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German NSA Committee May Turn To Typewriters To Stop Leaks

Posted by Unknown on from the how-to-tell-wikileaks-is-winning dept.

mpicpp (3454017) writes with news that Germany may be joining Russia in a paranoid switch from computers to typewriters for sensitive documents. From the article: Patrick Sensburg, chairman of the German parliament's National Security Agency investigative committee, now says he's considering expanding the use of manual typewriters to carry out his group's work. ... Sensburg said that the committee is taking its operational security very seriously. "In fact, we already have [a typewriter], and it's even a non-electronic typewriter," he said. If Sensburg's suggestion takes flight, the country would be taking a page out of the Russian playbook. Last year, the agency in charge of securing communications from the Kremlin announced that it wanted to spend 486,000 rubles (about $14,800) to buy 20 electric typewriters as a way to avoid digital leaks.

8 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. So what? they can be tapped to. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My father used to work for the NSA as a cryptologic studies teacher and told me stories about how back in the 70s they had tech that could read back what was being typed simply by listening to the pattern of the clicks the type writer was making.

    1. Re:So what? they can be tapped to. by mjwalshe · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The KGB have used Romeo spies to seduce the secretaries before now - one poor woman killed her self when she found out - the "Americans" series has this as a plot point.

    2. Re:So what? they can be tapped to. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Smart phones can record and upload later.

    3. Re:So what? they can be tapped to. by AHuxley · · Score: 5, Informative

      Re the human factor.
      Thats a huge risk in Germany. Generations of post ww2 Germans know nothing but helping the NSA and GCHQ over their decades in every level of the West and later German bureaucracies.
      The men and woman who helped the UK and USA post 1950's would have chosen like minded staff to work with them or replace them.
      Thats the entire upper structures of vital German security lost to 5+ other Five Eyes countries by default over decades.
      Then you have the tame German political leaders watched, dropped, advanced thanks to insider help.
      The East Germans got some staff next to generations of top West German political leaders or top NATO staff.
      The US and UK got all the communication networks of West Germany and then Germany with the help of cleared Germans.

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      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    4. Re:So what? they can be tapped to. by ComputerGeek01 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You laugh, but it just goes to show that you have no idea what kind of trouble we are having in integrating Internet Explorer with that project.

  2. Re:foolproof by some+old+guy · · Score: 5, Funny

    True, but it would make "first post" a lovely double entendre.

    --
    Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
  3. Get a doctor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Get a doctor to write memos with a pen. Completely indecipherable.

  4. The problem is.... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Once they are done typing the documents they will have a secretary scan them and sent via email....

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.