Comment by xlayn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xlayn | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if deployed around the world there is a network of radios sync by GPS to receive time encoded encrypted communications signals of every electrical powered devices configured to transmit according to the same principle and all the things about security are just a curtain behind the capability of capturing everything that has already been deployed.

Given that this is CPU and subsystems related doesn't have anything to do with software running... it could be capture and executed by a routine in the CPU out of every possible observance by dedicated circuitry, this would fall under all the requisites mentioned by the poster

    Be emitted by the computer processor and other subsystems
    Escape the computer shielding
    Pass through the air or other obstructions
    Be accepted by the antenna
    Be selected by the receiver

Neurosis off...

Edit: Neurosis on

You know what escapes computer shielding? cables... like the ones with cpus that are used for connecting to external devices...

Neurosis off.

Is what you're looking to be paranoid about?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking

And thus, it's obligatory that someone recommend Neal Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_, in which this features quite heavily.

And, within 24 hours or so someone will submit the Van Eck Phreaking Wikipedia page link as a standalone submission on HN.

As long as we're making tangential recommendations and expecting to be reintroduced to things within 24 hours, I'd like to throw John Dies at the End into the ring.

RF leaks are an old tune, NSA was using it back in the 60's I believe. There was an article in Wired about this topic in 2008[0] Gene Hackman and Will Smith in a movie Enemy Of The State (2009)[1] hinted at this technology.

[0] http://www.wired.com/2008/04/nsa-releases-se/

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_10

(edit for formatting)

it was already done ~86 days ago, so it won't be back for a bit longer

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684447

huh, I was wondering if everybody else noticed the standard nerd sniping pattern on HN.

It's a long book but it is worth reading. One of my favorite books.

There's this DEFCON talk that (among other things) covers how an unshielded display cable can potentially leak screen contents over RF. Well worth a watch if you've got the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g9yUiAHiFo

I recall seeing a cryptographic side channel attack based on radio frequency interference from the victim computer. I don't have a source for this but I'm sure someone will find a link soon enough.

I remember this being done with microphones, listening to the clicks of the coils. Related?

http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tromer/acoustic/

Edit, found in one of the links on that page, seems this is the same group http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tromer/ecdh/

If this was true, you'd expect hobbyist radio operators to notice, right? That increases the required conspiracy size by orders of magnitudes.

Out of the Neurosis joke area and in line with your hobbyist radio operator comment, probably the person who most know about how to perform radio transmissions using a component by re-purposing them are those who work shielding sensible components away from it.

For example power bricks that contains every day more and more circuitry could implement a protocol of communication by de-modulating a message sent by AC and then sending via radio to the computer the message; process that's even easier with power cables with data lines.... like the usb cable.

I feel like you've just written half of the script for the next Transformers movie.

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