Cold war history

How the KGB Bugged American Typewriters During the Cold War

The Cold War spy drama that played out between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was the source of much ingenious spy technology. One of the most ingenious devices fielded by both sides was a typewriter designed to spy on the user, quietly transmitting its keystrokes to KGB listeners. The technology was an early form of keylogging but done entirely through hardware—not PC software

Charles Gandy, an electrical engineer with the National Security Agency, was charged with figuring out if the U.S. embassy in Moscow had been compromised. Counterintelligence had reason to believe that somehow, information was getting out that compromised American intelligence agents. Officials suspected a transmitter planted inside the agency, perhaps in the form of a listening device. Still, they had no concrete proof it existed, and sweeps of the embassy from top to bottom revealed no definitive transmitter.

But there was almost certainly something—a secret antenna was discovered behind a false wall. What transmitter was the antenna listening to? It had to be something inside the embassy.