Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
#2 Unlike printers, every typewriter had its own individual typing pattern which made it possible to link every document to a particular machine, Izvestiya said.
Re: Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
#3Before: copy file to thumbdrive/cellphone.
Now: take picture with cellphone.
Re: Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
#4Unlike printers, every typewriter had its own individual typing pattern which made it possible to link every document to a particular machine, Izvestiya said. I thought printouts could also be traced back to individual printers? Leaks didn't start with printers. Just ask people who leaked during the Cold War and even long before then. Leaks go as far back as when text was used for communicating confidential informati…
It is not about leaks. It is about backdoors in hardware.
Re: Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
#5"The FSO has not commented on why it needs the old-fashioned devices.
But an agency source told Russia's Izvestiya newspaper the aim was to prevent leaks from computer hardware."
So someone already leaked they are trying to stop leaks. Very "Yes Minister"
Re: Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
#6Hopefully they remember not to throw out the ink ribbon.
Re: Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
#7I worked for a short while in a national lab. They used to call this "air-gap" security. i.e., there would be computers which would have no internet connection and no usb/harddrive inputs etc. If they needed data in there, they would have one person read data from one computer and type it into the secure one. Essentially there would be a literal air-gap between the secure computer and the non-secure ones.
Re: Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
#8Accompanying the article is a stock picture of an olive Olivetti Lettera 32. It's got its cover missing, poor thing, and it appears to have had a photoshop job to remove the label at the front. It looks like this is an Italian QZERTY version, which makes sense because the olive green is rare with other keyboard layouts. Millions were sold. They're nice machines - I have one with a cursive font that gives me a headache from the hammering noise whenever I use it.
Re: Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
#9Before: copy file to thumbdrive/cellphone. Now: take picture with cellphone.
there is significant time overhead and increased visibility/decreased quality(in terms of usability) in this method. a 100 page document would take a long time to photograph, but not as long to transfer, and you'd be less visible.
Re: Kremlin security agencies buying typewriters "to avoid leaks"
#10Unlike printers, every typewriter had its own individual typing pattern which made it possible to link every document to a particular machine, Izvestiya said. I thought printouts could also be traced back to individual printers? Leaks didn't start with printers. Just ask people who leaked during the Cold War and even long before then. Leaks go as far back as when text was used for communicating confidential informati…
It is not about leaks. It is about backdoors in hardware.
According to various news sources, they're buying Triumph-Adler Twen 180 and Olympia Comfort typewriters. Don't know about the former, but the latter seems to be a full-fledged computer, even having an option of a disk drive.
Certainly, the architecture must be ranges of magnitude simpler, compared to modern desktop computers, but still you won't know what's really implemented inside the CPU die disassembling the device and reverse-engineering all significant chips using scanning electron microscope.