In January 1999, the Washington Post caught the infamous "Furby Alert" story. Now, official documents have been released that prove the story really happened. Yes, the NSA was really worried that the fuzzy toys that were all the rage in the late 90s, parroting anything they heard, had "artificial intelligence" chips and were a security risk. Then an official warning was issued.

As reported by 404 Media, this official document was released in response to a somewhat speculative request for information by an X user with the handle @dakotathecat. Apparently on a bored whim, dakotathecat decided to request the first official confirmation since the Washington Post article in the late 90s.

The result was a manila envelope containing 60 pages of documents, including an employee's discussion of the security threat posed by the hairball, an internal memo attempting to manage media coverage after the Washington Post article, and a list call of all media outlets that covered the story The company said it received the documents.

The resulting policy memo from the NSA, posted in late 1998, included inquiries from concerned spies who found a couple of Furbies hanging around the NSA offices, prompting a request for official guidance.

"I noticed that a new toy on the market has an artificial intelligence chip in it. 'Apparently, these plush toys learn from nearby speech patterns. This is going to be a security issue in that it can pick up any spoken word and repeat it," the inquiry continued.

The official response, titled "FURBIE ALERT," is somewhat less conspiratorial, noting only that "personally owned photographic, video, and audio recording devices are prohibited items," without explicitly riding the whole "artificial intelligence" thing.

Some of the NSA operatives who participated in the discussion seemed genuinely concerned. Some speculated that the toy's "I/R port could be storing signals from a nearby classified radio system." [But some were more pessimistic. They said, "Most voice processing records enough voice samples to generate statistical data; I wonder if Furbie is flushing these buffers, how much information a single sample contains. ...... We'll find out once we start the investigation, but it seems easier to have them leave it at home"

Yes, back in the late 90s, No Such Agency's genuine-looking AI security scare started with a cheap toy. Who would have guessed?