From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Fri May 05 2000 - 23:39:19 MDT
> EvMick, your laptop is quite safe inside your truck. Stephenson described
> an antenna that needed to be pretty close to the computer to do phreaking.
> For any given signal of course the antenna would need to be proportionally
> larger as it gets farther away from the source. spike
This is the basis of the old DoD Tempest requirements that government
secured vaults be lead-lined and have no external cables of any kind for
power or data. A simple truck body does not meet the requirements for
Tempest shielding.
The ability to read computer screens and keystrokes via radiowaves has been
around for decades. It is very easy to do, also. Keystrokes produce tiny
radio bursts when the electrical connection is made. Each key is slightly
different and has its own fingerprint. Capturing these and displaying
keystrokes in order is easy. After that, simple code-breaking will
determine which fingerprint matches which key. For example, in English, the
letter "e" is most common. The most used key is the space bar, followed by
the most used letter "e", etc. The longer you monitor, the more exactly the
frequency table will converge with standard statistical tables.
(Or so I've heard.....)
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> IBM Certified Senior Security Consultant, Legal Hacker, Engineer, Research Scientist, Author.
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