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Comment by mpreda | Hacker News Reader

Passive spying device that required no power:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

One of my favourite gadgets of history and a worthy link, technically it required external power, an illuminating external radio signal which is modified by local audio signals and rebrodcast in changed form.

Would something like this still work today? I assumed that sensitive locations would have shields in place to prevent potential bugs from transmitting information.

Then again, this would also make cell phones and wifi inoperable, so maybe that is considered too high of a cost vs being diligent in monitoring for devices.

It's pretty standard (as in, there are literally standards for it) to have shielding around air-gapped systems and rooms. TEMPEST is a good reference point.

Up until recently the standards were tested once then done. After that people were free to drill holes or alter things to bypass the standards.

Now they perform checks periodically so this happens less.

Making WiFi and cell phones inoperable within secure facilities is a feature - only cleared comms units should work, and even those should be able to be shut down.

For interest, see:

Rare Shot of POTUS Inside a Sensitive Compartmented Info Facility https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39050756

SCIF and Radio Frequency Secured Facility Design https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35729283

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