Microdot
Encyclopedia
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
dot, such as a period
Full stop
A full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...
or the tittle
Tittle
A tittle is a small distinguishing mark, such as a diacritic or the dot on a lowercase i or j. The tittle is an integral part of the glyph of i and j, but diacritic dots can appear over other letters in various languages...
of a lowercase i or j. It is, fundamentally, a steganographic
Steganography
Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity...
approach to message protection.
In 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
was under siege and messages were sent by carrier pigeon
Carrier pigeon
A carrier pigeon is a homing pigeon that is used to carry messages. Using pigeons to carry messages is generally called "pigeon post". Most homing or racing type varieties are used to carry messages. There is no specific breed actually called "carrier pigeon"...
. Parisian photographer René Dagron
René Dagron
René Prudent Patrice Dagron was a French photographer and inventor. He was born in Aillières-Beauvoir, Sarthe, France....
used a photographic shrinking technique to permit each pigeon to carry a high volume of messages, as pigeons have a quite restricted payload
Cargo
Cargo is goods or produce transported, generally for commercial gain, by ship, aircraft, train, van or truck. In modern times, containers are used in most intermodal long-haul cargo transport.-Marine:...
capacity. However, the images were not as small as modern microdots.
An actual microdot technique was used for steganographic
Steganography
Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity...
purposes in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
between World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It was also later used by many countries to pass messages through insecure postal channels. Later microdot techniques used film with aniline
Aniline
Aniline, phenylamine or aminobenzene is an organic compound with the formula C6H5NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the prototypical aromatic amine. Being a precursor to many industrial chemicals, its main use is in the manufacture of precursors to polyurethane...
dye, rather than silver halide
Silver halide
A silver halide is one of the compounds formed between silver and one of the halogens — silver bromide , chloride , iodide , and three forms of silver fluorides. As a group, they are often referred to as the silver halides, and are often given the pseudo-chemical notation AgX...
layers, as this was even harder for counter-espionage agents to find. Professor Zapp
Walter Zapp
Walter Zapp was a Latvian inventor. His greatest creation was the subminiature camera .Zapp was born in Riga, Governorate of Livonia. In 1934, living in Estonia, he began developing the then subminiature camera by first creating wooden models, which led to the first prototype in 1936. It was...
from Germany is claimed to have been the inventor of the technique, and a World War II spy kit for microdot production was sometimes called a Zapp outfit. However, Emanuel Goldberg
Emanuel Goldberg
Emanuel Goldberg was born in Moscow and moved first to Germany and later to Israel...
is also alleged to have been the inventor of the modern technique,
under which hypothesis Professor Zapp's connection would be a fiction. Like much in the history of espionage and subversion, there is controversy.
After the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
was put up, special cameras were used to generate microdots which were then adhered to letters and sent via normal means. Owing to the extremely small size of microdots, these messages often went unnoticed by inspectors and information could then be read by the intended recipient using a microscope
Microscope
A microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy...
.
British mail censors sometimes referred to microdots as "duff" since they were distributed here and there throughout letters rather like raisins in the British steamed suet pudding called spotted dick
Spotted dick
Spotted dick is a British steamed suet pudding containing dried fruit commonly served with custard. Spotted refers to the dried fruit and dick may be a contraction or corruption of the word pudding or possibly a corruption of the word dough or dog, as "spotted dog" is another name for the same...
(or "plum duff").
Microdot Identification
Microdot identification is a process where tiny identification tags are etchedEtching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
or coded with a given vehicle VIN
Vin
Vin may refer to:*Voltage input, an alternative form for Vin-People:*Vin Diesel*Vin Scully*Vin Suprynowicz*Vin, the name of a character from the video games Jak II and Jak 3*a diminutive of the name "Vincent"...
, asset identification number or a unique serial number
Serial number
A serial number is a unique number assigned for identification which varies from its successor or predecessor by a fixed discrete integer value...
