
The Thing - cos2pi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
======
huhtenberg
Soviets attempted to repeat this in the 80s when passive eavesdropping devices
were embedded into concrete slabs and columns used in a construction of new US
embassy and supplied by local contractors [1].

From what I remember the case lingered well into Perestroika period when
complete documentation on this project was passed to the Americans as a
gesture of "goodwill and friendship", presumably in exchange for chicken leg
imports (aka "Bush legs") and other Western luxuries.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/15/world/the-bugged-
embassy-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/15/world/the-bugged-embassy-case-
what-went-wrong.html)

~~~
wyc
Once on an international flight, I overheard some construction workers
describe how the US government must fly in US citizenship-holding personnel
and US sourced materials in construction of certain foreign projects for
security reasons. Does anyone know more about this?

~~~
maxlybbert
I worked on a software project that was targeted at the federal government and
required all programmers to be US citizens. It didn’t require us to have
special security training or anything, though; and there was a different
project that required programmers to leave their cell phones in lockers during
the day.

I’m convinced that the government doesn’t believe citizens are any more loyal
or hard to bribe than other people, but insisting on citizenship would make it
easier to charge us with particular crimes if the need arose.

~~~
some_random
>I’m convinced that the government doesn’t believe citizens are any more loyal
or hard to bribe than other people

Seriously? While they have to plan for an inside threat, do you really think
that they don't view their own citizens as being more reliable than foreign
nationals?

~~~
nothrabannosir
You’re not looking at a random subset but at a self selected group. It’s
entirely likely they consider “10 US born volunteers” as much a threat as “10
global volunteers”.

------
amelius
If you are a high ranking government official and receive a gift that you want
to keep in your office, then make a replica, and put _that_ on your wall
instead.

~~~
unnouinceput
And lose the opportunity to do a counter-intelligence move on your part? No
way. Better analyze the shit of those "gifts", hope they are bugged and then
use them to feed false information while you keep your real intelligence room
free of anything.

~~~
dclowd9901
Yep. Intelligence is all about keeping the other side in the dark while
looking like you’re in the dark.

------
acqq
The creator is interesting:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Léon_Theremin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Léon_Theremin)

And his most famous creation:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin)

~~~
minipci1321
Interesting? Wikipedia article doesn't even get close. There are various
accounts of his life and achievements, memoirs of witnesses, people who knew
him in various contexts, the descendants/family, records of his own
recollections -- all available on Internet. Unfortunately, most of it is in
Russian. Reading it gives you that messy, undefinable feeling of experiencing
a genius.

~~~
acqq
> Unfortunately, most of it is in Russian.

You can still post the links that are most interesting to you, please, the
google translate service is quite usable.

~~~
minipci1321
See, for example, [https://statehistory.ru/1038/Lev-
Termen/](https://statehistory.ru/1038/Lev-Termen/)

More links are at the bottom.

------
lebowen
I'm currently reading "Spycatcher" by Peter Wright, I would recommend if
you're interested in topics like this.

~~~
jhbadger
It is fascinating. People often disregard the book because its main thesis,
the identity of a mole within MI5, appears to be misguided in light of post-
Cold War knowledge. But there's more to the book than Wright's speculations --
it's his direct experiences with things like analyzing The Thing that make the
book worth reading.

~~~
lb1lf
Also, in the same vein, I highly recommend R.V. Jones' 'Most Secret War' on
his experience as Chief Boffin in the UK during WWII.

Chapter after chapter devoted to figuring out what the Germans were up to on
the technology front, then one-upping them. Lots of engineering porn.

~~~
arethuza
"The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: Churchill's Mavericks" by Giles Milton
describes a lot of the equipment that SOE developed - e.g. the original limpet
mine depending on condoms and boiled sweets and, of course, developed in
someone's shed and tested at the local swimming pool.

------
ptero
Lev Termen is a legend. His work and inventions (as a young engineer; under
Ioffe; in prison, etc) shows a huge breadth. Such coupling of talent in
physics and engineering has always been rare.

------
patagonia
For a moment I was so excited. I thought my favorite road trip oddity made it
to HN.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(roadside_attraction...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_\(roadside_attraction\))

~~~
0-_-0
I expected the movie:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_\(1982_film\))

------
wyc
I always wonder why open source mass surveillance isn't in fuller swing.
Imagine a Kickstarter for $2 credit card-sized disposable listening devices
which can mesh network for autocorrelated quality-enhancing signal
reconstruction and 3d localization. They could be hidden behind objects and
hard to detect. With a cellularly connected golf ball-sized gateway, they
could egress data or receive updates. At this price point, there would be even
less harbor from clandestine listening.

~~~
ascagnel_
Why bother with dedicated hardware when most adults carry around a general-
purpose device with a microphone, an internet connection, and some vulnerable
software that can do the work for you?

~~~
wyc
More entry vectors means more coverage, and physical security is often
nonexistent while phones come with at least base levels of protection and
isolation.

------
madengr
Maybe someday the Soviet side of things will be declassified, and we can read
the technical account from that end. Would be interesting.

There seem to be some technical unknowns in the article. I don’t think you can
get FM back from the passive cavity, just AM, unless you can pump the cavity
with feedback. Same goes for re-radiating at a harmonic. Maybe if the Q of the
cavity were super high. Again, would be interesting to see the technical
details of the receiving equipment.

