The Russian ring charged this week with spying on the US faced some of the common security issues that infection many companies misconfigured wireless networks, users writing passwords on slips of paper and laptop help desk problems that take months to determine.

Also, the declared conspirators used a variety of technologies to pass data among themselves and back to their handlers in Moscow as well as PC-to-PC open wireless networking and digital steganography to hide messages and get back them from images on Web sites.

They also in a job more traditional ways as well as invisible ink, Morse code and ciphers, according to declarations made by federal agents in court papers seeking arrest warrants for the alleged spies.

One of the most conspicuous errors made by one of the spy defendants was leaving an impressive 27-character password written on a part of paper that law enforcement officers found while searching a suspect's home. They used the password to crack open a cache trove of over hunded text files containing covert messages used to further the investigation.