The German government is considering going back to typewriters as a way to limit NSA spying.
Of course, some idiot will then fax the damned letters and documents, which will defeat the entire purpose. Back in the day, the rumor was that the Japanese government copied all faxes from and to Westerners in the hotels and then gave the copies to the Japanese companies that were negotiating with the Western businessmen.
If the Germans are going to use typewriters, then they can't use copiers, which these days are all scanners that could be surreptitiously tapped. So it'd be back to carbon paper or carbonless multi-part copies.
White-canary-green-pink-goldenrod. The Selectrics made that work. In a manual typewriter with a wimpy typist, the bottom copies might be illegible.
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The fun note is that the FSB just ordered an identical 20 Triumph Adler typewriters. Apparently this typewriter is designed to produce individual typewriten material thta is thus tracable.
That'll work, as long as they have fixed type arms, not daisywheels or typeballs.
Didn't the Soviets hide bugs in the Moscow Embassy's Selectrics?
Make sure that you shred and/or burn the carbon paper.
Borepatch, exactly the reason for selecting this type, manual.
Comrade, the implication is that there is no way to change them, but the differing type is only a problem if you discover a copy of the purloined letter, so to speak. Any spook worth their salt would immediately transcribe any document and destroy the original so as to eliminate a means of identifying the leak/leaker. A review of easy Triumph-Adler links doesn't show them selling typewriters...maybe a sideline or a subsidiary?
You would really need to eliminate fax machines, cell phones, cameras of any kind, cut all the wires going into the building (including power), stick the building in a faraday cage and strip search everyone going in and leaving. And you could still get information out: just type it up and mail it.
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