The clickety clack of typewriters - a sound unknown to today's generation who grew up on PCs, laptops and now tablets - will soon be heard again. At least in Kremlin as a precautionary measure against Wikileaks and government workers like Edward Snowden who spill the beans.

The CNET report would spell good news for makers of the obsolete writing machines now being used perhaps only in rural areas mostly of backward nations. The report said that Kremlin has began to order large numbers of typewriters worth $15,000, CNET said, quoting its sources at Russia's Federal Guard Service.

The Russian government procurement Web site appears to confirm the report since it has on its list fund allocation for the purchase of ribbons for 180 typewriters for the model Triumph Adler TWEN.

Quoting the Russian Izvestia newspaper, CNET wrote, "After scandals with the distribution of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the exposes by Edward Snowden, reports about Dmitry Medvedev being listened on during his visit to the G20 summit in London, it has been decided to expand the practice of creating paper documents."

One more advantage of the typewriter is that each model has its own pattern of font, so tracing a leaked document is easier.

The Telegraph added that its source said that Kremlin has actually not totally ditched the typewriter with the country's defence ministry still using the ancient writing document-creating device. Among these documents are directives to the defence minister and the supreme commander-in-chief.

Nikolai Kovalev, former director of Russia's Federal Security Service, added, quoted by Izvestiya, "From the point of view of security, any means of electronic communication is vulnerable. You can remove any information from a computer. There are means of defence, of course, but there's no 100 per cent guarantee they will work. So from the point of view of preserving secrets, the most primitive methods are preferable: a person's hand and a pen, or a typewriter."

Besides Olivetti, the known typewriter brands include Remington, Underwood, Corona and Olympia. These companies eventually also made electric typewriters, many of which could still be seen by today's generation in typewriter museums.

Given the way Kremlin thinks, would the day arrive that they would also revert to using homing pigeons to send secret messages?

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