Such is the irony of the modern age of leaks after Assange, Bradley Manning and Snowden that the Kremlin will soon be back to the click-clack of the good old manual typewriter or the click and whir of its electronic cousin of more recent vintage.
The Russians are convinced the only way to stop leaks would be to go off the Internet, which is apparently easily accessible to anyone with a computer keyboard and a wicked understanding of the art of hacking.
Quite apart from the joke about the thief breaking into the Kremlin to steal next year’s election results, the Russian paranoia is understandable. The world’s secrets, once whispered from ear to ear by spies and career diplomats and the gossip smuggled out through the inviolable diplomatic pouch, are now out on every conceivable media, from the ubiquitous smartphones to the acres of mainframe servers hooking the world up electronically into one big global village.
The felicity with which service provider mandarins like Microsoft, Apple and Google are handing over data to governments means netizens stand exposed like never before. It’s a far cry from days when carbon paper used to be viewed suspiciously because text could be duplicated. Maybe it’s time someone came up with the ultimate computer/communications device that cannot be snooped upon. Until then, secrets will no longer be secrets.