Question

After reading the below article tell in your own words how Russia bugged an American Embassy’s Typewriters and peek at the declassified NSA report . What lessons can we apply to our world today? 200-300 words

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/the-crazy-story-of-how-soviet-russia-bugged-an-american-embassys-typewriters#.XhDXFzgGN8I.facebook

Answer 1

Every engineer has stories of bugs hat they discovered through clever detective work. But such exploits are seldom of interest to other engineers, let alone the general public. Nonetheless, a recent book authored by Eric Haseltine, titled The Spy in Moscow Station (Macmillan, 2019), is a true story of bug hunting that should be of interest to all. It recounts a lengthy struggle by Charles Gandy, an electrical engineer at the United States’ National Security Agency, to uncover an elaborate and ingenious scheme by Soviet engineers to intercept communications in the American embassy in Moscow.

This was during the Cold War in the late 1970s. American spies were being arrested, and how they were being identified was a matter of great concern to U.S. intelligence. The first break came with the accidental discovery of a false chimney cavity at the Moscow embassy. Inside the chimney was an unusual Yagi-style antenna that could be raised and lowered with pulleys. The antenna had three active elements, each tuned to a different wavelength.

Gandy pursued these questions for years, not only baffled by the technology, but buffeted by interagency disputes and hampered by the Soviet KGB. At one point he was issued a “cease and desist” letter by the CIA, which, along with the State Department, had authority over security at the embassy. After tens of thousands of fruitless X-rays, a technician noticed a small coil of wire inside the on/off switch of an IBM Selectric typewriter. . The magnetometers sensed movements of tiny magnets that had been embedded in the transposers that moved the typing “golf ball” into position for striking a given letter .

When all had been discovered, Haseltine recounts how Gandy sat back and felt an emotion—a kinship with the Soviet engineers who had designed this ingenious system. This is the same kinship I feel whenever I come across some particularly innovative design, whether by a colleague or competitor. It is the moment when a technology transcends known limits, when the impossible becomes the doable. Gandy and his unknown Soviet opponents were working with 1970s technology. Imagine what limits will be transcended tomorrow!