- Soviet schoolchildren gave the American ambassador in Moscow a carved wooden seal in 1945.
- Hidden inside was a listening device with no battery and no wires.
- Soviet agents turned it on by beaming a radio signal at it from outside.
- It picked up conversations for 7 years before American technicians found it in 1952.
- The same kind of design later showed up in a modern NSA spying tool.
In 1945, Soviet schoolchildren gave a carved wooden copy of the Great Seal of the United States to Averell Harriman, the American ambassador in Moscow, the CIA says. He hung the carving in his study. Hidden inside the wood was a secret microphone that let Soviet agents listen in on conversations in that room for 7 years before anyone found it.
Crypto Museum history of The Thing
The microphone had no battery, no wires and no power source, the CIA and Crypto Museum say. Soviet agents switched it on by beaming a strong radio signal at it from a nearby building. Any voice in the room made a thin disc inside the microphone vibrate. That vibration changed the radio signal bouncing back, so a receiver outside could turn it into sound.
The bug was designed by Leon Theremin, a Russian inventor, Crypto Museum says. Americans already knew him for inventing the theremin, a musical instrument played by waving your hands near it without touching it. Theremin built the device while working at a secret lab for Soviet intelligence. He had lived in the United States for over a decade before returning to Russia just before World War Two.
American technicians searched the house for hidden microphones several times in the early 1950s and found nothing, the CIA says. In 1952, State Department officer Joseph Bezjian had the ambassador read an old official message aloud while he listened with a radio receiver, Crypto Museum says. The receiver led him straight to the seal on the wall. He broke the carving open with a hammer and found the microphone inside.
The US kept the discovery secret for 8 years. In May 1960, the Soviets shot down an American U2 spy plane and accused the US of spying at the United Nations, the CIA says. American ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. responded by showing the carved seal and the hidden microphone to the UN Security Council. The Soviet push to condemn the US lost the vote 7 to 2.
A similar design shows up in a modern NSA tool called SURLYSPAWN, according to a leaked NSA hardware catalog reported by security researcher Bruce Schneier. It reads keystrokes from a keyboard without running any software on the computer and without its own transmitter. Like the seal's microphone, it only sends data back when an outside radio signal hits it. The catalog lists its cost at $30 per unit.
