The vast international footprint of the electronics industry makes it very difficult to predict who has the upper hand in the game of spy versus spy. In many circumstances, the game is over before it’s even begun: Reports leaked by Edward Snowden indicate the NSA may have contaminated electronic hardware prior to it going on sale. Allegations have sprung up that the Star N95000 low-cost Chinese smartphone ships with built-in spyware. With integrated circuit technology being modular, the only guaranteed method of complete secrecy is to cut the cord and go back to an earlier technology: the analog typewriter.
Patrick Sensburg, the chairman of the German parliament’s National Security Agency investigative committee, declared on German television that he’s highly considering adopting non-electric typewriters in place of computers, outdoing even the Russians, who recently procured 20 electric typewriters. “In fact, we already have [a typewriter], and it's even a non-electronic typewriter.”
Sensburg’s announcement came in response to the arrest of double-agent “Markus R.,” a former agent of Germany’s spy branch, BND, accused of spying for the CIA. BND contends that “Markus” e-mailed the CIA in 2012, and exchanged 218 classified documents for $34,000 over the course of three face-to-face meetings in Austria. He was apprehended after his unencrypted email to the Russian consulate was intercepted.
However, in game where it pays to be paranoid, the Deutsch chairman is no fool. On top of his earlier announcement, Sensburg also stated that he was going put his team’s smartphones through a security audit as well, “We have to try to keep our internal communication sure to send encrypted e-mails, use crypto-phones and other things, and other things that I won’t mention, of course.”
The question is, could this neo-Luddite approach be for real or part of an intricate shake-my-finger political statement?
Via Ars Technica
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