Khan, who polls show would likely win a free vote, is unlikely to participate thanks to his compounding legal challenges. Prominent among these is the charge that Khan\u2019s alleged mishandling of the cypher document risked compromising Pakistan\u2019s encryption systems \u2014 notwithstanding the ISI\u2019s own internal conclusion that no such risk existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While his state secrets trial continues, there is no public indication that the ISI has turned this exculpatory evidence over to Khan\u2019s defense team.<\/p>\n

The post Secret Pakistan Document Undermines Espionage Case Against Imran Khan<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The former prime minister is charged with compromising Pakistan\u2019s secret communications, but a document leaked to The Intercept says that didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

The post Secret Pakistan Document Undermines Espionage Case Against Imran Khan<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1399485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1399486,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399485\/revisions\/1399486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1399485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1399485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}