German NSA Committee May Turn To Typewriters To Stop Leaks

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.

foolproof

[chentiangemalc]

It's a great security initiative! Everybody should do this. Considering it is impossible to electronically monitor what is typed on a manual type writer, and certainly it would be near impossible to copy the manually typed paper with today's technology.

Re:New Snowden

[mwvdlee]

5 reams of carbon copy paper contains much less information than a single USB stick.
This is security by volume.

Re:foolproof

[joh]

It would also significantly cut down Slashdot comments if they had to be typed on paper and mailed.

Re:foolproof

[some old guy]

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

Get a doctor

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re: So what? they can be tapped to.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I've heard that a quill made of goose feathers is very soft and makes hardly any noise when writing...

The problem is....

[Lumpy]

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

Re:So what? they can be tapped to.

[StripedCow]

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.

Perhaps you can ask your father what this man was typing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Re:So what? they can be tapped to.

[ComputerGeek01]

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.