🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <fraserdt.727978978@unixg.ubc.ca> fraserdt@unixg.ubc.ca (David T.S. Fraser) writes:
>In <1993Jan25.154016.10434@cas.org> jac54@cas.org () writes:
>
>>In article <1993Jan23.181520.18783@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> jebright@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (James R Ebright) writes:
>>>
>>>Both books are great reads!  (Ever wonder why regular typewriters are
>>>not used to type crypto messages...Read SPYCATCHER for that and much more.)
>
>>	That's regular ELECTRIC typewriters, regular manual typewriters
>>	are very popular with the security-conscious.
>
>Same goes for PCs, too.

I understand from my current reading, including a recent and excellent book
on the CIA, apparently published with CIA cooperation to help with their
more "open" image, and filled with revelations not previously seen, that
manual typewriters are no more secure than electric. One simply uses
different techniques for eavesdropping. In the case of "golf-ball"
electrics, the motor is on for different lengths of time depending on the
characters typed. In the case of manual ones, the sound is different
depending on the key being struck.

The book (sorry I haven't a pointer--I returned it to the library) has a
particularly fascinating account of how the Soviets installed eavesdropping
transmitters in the vertical support bar of U.S. typewriters in such a way
that the workmanship was completely undetectable visually and the bugs had
the same X-ray density as the support bar and thus didn't show up via
X-ray. It took newer scanning techniques to spot the anomalies in the
support bars and lead to the detection of the hidden bugs.
-- 
David Sternlight
RIPEM Public Key on server  --  Consider it an envelope for your e-mail