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Re:Typewriters are back, and we have Edward Snowden to thank by jMyles on Wednesday November 12, 2014 @11:39PM (#8599963)
These seems completely unfounded. Even without the research to which other commenters have linked, it just seems plainly obvious that typewriters are vulnerable to all sorts of attack.

Is open source software and reasonably security practice really that bad? I mean I know it's bad, but is it abandon-common-sense-and-just-grasp-at-straws bad?

Re:Typewriters are back, and we have Edward Snowden to thank by DrStalker on Wednesday November 12, 2014 @11:58PM (#8600001)
If you're willing to use a typewriter you're willing to use a computer with no network connection, so all you need to do is block radio transmissions. A faraday cage can't cost that much compared to the other costs involved in espionage.
Re:Typewriters are back, and we have Edward Snowden to thank by MarkPNeyer on Thursday November 13, 2014 @01:14AM (#8600194)
People can hop airgapped networks using speakers and microphones.
Re:Typewriters are back, and we have Edward Snowden to thank by eksith on Thursday November 13, 2014 @01:31AM (#8600227)
I had a discussion with a friend about The Thing[1], an invention by Léon Theremin and how ingenious it was that it required no external power source and can be turned on/off at will by transmitting at a certain frequency. The trouble with this is that it's still possible to identify the retransmission. In fact, this was how it was discovered.

What if the room had a length of surgical or other type of long tubing embedded into the wall so that the detector was a fair distance away? Essentially, a very crude stethoscope originating in a wall outlet or other place in the room that already has an orifice(s) and terminating at another location with a passive resonator.

By decoupling the transmitter from the audio source by using a non-electronic medium, it's possible to still eavesdrop on keystrokes even in an em-shielded room.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(listening_device)

Re:Typewriters are back, and we have Edward Snowden to thank by jMyles on Thursday November 13, 2014 @12:00AM (#8600008)
> block radio transmissions

To what attack are you referring here?

Re:Typewriters are back, and we have Edward Snowden to thank by femto on Thursday November 13, 2014 @12:57AM (#8600145)