Xerox is watching you

You'll find an article worth a visit to the dentist in the January
1997 issue of Popular Science. It tells a story from the 1960's
cold war era.

It seems that the only American who could get into the Soviet
Embassy was the Xerox repairman. So the CIA and Xerox built
a camera that took a picture of every copy that could be installed
inside the 914 cabinet (where it would be invisble). Once a month,
the repairman came by to do the ordinary cleaning and repair
(those things broke down a lot). Part of the repair process exchanged
the camera for a fresh load. The CIA could then read everything that
was copied.

The article suggests that other Xerox models had their own
cameras. My back of the envelope (literally) computation suggests
that one roll of 8-millimeter film would hold about 30,000 images.

Martin Minow
minow@apple.com

Martin Minow sez:
> 
> You'll find an article worth a visit to the dentist in the January
> 1997 issue of Popular Science. It tells a story from the 1960's
> cold war era.

You might take this to alt.folklore.urban. Barring any factual
support, it better fits there. After all Popular Science once had
their famous battery carrier design, and an older friend related
reading of their scheme to reduce the weight of battle tanks to get
them up the Burma Road during WWII. It involved helium, and to
reduce space, it was to be compressed into large cylinders bolted to
the sides........

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