• One of the world's first keyloggers appeared during the Cold War, when Soviet intelligence agents spied on American diplomats using a bug hidden in IBM Selectric typewriters. The devices were located inside 16 typewriters used from 1976 to 1984 at the U.S. Embassies in Moscow and Leningrad.
* The principle of operation of the bug consisted in the movement of the typewriter head: to type text, it had to turn in a certain direction, unique for each character on the keyboard. The mechanism captured the energy of the magnetic field from the movement of the carriage and converted it into a digital signal. Each received signal was stored on the bug as a four-bit symbol. The device stored up to eight such symbols, and then transmitted them to Soviet spies (transmission was carried out over radio frequencies to a nearby wiretapping station).
* Detecting the bug was not a trivial task, even for the US intelligence agencies. It could be seen through X-rays, but it did not have an outstanding radiophone, as it often broadcast on the frequencies used by American TV. In addition, it was possible to track some advanced versions of the bug by radio signal only if the machine itself was turned on, the keylogger was activated, and the spy device analyzer was set to the correct frequency. A trained Soviet technician could install such a bug in IBM Selectric in half an hour.
• According to Ars Technica, the bugs could not be detected for eight years, and the Americans became aware of them only thanks to a message from one of the US allies, whose special services discovered the same surveillance of one of their embassies.
* On October 12, 2015, Bruce Schneier, a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Cryptological Research, told this story.
• Source: https://arstechnica.com/information...-selectric-keyloggers-to-spy-on-us-diplomats/
* The principle of operation of the bug consisted in the movement of the typewriter head: to type text, it had to turn in a certain direction, unique for each character on the keyboard. The mechanism captured the energy of the magnetic field from the movement of the carriage and converted it into a digital signal. Each received signal was stored on the bug as a four-bit symbol. The device stored up to eight such symbols, and then transmitted them to Soviet spies (transmission was carried out over radio frequencies to a nearby wiretapping station).
* Detecting the bug was not a trivial task, even for the US intelligence agencies. It could be seen through X-rays, but it did not have an outstanding radiophone, as it often broadcast on the frequencies used by American TV. In addition, it was possible to track some advanced versions of the bug by radio signal only if the machine itself was turned on, the keylogger was activated, and the spy device analyzer was set to the correct frequency. A trained Soviet technician could install such a bug in IBM Selectric in half an hour.
• According to Ars Technica, the bugs could not be detected for eight years, and the Americans became aware of them only thanks to a message from one of the US allies, whose special services discovered the same surveillance of one of their embassies.
* On October 12, 2015, Bruce Schneier, a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Cryptological Research, told this story.
• Source: https://arstechnica.com/information...-selectric-keyloggers-to-spy-on-us-diplomats/
