

Kremlin turns back to typewriters to avoid security leaks - giorgiofontana
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/11/kremlin-turns-back-to-typewriters-to-avoid-security-leaks/

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ColinWright
Discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6031114](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6031114)

Other submissions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6026289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6026289)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6026605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6026605)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6026661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6026661)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6034914](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6034914)

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zachlatta
Any advantages this would have over a computer without an internet connection?

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ams6110
Computer displays can be read remotely by their RF emissions. At least it was
possible with CRT displays. Not sure if LCD displays have this characteristic.

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DanBC
There is immense amount of work on audio, possibly coming from the need to
discover and identify submarines.

It is easier to tell what a typist is typing from their audio signature than
it is to TEMPEST a monitor, especially now with modern EMC requirements
cutting down the usable signal.

Some people used to have "low emission fonts"; fuzzy edges in very low
contrast.

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D9u
The electrical emanations from the typewriter can be used to detect the
characters typed regardless of whether or not an electronic display is used,
and TEMPEST, which is a method of securing electronic devices, will protect
the typewriter's emanations from outside detection, and, as mentioned by
Daniel_Newby, electric typewriters are vulnerable to power line reading, but
if the system is entirely disconnected from any external power source, as
TEMPEST dictates, and the entire facility is held to TEMPEST standards, then
the typewriter will be secured against external eavesdropping.

Any attempts at picking up audio|electronic emanations will be foiled by
traditional TEMPEST type protection.

Typewriter ribbons can be dealt with by old fashioned incineration.

The only way to acquire a signal would be by infiltration of the facility
housing the targeted systems.

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popee
Imagine. Steampunk typewriter with something like Arduino for
Ethernet/TCP/IP/SSH support :-)

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gamegoblin
I actually have fantasies about going back to the late 1800s and making a
hyper-simple steampunk style internet with telegraph wires and whatnot. You'd
have 'servers' which set up static pages in some analog format (akin to
moveable type) which could then be easily coded and decoded across the wire
and printed onto a ticker of some sort. You could have a set of panels that
flipped to one side of the other (black or white) to form a rudimentary
display, maybe 256x128 or something.

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liveinoakland
like BSG

