Technological about turn

[archive59]

If this is to be believed
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/russia-reverts-paper-nsa-leaks
then there should be some orders for film cameras as well.
Time to dig out the Enigma machines.

 

[Robert Lai]

The old ways are the most secure

The old ways are the most secure

When Snowdon's revelations came out, I thought that perhaps the simplest way to counteract the electronic surveillance was to revert to paper. It seems that the Russians (and probably everyone else worldwide) have come to the same conclusion. Does anyone know if Triumph Adler is a good brand? Here in the USA, I still see lots of IBM Selectric typewriters in many offices. Many people keep them for envelope addressing.

With my office having gone to electronic medical records, I see a great increase of audits from the insurance companies, and medicare. I still cling to my fountain pen, and write when I can. It's much harder for them to data mine a scan of handwriting.

Lastly, this brings me to imaging. How much more secure is an image on a piece of film? You can carry a slip of film anywhere in the world. A photographic print is visible only to the person holding it. Any electronic image is immediately logged by the security services of the world.

 

[willie_901]

I guess my well-preserved, circa 1967 Olympia portable typewriter just increased in value from $25 to $26. It's German, but it doesn't have a red dot.

 

[btgc]

Film cameras can be traced, too. Say, it's common for Konicas to have a dimple in film gate which leaves triangle shaped mark on side of images. Got idea? Just need computers to account for all of sizes and placements of dimples yet make automated matching of images and camera "metadata"....voila! 🙂

 

[Contarama]

They already have us all lock stock and barrel...they assumed our debts. Follow the money. They control that and it is probably impossible to counterfeit it anymore too. We are owned...slaves!

I can still write with a pen and pencil but I wonder sometimes about my children...

Buy up all the FEDs you can! 🙂

 

[dct]

If used properly (not like the 3rd Reich conductors did in their megalomania) there are interesting and moderately complicated electro mechanical devices with a good bandwidth for today's encryption (Enigma).

The produced code is normally printed on paper. Weak point is still the synchronized code book (or daily code change messages). Add some public key approach for this and you are not far away from actual standards.
(Some background information).

 

[gsgary]

Does this mean Zorki will be brought back to life

 

[zauhar]

It is my understanding that many computers critical to maintaing infrastructure (like the power grid), and others with secret government data behind them, are connected to the public internet. Why? I guess to make life easier for IT managers.

Maintain machines on a private intranet and mechanically block access to I/O ports, and you've gone a long way toward securing data and applications. Not that someone with enough privilege still can't do what they want.

Thank God Snowden got there ahead of people with brains!

(Actually, that's an unfair statement - it is likely that the huge infrastructure put in place by the NSA isn't meant to do anything useful anyway, aside from facilitating the transfer of public money into private hands. Didn't stop the Boston bombing did it, despite the terrorist's naive operation and a conspirator already in the crosshairs of the FBI!)

Randy