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Nyrok is fixed-focus with great depth of field, only the viewfinder has an adjustable focus.
Second, the lever on the front-right side of the body is a mirror-position lever - it switches the view between observation mode and taking pictures.
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Pictured is a vintage KGB "Nyrok" Kompromat camera, it is very distinctive due to the 40cm probe lens that was designed to take pictures through holes drilled in adjoining rooms.
The camera itself is fixed focus but from the rear you can see the viewfinder has a focus adjustment that would aid in observation mode
To use the camera a hole is drilled from an adjoining room, only a 1mm hole is needed through the wallpaper to be able to take pictures
Mounted on the front of the camera is an unusual lever - this switches the light path between observation mode and taking pictures.
Australian Spy Museum Featured Artefact this week is a 1960's KGB Nyrok camera designed for Kompromat photography - that is, capturing extortion material to use against Western diplomats and corporate types.
Long before Epstein it was a KGB expertise.
#Cameras #Espionage #ColdWar
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Interested in espionage / tradecraft history?
Here's a quick (22 minute) tour of some of Australian Spy Museum's toys displayed at BSides Adelaide in 2024.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqnL...
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The A510 also saw service in the early years in Vietnam but was superseded by the PRC-64 / Delco 5300 that we covered in a previous post, and by the PRC-25.
If you're liking our collection and posts, please repost and invite your pals to follow Australian Spy Museum.
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Operating in the 2 to 12 MHz range, the unit was designed for both voice (AM) and telegraphy (CW) communication.
Even with 1 Watt output the A510’s HF signal could achieve long-distance comms via ground-wave or Skywave propagation. This was vital for mountainous and canopy-covered terrain.
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With ANZAC Day coming up our Featured Artefact this week is the Australian A510 radio, as used by our Army and SAS units in Borneo and early years in Vietnam.
The A510 was a portable HF (High Frequency) transceiver developed in the early 1950’s by Amalgamated Wireless Australasia (AWA).
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I acquired this as part of a big Dachbodenfund (attic find) of Stasi gear. During the Wende (Fall of the Wall period) some operatives were caught outside and could not return their gear to Stasi buildings occupied by protestors.
Over 30 years it was forgotten about, a spytech time capsule.
@aus-spymuseum.bsky.social Featured Artefact this week is a 1980's Stasi concealed camera briefcase.
A spring-powered Robot camera is driven by:
- A microswitch trigger (location in x-ray), and
- A battery-powered solenoid on the shutter release
Each press of the microswitch is one exposure
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This month we added further to an already amazing collection of items related to Alan Turing - mathematician, codebreaker, computing & AI pioneer.
If you have secure exhibit space in Sydney for something incredible that will draw an audience, we'd love to talk.
A highly decorated military jacket sitting on a transparent perspex chair
Seen from the side you can tell that even the bolts and threads holding the chair together are completely transparent
There are no places anywhere on this chair or similar tables where you could hide a listening device
The jacket is from the Moscow Region of FSB - the Russian Security service, it is of a dark olive green colour, with prominent tassled epaulettes, large shoulder badges, and many other badges on the chest
Australian Spy Museum features some Moscow artefacts
A transparent chair for secure meeting rooms - even the bolts are made of perspex so there are no places to hide a bug
And parade jacket of a Signals NCO of the Moscow Region FSB
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Here's a bonus @aus_spymuseum object this week.
I've acquired most of the gear from the surveillance post in "The Lives of Others". This week we added a Robotron typewriter and these look Freaking Awesome together.
Who knows someone in Sydney that might like to host a jaw-dropping spycraft popup?
This weeks @aus-spymuseum.bsky.social objects are from ground zero for the Cold War - immediate postwar Berlin.
Signed photo of Reinhardt Gehlen of Germany's Abwehr intel service, plus an Abwehr SE109/3 spy radio.
Also two German subminiature cameras - a late 1930's SOLA and a "Ritterkreuz" Minox.
This week's Featured Artefact - ultra rare Yugoslavian KZU-31 teleprinter cipher machine.