~~~
unnouinceput
There is nothing unknown in the article. You can do this at home as well. Is
very well explained how it works. For start I would suggest you get technical
of how Yagi antennas work, it's the same principle coupled with cavity
resonator + membrane movement used in a microphone. In the end you get your
high frequency beamed back modulated by the sound. And is not AM modulation,
is FM modulation. But what article indeed lacks is the power required to get
the device working properly. In my experience I would guess at least 1KW
would've been beamed directly at the embassy walls when Soviets were doing
their surveillance using this device.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I'm finding it hard to imagine no one noticed an intermittent 1kW at 330MHz
from somewhere close.

~~~
unnouinceput
Well, the article does say a radio-amateur stumbled upon it and alerted the
embassy. So in the end someone did. Since Soviets did the surveillance on key
moments, and not continuous, that's what enabled for device to remain
undetected for so long

------
phaer
First stumpled upon this because it's mentioned in the slides of
[https://idlewords.com/talks/our_comrade_the_electron.htm](https://idlewords.com/talks/our_comrade_the_electron.htm)

------
gene-h
I wonder if there are any uses for mechanically modulated retroreflectors
today. NASA is investigating fully mechanical rovers for Venus because
semiconductors do not work very well at Venusian temperatures while mechanical
devices do[0]. To get data back from a fully mechanical device they propose to
use retroreflectors. Although the bandwidth they can achieve with their
approaches, using semaphore messaging with retroreflectors and looking at the
doppler shift provided by spinning disks, is low. Perhaps by using a device
like the thing they could transmit data at acoustic rates. I am also curious
if there are more down to earth applications for devices like the thing other
than espionage.
[0][https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201700...](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170002798.pdf)

------
jchrisa
It seems like with recent meta-material advances, you could create an object
that was a hidden bug, without any hidden parts. Like if you tuned one of
those metal concentric ring windchimes just right, it could modulate a radio
signal based on acoustic vibrations.

------
giarc
I'm guessing the hinge was added for the museum display right?

~~~
mcguire
The pictures are of a replica.

~~~
giarc
You are right. This caption isn't shown unless you click on the image.

"Open view of a replica of a bugged US great seal on display at the National
Cryptologic Museum in 2005."

------
upofadown
The description of the operation of this thing always seems incomplete. From
the Wikipedia article:

>The length of the antenna and the dimensions of the cavity were engineered in
order to make the re-broadcast signal a higher harmonic of the illuminating
frequency.

That wouldn't actually work by itself. There would have to be some sort of
non-linear element to cause the harmonics. Chances are there was something
like a varactor in there. The original technical description probably omitted
critical details because spooks are like that...

------
weberc2
Another interesting Thing:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(assembly)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_\(assembly\))

------
canada_dry
It isn't hard to imagine that the recent occurrence of mysterious illnesses at
US and Canadian embassies (news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17891427) may be
related to this. Perhaps they are activating or experimenting with some new
type of device. Given that the Theremin type of device confounded detection
for years we probably won't actually know for a while.

~~~
OBLIQUE_PILLAR
NYTimes says it was crickets.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/science/sonic-attack-
cuba...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/science/sonic-attack-cuba-
crickets.html)

~~~
tim333
Or microwaves [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/science/sonic-attack-
cuba...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/science/sonic-attack-cuba-
microwave.html)

------
szczys
Yeah... theramin's bug. This is a great story! What a brilliant example of
passively powered electronics from 75 years ago. Now it's all the rage to
build this king of functionality into passive sensors, etc.

------
simonebrunozzi
> The device, a passive cavity resonator, became active only when a radio
> signal of the correct frequency was sent to the device from an external
> transmitter.

Super interesting, especially given this was early 1940s.

------
natas
How far can the receiver be from the thing to still get a good signal?

------
Bakary
Are there any good books on Communist science and innovations?

~~~
gdy
"Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program
but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women
who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The
memoirs of Academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian,
fills that gap."

[https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_deta...](https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_detail.html)

------
artur_makly
and now..just imagine what China has been listening to on all the cells sent
out from their factories into our homes ;-) Privacy & Secrets are soo 2000.

~~~
gloflo
Can't be worse than all the software manufactured in the US.

~~~
mcv
I think it's entirely sensible in this day and age to avoid electronic
products from China, Russia or the US.

Back to Nokia, I guess.

~~~
292355744930110
Those are manufactured by Foxconn and running software by Google.

~~~
butteroverflow
>running software by Google

My 1280 surely doesn't.

------
ferros
How did it power itself for so many years to transmit?

~~~
542458
That’s the beauty of it - it works by passively modulating incoming radio
frequencies, so it has no power supply. The power comes solely from the
incoming radio energy.

------
appleflaxen
related prior discussion/submissions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15498685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15498685)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15272072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15272072)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19854787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19854787)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11771587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11771587)

~~~
deanclatworthy
Three of the four links here, have no discussion. One has hardly any. Posting
interesting topics which have not received much prior discussion is encouraged
here.

~~~
piyush_soni
I didn't know it too. How do we define interesting though, given three of the
four times it garnered no interest (do we keep on posting until it does)? I'm
not sure if GP deserves downvotes for pointing them out at the least.

~~~
piyush_soni
So a genuine question downvoted too? People are so reasonable here :).

