If you stumble upon several Barbie-branded typewriters in the wild, you may want to snatch them up. With two or more you will be able to use capabilities built into these toys for sending and receiving cryptographic texts. The Crytpo Museum have a full write-up on the suitable models and their “4 built-in cipher modes.” But the story doesn’t stop there – there’s more, as tipped off by a FBI informant! 😉
The Barbie Typewriter E-118, is a low-cost electronic typewriter, developed as a childeren’s toy by Mehano in Slovenia (formerly: Yugoslavia) and sold worldwide by Mattel (US). The E-118 is the latest model in the product line that started with the E-115. The electronic typewriter was the successor to the earlier purely mechanical Barbie typewriter models. It is little known that all electronic variants have a hidden built-in cryptographic capability that allows secret writing.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
