The Great Seal Bug. Part 3: Building a working copy of The Thing

This is the third part of articles about the Great Seal Bug (also called “The Thing”). These articles will cover: history, theory of operation and a practical reconstruction of this device. This part is about building a working copy of the Great Seal Bug

To my knowledge this is the only publication about making a wirking replica of the Sreat Seal Bug. https://www.vintagespycraft.com/ shows a beautifully looking model, however the emphasis was on making it a nice looking exhibit, and not on making it work (but look at this site anyway, the model is a work of art).

In 1945 this was super-secret, ultra-novel military technology. Building and operating it required special materials and access to ultra-secret hardware. So is it possible to do this in 2022 on an amateur budget? Surely not.

But radio amateurs have a long history of doing “impossible” things, part because of their ingenuity, and part because of their ignorance (they simply don’t know something can’t be done). So lets try anyway 🙂

Continue reading “The Great Seal Bug. Part 3: Building a working copy of The Thing”

The Great Seal Bug. Part 1: history

This is the first part of articles about the Great Seal Bug (also called “The Thing”). These articles will cover: history, theory of operation , a practical reconstruction of this device and a working demo.

This device, even 75 years later, is still often mentioned at security publications and conferences.

Great Seal Bug
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Thing_Great_seal.jpg

Continue reading “The Great Seal Bug. Part 1: history”