As evidence of US spying and surveillance continues to mount, Germany is struggling to secure even basic government documents from prying American eyes, and are forcing officials to take some unusual steps.
Ironically, it is Germany’s ongoing parliamentary probe into US spying and surveillance that they believe would itself be most targeted by US spies, and panel chair Patrick Sensburg says the committee is using a non-electronic typewriter to keep internal communications secure from US digital surveillance.
The evidence is that US spying against top German officials is ubiquitous, and the probe is investigating not only past operations but ongoing ones, and doesn’t want to tip the US off as to exactly how much they know.
Germany has expressed support in the past for an EU-centric secure communications system to avoid the current system, riddled with NSA-imposed backdoors. That system may be years from operational, however, and in the interim secure communication means turning the clock back 40-50 years.
I remember reading a story last year about Russia doing this same thing- ordering hundreds of manual typewriters with removable print heads. According to the story, each print head ordered was deliberately flawed in a certain manner and issued to and signed for by each person who worked on any document- that way the origin of the document was known and each person who handled it had to type a certain code that would reveal their 'signature' in the typeface to aid in tracking the document. It does seem like a lot of work, but we don't see anyone of Snowden's stature being able to out the Russians on any trove of info these days, either.
Are we to see the return of one-time pads and microfilm messages as well? Maybe it's a good thing those numbers stations have stayed on the air this whole time as well.
Sometimes the old-school ways really are the best.
How is one expected to sell software or hardware "Made in USA" under these circumstances?
How do you convince a customer his trade secrets are safe with your product, if every day there's another scandal?
This is going to cost real money.
the CIA have been using such methods to spy for decades Xerox machines that recorded every page copied, with the pickup by CIA/Xerox repair staff! As for the Typewriters absolutely, failing that a computer NOT connected to the internet EVER with no WIFI capability would work in a pinch!
This is so lame. There were endless ways to hack typewriters before computers came along, and now there are more: keystroke recording, get the tape, it has been done for a century.