For what it's worth, the story was that at some point there was a secret Lenin Prize [1] awarded for a machine that could clone an existing chip by simply shavi

For what it's worth, the story was that at some point there was a secret Lenin Prize [1] awarded for a machine that could clone an existing chip by simply shaving it layer by layer and copying a layout. In particular, this was said to explain why a famous Soviet electronic wrist watch (Elektronika 5) would sometime randomly switch from a 24-hour to an am/pm mode when put through a washing machine. Even though there was no mention of this mode anywhere in the manual, nor there was a button on the watch itself for that. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin_Prize https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin_Prize