Thursday, July 11, 2013
Smart Russkis
News: KGB is buying up lots of old manual typewriters to avoid electronic surveillance by NSA. Mostly a publicity stunt, since KGB certainly knew what NSA was doing. (I've known about it for 25 years, and I have no connections at all! Can't believe that KGB was less aware than I was.)
Aside from the stuntness, this is Russia's real Secret Weapon. Stick with older technology despite apparent disadvantages, because older technology is more durable, more repairable and harder to fuck with.
Leads to an interesting thought.... How about fluidic computers or compressed-air computers? Capable of more speed and complexity than 'gears and levers' mechanisms, but still lacking an electromagnetic output for NSA to detect.
In the early days of telegraphy before electricity dominated everything, pneumatic telegraphs were used commercially for a while. Less practical but maybe inspiring other ideas, this 1827 gaslight telegraph that I modelled a while ago:
Later: Further news stories indicate that KGB is trying to buy German Adler TWEN180 typewriters. Far as I can see from other online info, these are electronic "word processing typewriters" with some computer capabilities like memory and editing. If this is accurate, it's a bad solution. These machines will still send out a readable series of electromagnetic blips. Tends to reinforce the idea that KGB already has a solution to the NSA problem and is only buying these to make a point. (Pre-1970 electric typewriters, basically manuals with an electric motor giving a power assist to each keystroke, would be just as safe as non-electric manuals. In theory you could monitor them acoustically, but that would require the kind of individual analysis and intrusiveness that only an on-site personal spy could provide. And an on-site agent could just look at the documents anyway!)
= = = = =
Artistic sidenote: Happystar's Soviet cap has a star on it. Does this mean that Happystar is just a five-pointed symbol, or does it mean that the star on his cap is a stylized portrait of Happystar's leader Josef Starlin? It's a Pluto/Goofy conundrum.
¶ 9:28 AM 
Aside from the stuntness, this is Russia's real Secret Weapon. Stick with older technology despite apparent disadvantages, because older technology is more durable, more repairable and harder to fuck with.
Leads to an interesting thought.... How about fluidic computers or compressed-air computers? Capable of more speed and complexity than 'gears and levers' mechanisms, but still lacking an electromagnetic output for NSA to detect.
In the early days of telegraphy before electricity dominated everything, pneumatic telegraphs were used commercially for a while. Less practical but maybe inspiring other ideas, this 1827 gaslight telegraph that I modelled a while ago:
Later: Further news stories indicate that KGB is trying to buy German Adler TWEN180 typewriters. Far as I can see from other online info, these are electronic "word processing typewriters" with some computer capabilities like memory and editing. If this is accurate, it's a bad solution. These machines will still send out a readable series of electromagnetic blips. Tends to reinforce the idea that KGB already has a solution to the NSA problem and is only buying these to make a point. (Pre-1970 electric typewriters, basically manuals with an electric motor giving a power assist to each keystroke, would be just as safe as non-electric manuals. In theory you could monitor them acoustically, but that would require the kind of individual analysis and intrusiveness that only an on-site personal spy could provide. And an on-site agent could just look at the documents anyway!)
= = = = =
Artistic sidenote: Happystar's Soviet cap has a star on it. Does this mean that Happystar is just a five-pointed symbol, or does it mean that the star on his cap is a stylized portrait of Happystar's leader Josef Starlin? It's a Pluto/Goofy conundrum.
¶ 9:28 AM
