Question

review the excerpt from the code book. in 1998, a report by wayne madsen revealed that the swiss cryptographic company crypto ag had built backdoors into some of its products, and had provided the u.s. government with details of how to exploit these backdoors. as a result, america was able to read the communications of several countries. in 1991 the assassins who killed shahpour bakhtiar, the exiled former iranian prime minister, were caught thanks to the interception and backdoor decipherment of iranian messages encrypted using crypto ag equipment. in this paragraph, the author uses a real - life example to demonstrate how cryptography can help the government. can be dangerous. is a swiss specialty. is unreasonably expensive.

Explanation:

The author presents a real - life example where a cryptography company built backdoors in its products. The U.S. Government exploited these backdoors to read other countries' communications, and this led to the capture of assassins. This shows that cryptography can be misused (backdoors) and the consequences (interception of communications, capture of criminals which could imply a dangerous aspect if misused). The example does not focus on helping the government in a positive sense (it's about exploitation), it's not about cryptography being a Swiss specialty (the company is Swiss but that's not the main point), and there's no mention of cost.

Answer:

can be dangerous.