The 1990's Balkan Wars destroyed just about all the JNA's original equipment, I cannot find another example or even other photos online.
Follow @aus-spymuseum.bsky.social for retro spycraft goodness.
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Australian Spy Museum Featured Artefact - rare subminiature spy cameras - from Left to Right:
c1980 The stunning EFBE 😍 made by Franz Brinkert
c1962 Stasi Uranus 5 creates 2mm x 1.5mm Mikrats
c1960's Soviet GRU SRC-1 - is one of only five examples known, I'm very happy to bring this to Australia
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This Stasi room-surveillance rig comprised of:
- A commercial Bühnenempfänger - or stage receiver
- A microphone / transmitter concealed inside a polished wooden presentation box
- Paired with a western Uher cassette recorder
Pictured also - 2x pages of Stasi deployment guide book
Australian Spy Museum Featured Artefact this week is one of our surveillance listening stations.
We have a few of these from both East & West and its interesting to see how they compare, and evolved over time.
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Thanks @SecTalks for the invite to present on Tuesday, and to @Atlassian for hosting 😀
@aus-spymuseum.bsky.social presented "The Enigma Machine - Live Demo'd and Explained" with hands-on time.
As a bonus we included these rare cipher devices used in WWII Occupied France.
Have a great weekend!
Here are:
- One of Powers flight suits
- A page from his prison notebook, learning Russian
- His autograph and Time Magazine cover
- Soviets propaganda "No Return for u2"
- And an original piece of wreckage from Powers U2.
I was honoured to meet his son Gary Jr who signed "Spy Pilot" for me
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CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down in a U2 spy plane on May Day (May 1st) 1960. He was captured, put on trial in the Soviet Union and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
On Feb 10th 1962 he was exchanged for Rudolf Abel on the "Bridge of Spies" in Berlin.
Here's some nice U2 artefacts:
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So that collection includes:
- Turing's pre-WWII thesis, and now more of his papers
- Original material from Bletchley Hut 8 (U-boot decrypt)
- Operational Enigma machines, and parts of Tunny
- The costumes from "The Imitation Game"
- Very early compute items
We'll exhibit some in SYD in 2026.
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I know some are thinking "Wait - that's not a camera / recorder / spy gadget!" No - no it's not. But a credible museum needs an INcredible reference library.
And y'know - Turing / Enigma - so these fit into our larger Maths/Codebreaking collection and along an evolutionary timeline.
more ...
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Some bookish and nerdy Australian Spy Museum Acquisition News.
We've recently added some more Turing papers "Computability and Lambda Definability" in the Journal of Symbolic Logic - 1936, and "The Word Problem in Semi Groups with Cancellation" in Annals of Mathematics - 1950.
more ...
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Lots of cool zine style inspo there, pretty happy to appear alongside screenprint, scraper board, hand drawn etc
Well, looks like we are a hit with the kids
You've know you've made it when someone spots you in the wild and posts you on F*ck Yeah Stickers
fuckyeahstickers.tumblr.com/post/8039319...
Twenty years ago I ran a promotion in Australia that took our biz partners up in BAC Strikemasters - two seat jet fighter bombers - to experience some G-forces and simulated dogfighting. That was for a computer networking company not gaming but I think the kind of thing gamers would like
Yeah that’s a total vibe killer
T68D in action - awesome bzzzt-clackety-clack analog retro goodness.
youtu.be/Xp7g2okPZIw?...
Australian Spy Museum acquisition news! We've completed our NATO 1950's teleprinter cipher system.
It includes the Hagelin T-55 cipher appliance that sits in between our T68D teleprinter and a comms circuit, providing a high security point to point link.
In below comment, link to T68D demo video
“We need a society that once more values its dreamers and visionaries, those *** who uncomfortably go against the grain of what and who we are, exploring our nightmares *** so we might better know ourselves …
Yep - 💯 this, might have been lifted from Aust Spy Museum’s mission statement website
Reading history served you well