Operation Gunman – how the Soviets bugged IBM typewriters | Hacker News Reader

Operation Gunman – how the Soviets bugged IBM typewriters

cryptomuseum.com

26 pointsjstearns9 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10773214

Some interesting tidbits - the NSA team leader in charge of investigating the equipment offered a "bug bounty" to find the eavesdropping devices [0]:

"As an incentive - probably demonstrating his own impatience - the leader of the team, Walter Deely, offered a US$ 5,000 bonus for the first person to find an eavesdropping device. Then, on the evening of Monday 23 July 1984, technician Michael (Mike) Arneson noticed an anomaly in the power switch of an IBM Selectric typewriter and decided to x-ray the whole machine from top to bottom"

0. Not exactly in the sense of today's "bug bounties".

Fun fact: you can see the original component that was packed at the national cryptologic museum.

For being right in the shadow of Fort Meade, the National Cryptologic Museum is a really awesome place. It's also one of the only places in the US where you can actually play with working Enigma machines.

Yep, great place. Two Engimas with which you can encode and decode messages.

This place is also awesome; just north of BWI:

http://www.nationalelectronicsmuseum.org

The NEM is amazing!!! Wonderful people there. While the NCM is free, the NEM is only $5 and absolutely worth it. I moved away from the area but still donate often to both museums. True hidden gems.

NEM is free if you are an IEEE member, but I always buy some stuff from their gift shop for the kids. Some of the items are in the travelling exhibit to IEEE IMS conference.

Are there any known cases where paper shredders were/are bugged?

That's a really good question! Probably the NCM folks would know. I imagine it would not be hard. An optical reader somehow that scans the doc as it passes and then transmits it out. Could absolutely see a hacked shredder. Come to think of it yes...this rings a bell but Im having trouble putting my hands on the details.

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