Quote:
Originally Posted by turretslug
I'd heard of similar chicanery involving IR lasers being reflected off the windows of embassies and similar premises. Don't doubt for a moment that every possible (and some impossible!) means of finding out what the other side is saying has been thoroughly and expensively investigated and much of it won't escape into the public domain for decades.
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In essence, that was the main story-line of a "The Avengers" episode called "All Done with Mirrors" that was first shown in 1968.
At the time me and my friend across the road had a modulated-light-beam telephone operating between our houses. Inspired by the episode, I noticed that each evening the sun reflected from the louvered glass windows in the shopfront of a nearby launderette into my bedroom so I turned my device towards it to see if I could hear the voices of those inside. There was plenty of noise from the vibration of the machinery, but that's all.
As for the American embassy incident, I was aware of it, but I had no idea that Theremin was involved. I suppose it's logical that detail like that wasn't available till after the fall of the Soviet Union.
One thing the BBC article doesn't mention and was alleged in the reports that I read, is that the the staff at the embassy suffered adverse health effects from the powerful non-ionising radiation beamed towards them.
Theremin died in 1993 according to his wiki entry, and according to the same source he devised the principle of raster interlace for television, I imagine like most television developments, there will be other contenders.