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Comment by parktheredcar | Hacker News Reader

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parktheredcar·

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

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This is also talked about in the book, "Silence on the Wire".

http://www.amazon.com/Silence-Wire-Passive-Reconnaissance-In...

Thanks for sharing, that looks like an interesting read.

There was also this paper (linking to summary) about figuring out how to decode the audio of someone typing on a keyboard.

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/acoustic-snooping-...

...it's actually a good compliment while (slowly) trying to complete the challenges on http://cryptopals.com/

I recall that being a plot point in Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. It sounded plausible enough that it didn't break my willing suspension of disbelief, but I never gave it much thought after I finished reading the book. I'm thinking now I should revisit the topic and try to evaluate how bad the emissions of my own equipment is, and what I can/should do about it, if anything. For example, should this affect my rotation policy for encryption keys?

> "[...] should this affect my rotation policy for encryption keys?"

Only if you're in the habit of displaying them or typing them in or otherwise transmitting them over leaky I/O channels. If all they do is get loaded from your internal SSD to RAM, then they're pretty safe. Your passwords are what's really at risk, and any secrets that you put on screen.

Which makes an appearance in the always recommended novel Cryptonomicon.

http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal-Stephenson/dp/00605...

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