MOSCOW-
A Russian state service in charge of safeguarding Kremlin
communications is looking to purchase an array of old-fashioned
typewriters to prevent leaks from computer hardware, sources said
Thursday.
The
throwback to the paper-strewn days of Soviet bureaucracy has reportedly
been prompted by the publication of secret documents by anti-secrecy
website WikiLeaks and the revelations leaked by former US intelligence
contractor Edward Snowden.
The
Federal Guard Service, which is also in charge of protecting President
Vladimir Putin, is looking to spend just over 486,000 rubles ($14,800)
to buy a number of electric typewriters, according to the site of state
procurement agency, zakupki.gov.ru.
"This
purchase has been planned for more than a year now," a source at the
service, known by its Russian acronym FSO, told AFP on Thursday.
The notice on the site was posted last week. A spokeswoman for the service declined comment.
Pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia said the state service was looking to
purchase 20 typerwriters because using computers to prepare top-secret
documents may no longer be safe.
"After scandals with the distribution of secret documents by WikiLeaks,
the exposes by Edward Snowden, reports about Dmitry Medvedev being
listened in on during his visit to the G20 summit in London, it has been
decided to expand the practice of creating paper documents," the
newspaper quoted a FSO source as saying.
Unlike
printers, every typewriter has its own indivdual pattern of type so it
is possible to link every document to a machine used to type it,
Izvestia said.
Documents
leaked by Snowden appeared to show that Britain spied on foreign
delegates including then president Dmitry Medvedev at the 2009 London
G20 meetings, said British newspaper The Guardian last month.
Russia was outraged by the revelations but said it had the means to protect itself.
Snowden
has been stuck in legal limbo at the transit zone of a Moscow airport
for a third week after arriving from Hong Kong on June 23.
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