Researchers log keystrokes from afar with an antenna | Hacker News Reader

Researchers log keystrokes from afar with an antenna

infoworld.com

19 pointssnydeq11 comments

TEMPEST: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEMPEST

I'm quite certain that this isn't a recent discovery.

The researchers put a site up with the videos mentioned in the article: http://lasecwww.epfl.ch/keyboard/

Jumping the gun I know since there is no verification but this, if true, is totally world changing, isn't it?

The article noted this: "They faulted cost pressures on keyboard manufacturers for not making keyboards more snoop proof."

So if this is true, at least it appears that new keyboards could be improved to block eavesdropping.

It would probably be pretty easy to kill the EM emanating from the keyboard. If all the circuitry was surrounded by tinfoil and the cable had better shielding, it'd probably cut the radiation a lot. If anything, i'd bet its the cable that does all the radiating? I'll have to think about that one a bit.

Its totally badass though. I kinda wanna go home and build something like that. Probably harder than it looks though.

looks like they used a USRP.

Not really. Attacks against unintended emissions have been around for years, whats one more for the pile. The other thing I would question is wether or not this can actually capture and decode the signals at actual typing rates versus the hunt and peck speed demonstrated in the video...

Considering researchers have been able to read CRTs without looking at them by Van Eck phreaking, and more recently even get LCDs (http://www.omninerd.com/news/TEMPEST_Attack_on_LCD) it's not really even game changing for a realistically secured facility. http://www.tscm.com/TSCM101tempest.html is a primer, and http://cryptome.org/nsa-tempest.htm is an in-depth guide, if you think it's worth your time and money to mitigate this kind of vulnerability.

I didn't RTA, but reading keyboards (and monitors) from EMR is at least 30 years old in intelligence circles.

Source? Geesh. Seems like I read this in one of the biographical spy books I got into a decade or so ago. The amount of stuff you can pull out of the air with the right equipment is completely amazing.

"Researchers" are always doing unlikely sounding fun things.

It's like the "Doctors recommend X" or "scientists {anything}" sentences which are mostly indicators of poor content, but "Researchers do/create XYZ" is often a good indicator.

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