The not-so-secret for this week is that covid-19 continues to upend practically ever industry that operates today.

The toll that the virus is taking on the $688 billion online travel industry is shared by airlines and big hotel chains.

Which made me think a lot about economic activity around the world. What is one suppose to do if business is grinding to a halt but business liabilities (i.e bonds) or personal liabilities (i.e. mortages) are due? Crazy to think a viral spread can bring the world to a halt, wreck havoc on the stock market, but interest on debts march on. Which was why I was surprised to see measures like this take place:

Coronavirus: Italy to suspend mortgage payments amid outbreak - BBC News

The country's deputy economy minister tells an Italian radio station that mortgage payments will be halted.

Mortgage payments will be suspended across Italy as part of measures to soften the economic blow of coronavirus on households, a minister has said.

Laura Castelli, Italy's deputy economy minister, told Radio Anch'io: "Yes, that will be the case, for individuals and households."

Italy's banking lobby group ABI said lenders would offer debt holidays to small firms and families.

Suspending debt payments is not unheard of in Italy.

Some small businesses and families were given time off during the financial crisis before having to repay.

The more interesting story I came across this week centered around a government agency running a full blown business in disguise dating back decades. The product it sold? Encryption tools

Uncovering The CIA's Audacious Operation That Gave Them Access To State Secrets : NPR

Greg Miller of The Washington Post reveals the hidden history of Crypto AG, a Swiss firm that sold encryption technology to 120 countries — but was secretly owned by the CIA for decades.

Crypto AG was a maker of encryption devices; that is, it made equipment that was mainly for governments, for nations to use to protect their communications. So basically, these are machines that scramble messages and code them and then decode them at the other end so that other governments can't listen to what you're saying to your diplomats or to your military or to your spies. It's designed to protect the secrecy of countries' communications....

Crypto AG was, for most of its history, the world's leading supplier of this kind of technology, and it sold its devices to more than 120 countries around the world...

Crypto AG, from its inception, was cooperating with U.S. intelligence agencies and, for most of its history, was actually owned by the CIA. From 1970 until 1998, it was essentially a subsidiary of the CIA, even while dozens and dozens of countries around the world were buying these machines, this equipment, encryption equipment, trusting this company with their most precious secrets.

It's an amazing look (and reminder) at how the consumer technology we use today stemmed from government involvement from the very beginning. And I mean this broadly from DARPA funding to encryption methods used during war, to surveillance happening globally with our own usage of our consumer tools.