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Further to the Kremlin purchasing 20 Cyrillic/Latin typewriters and sparking a media frenzy, RT reports that:
An increasing number of businesses are opting out of staying virtually connected and are reverting back to old technologies to avoid being spied on. The move has led to a surge in typewriter sales in Germany.
German typewriter makers such as Bandermann and Olympia have cited climbing sales amid NSA spying revelations. "We sell about 10,000 [typewriters] every year," Bandermann manager Rolf Bonnen told The Local. "We've seen an increase because Brother left the market [in 2012]," he added. The company's sales jumped by one-third over last year since 2012.
Triumph Adler, which is part of Bandermann, began advertising its typewriters as "Bug proof. NSA proof" in 2013 in order to attract more consumers.
Typewriters aren't quite bug proof because analysis can be done on the sound of each strike, or even by simply removing the ribbon which can hold an imprint of the most recently typed document. A larger concern is to be careful about photocopying. Modern, proprietary photocopiers have hard disks which are huge for the task of photocopying. And in a separate issue, some photocopiers have issues when copying fonts and monospaced fonts in particular.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 23 2014, @09:28PM
Which is exactly why a computer unplugged from the net is just about as safe as a typewriter. If they want to bug your off-the-grid computer or your typewriter they would have to break into your house to get close enough to pick up keyboard pulses.
And if they are willing to break into your house they will just replace your typewriter ribbon with a new one, and carry away the old one, and photocopy all your papers with their phones.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GWRedDragon on Wednesday July 23 2014, @09:53PM
My point is that having a purely mechanical device, for the nontechnical person, is a good guarantee that it is not phoning home online.
[Insert witty message here]
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday July 23 2014, @10:17PM
And his point is that an unplugged computer achieves the same. (It should, of course, be a computer with PS/2 and parallel ports only and with a removable harddriv, which is put in a safe overnight.)
(Score: 1) by GWRedDragon on Wednesday July 23 2014, @10:23PM
Of course, but you need some technical saavy to know if it has wireless, etc. A lot of people don't have that level of sophistication.
[Insert witty message here]
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:19AM
I think I've got an idea there:
1. Buy PCs with only PS/2, serial and parallel ports (thus, guaranteed without Wi-Fi) off Ebay
2. Sell them as safe from internet-based attacks
3. Profit!
Wait... Where are the question marks?
But seriously, it's possible to go to a store and buy a computer without wireless by asking the salesman. And if you've really got something to hide, you surely know someone (or get introduced to someone) who can tell you (or have the incentive to inform yourself about) how to hide it.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:25AM
Unless the person goes with an older system. If I was of that mindset, as an American I'd probably try to pick up an old Amiga or early-mid 90s Macintosh computer -- they both have good graphical OSes, office software, but no wireless and most likely no modem or ethernet ports either.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:50AM
While I disagree it probably doesn't matter.
If you're a normal person a simple cheap laser bouncing off your window is more than enough. If you ever notice any breaking and entering having taken place (like Appelbaum) you're far beyond that stage and well into the mind games territory. They'll know you'll know, otherwise they wouldn't bother. If they just want to make you uneasy they would be far more subtle and create external/removed situations where you're likely to make worrying inferences. These things are not NSA territory nor commonly "mass" anything beyond the usual media propaganda and cultural conditioning.
But let's leave the retro stuff behind :) As far as computers go you're making a very big assumption considering the stuff the US politicians raised a stink about concerning Huawei and which has been proven when it comes to NSA and US companies. That's why US networking gear is a no-go, that's why US businesses and US-connected multinationals are losing money.
Network gear is broken and any hefty networking gear is a computer, the differences (and not favorable) is that personal computers and devices are more powerful, more complicated, and easier to subvert. Air-gapping has been proven dead already and there are many more side-channels to explore than "inaudible sound". No matter where they're from seed numbers aren't large and they're the keys to keys so to speak, if any keys are needed at all that is.
All bets are off against adversaries that range from making cables that call home on their own to running circles around Google & all of silicon valley. Subverted chip forgeries or (more sensibly imho) chip designs are likely. It's not like factory fresh equipment delivered with pre-installed malware is rare and that's just the lowest of the low-hanging fruit that even non-TLAs can reach.
But so what? I wonder if any such concerns are truly relevant in a world where posting this link [boum.org] is enough to make you (and everyone else ever visiting this page or associated with this site) an "extremist" just like me? You don't have to click it, or read it, or even know about the existence of this comment! (MIME-types aren't just mail, it's pretty much everything).
So you don't get to decide but anyone else can game the system like I just did and it didn't need anything more than an ordinary text-field (content-type: text/plain and/or content="text/html" *cough* that's MIME): the rest is fully automatic and entirely outside my control. I'm already an "extremist" so why shouldn't I love some company? Same goes for you now. If I wanted to be absolutely sure rather than just 99.999999% sure I'd send you the link instead and let it rot unnoticed in your spam filter (although as long as it has been sent it would work even if you never received it, one could use non-valid "servers" to send it, any ordinary and minimal OpenBSD system could do it using mail and a non-registered/"fake" domain like more.muppets.org).
This whole thing has barely gotten started (they're still making and adding to haystacks), yet the momentum (and human stupidity) is already mind-boggling. I doubt typewriters or unplugged computers or pen and paper will matter much if at all: the people/entities who go to such extremes are known quantities and that's what it's all about: for each amazing failure more unknown variables will be removed in any way possible.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))