5 ms·
This reminds me of that old story about the Xerox copy machines that the Soviet Union bought. Where each unit was planted with a image recorder. And for years
by blackrock 8y ago
This reminds me of that old story about the Xerox copy machines that the Soviet Union bought.
Where each unit was planted with a image recorder. And for years, the American spy agencies had a great laugh, that they were able to intercept all the documents that the Russians made a copy of.
Back then, this was an off-network infiltration. Where the copied images, were retrieved during regular servicing intervals by a Xerox technician.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- amatecha 8y agoHuh crazy, I hadn't heard about this before! Just found a couple posts on it [0][1], for anyone who's interested. 0: https://electricalstrategies.com/about/in-the-news/spies-in-the-xerox-machine/ https://electricalstrategies.com/about/in-the-news/spies-in-... 1: https://discover.cobbtechnologies.com/blog/the-soviet-union-and-the-photocopier https://discover.cobbtechnologies.com/blog/the-soviet-union-...
- chris72205 8y agoI had never heard of this...but now I can only imagine how exciting this must have been as one of the engineers-- working on a top secret project for the CIA in an abandoned bowling alley: https://electricalstrategies.com/about/in-the-news/spies-in-the-xerox-machine/ https://electricalstrategies.com/about/in-the-news/spies-in-... edit: whoops, looks like amatecha beat me to posting more info
- jeffrallen 8y agoExciting, but not so ethical. We owe society to put our knowledge towards making it better for all people, not just "our team".
- crysin 8y agoIt's important though to make sure that your team keeps tactical advantage so that it can continue existing. Maybe someday mankind will find world peace but in our current world there are a lot of nations that hate each other still and wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of weaknesses of other nations for personal gain.
- brokenmachine 8y agoIf our team is resorting to unethical and immoral ways to gain that advantage, then we can't take the moral high ground and also can't complain when the other team also does "whatever it takes" to gain an advantage. Also, security through obscurity is, as we know, an illusion. Information always finds a way out. I understand your point, but there should be limits.
- 51lver 8y agoAs I tell my small human, The good guy must do only good, or he is also the bad guy.
- brokenmachine 8y agoGood on you, man. The world needs more good guys.
- forapurpose 8y agoWhat do you tell your small human about the current behavior of many prominent adults, or if the small one is too young to see what's happening, what will you tell them?
- Johnny555 8y agoBut once you create the technology and hand it over to someone else, you have no assurance that it's only going to be used against the "bad guys": Judging by the number of parts ordered from Xerox, Zoppoth believes that spy cameras may have been installed in photocopiers all over the world, to keep an eye on U.S. allies as well as enemies
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- forapurpose 8y ago> Exciting, but not so ethical. We owe society to put our knowledge towards making it better for all people, not just "our team". Our team promoted liberty and democracy worldwide (see below). The other promoted totalitarian dictatorship, labor camps, etc. If your team is liberty and democracy - self-determination for all - then it's not 'our team', it's everyone's team. To address the elephant: Yes, there were many, many exceptions to the West's support of democracy, and many of them were awful (Indonesia, the Mideast, Zaire/Congo, and many others come to mind) but beyond a doubt, during the Cold War and after democracy and liberty exploded - stop and compare it to any other time in human history. Lots of bad things happened, but compare that with Soviet-dominated areas such as the USSR itself and Eastern Europe.
- johndubchak 8y ago+1, couldn't agree more. I wish more nations/Governments would think like this, but too many are motivated by more wealth and power. At some point, you would think, the animal would satiate itself. It appears that is not the case.
- y04nn 8y agoOr the IBM Selectric Typewriter implant. http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/ http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/
- whydoineedthis 8y agoOne of my personal favorites.
- HillaryBriss 8y agowow. what goes around comes around.
- andrei_says_ 8y agoLike the IBM typewriters with keyloggers that the Russians planted on US diplomats during the 80s? https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/how-soviets-used-ibm-selectric-keyloggers-to-spy-on-us-diplomats/%3Famp%3D1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/information-tec...
- goodcjw2 8y agoI was born raised, and went to CS undergrad program in China before come to US. Yes. I can testify that the "Xerox Copy Machine" is the first thing they teach you about information security :p
- knikitin 8y agoI think Russia became much more aware of that kind of security threats. CPUs, motherboards etc are produced internally, i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbrus-2S%2B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbrus-2S%2B