. Unique personal identification number
Personal identification number
A personal identification number is a secret numeric password shared between a user and a system that can be used to authenticate the user to the system. Typically, the user is required to provide a non-confidential user identifier or token and a confidential PIN to gain access to the system...
s (PIN), asset identification number or customized customer data entries are also available. The microdots are brushed or sprayed onto the key parts of an asset to provide complete parts marking. The technology was developed in the United States in the 1990s before being commercialized by various manufacturers and distributors around the world.
Popular Culture
- In the motion picture Mission Impossible 3 a microdot was hidden on the back of postage stamp and contained a magnetically stored video file.
- In Superman #655 (Vol. 1, Sep. 2006), Clark Kent uses various microdots implanted throughout a suspense novel to read not only the novel but also numerous other works on various topics. The microdots were used here to further explore Superman's newly-enhanced mental capabilities.
- In You Only Live TwiceYou Only Live Twice (film)You Only Live Twice is the fifth spy film in the James Bond series, and the fifth to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film's screenplay was written by Roald Dahl, and loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel of the same name...
, Tiger tells James Bond that his men found a microdot on a captured SPECTRE photograph, which he enlarges for Bond. - In the 1966 movie ArabesqueArabesque (film)Arabesque is a 1966 thriller starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. The movie is based on Gordon Cotler's novel The Cypher and directed by Stanley Donen.-Plot:Professor David Pollock is an expert in ancient hieroglyphics at Oxford University...
a microdot was hidden in the eye of a goose on a parchment of hieroglyphs. - One of Philip K. Dick's characters in A Scanner DarklyA Scanner DarklyA Scanner Darkly is a BSFA Award winning 1977 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The semi-autobiographical story is set in a dystopian Orange County, California, in the then-future of June 1994...
tells a drug-induced story wherein a worker at the local microdot factory had tracked the company's entire inventory out into the parking lot on the sole of his shoe. - In the Nancy Drew PC game, Phantom of Venice, a clue is hidden using a microdot on an exclamation point.
- The 2003 film PaycheckPaycheck (film)Paycheck is a 2003 film adaptation of the short story of the same name by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. The film was directed by John Woo and stars Ben Affleck, Uma Thurman and Aaron Eckhart...
uses a very realistic rendering of a microdot as a key plot element. The handling of microdot technology in the film is worth note as the viewer is shown both how well a microdot can be made to blend into a complementary environment as well as how much information such a dot can carry. - In the White CollarWhite Collar (TV series)White Collar is a USA Network television series created by Jeff Eastin, starring Matt Bomer as con-man Neal Caffrey and Tim DeKay as Special Agent Peter Burke. It premiered on October 23, 2009. In December 2009, White Collar was renewed for a second season that began on July 13, 2010...
episode "As You Were" a microdot was used to send a covert message to Special Agent Clinton Jones. - In the Covert AffairsCovert AffairsCovert Affairs is a USA Network television series starring Piper Perabo and Christopher Gorham. The one-hour drama premiered on Tuesday, July 13, 2010. The show concluded its first season on September 14, 2010 and was renewed for a second season on August 19, 2010. The second season began airing on...
episode "Sad Professor" a microdot was used by one of the characters to store intelligence related to an operation that a language professor used who previously worked for the CIA. - In the The Venture Bros.The Venture Bros.The Venture Bros. is an American animated television series that premiered on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on February 16, 2003. The series mixes action and comedy together while it chronicles the adventures of the Venture family: well-meaning but incompetent teenagers Hank and Dean Venture; their...
episode Powerless In the Face of Death; while in prison, the character Tiny Joseph comments that "they don't usually write microdots by hand." - In the television series Get SmartGet SmartGet Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. Created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry, the show starred Don Adams , Barbara Feldon , and Edward Platt...
(Season 1, Episode 21 - "Dear Diary") Agent 86 and Agent 99 are shown the first "microdot" in the Spy City Museum. The comedic value is in the microdot being the size of a small plate.