Researchers Sniff Keystrokes From Thin Air, Wires 217
narramissic writes "Two separate research teams have found that the electromagnetic radiation that is generated when a computer keyboard is tapped is actually pretty easy to capture and decode. Using an oscilloscope and an inexpensive wireless antenna, the Ecole Polytechnique team was able to pick up keystrokes from virtually any keyboard, including laptops — with 95 percent accuracy over a distance of up to 20 meters. Using similar techniques, Inverse Path researchers Andrea Barisani and Daniele Bianco picked out keyboard signals from keyboard ground cables. On PS/2 keyboards, 'the data cable is so close to the ground cable, the emanations from the data cable leak onto the ground cable, which acts as an antenna,' Barisani said. That ground wire passes through the PC and into the building's power wires, where the researchers can pick up the signals using a computer, an oscilloscope and about $500 worth of other equipment. Barisani and Bianco will present their findings at the CanSecWest hacking conference next week in Vancouver. The Ecole Polytechnique team has submitted their research for peer review and hopes to publish it very soon."
Mouse (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly why I do all my typing with my mouse on an on-screen virtual keyboard. It's much faster too.
On a serious note, it is ironic that literally broadcasting a bluetooth signal over-the-air between a wireless keyboard and computer is apparently more secure than a hardwired keyboard.
Will they be allowed to present their stuff? (Score:2, Interesting)
I doubt these folks will be allowed to present their stuff. As a lay man, I cannot see a genuine use of this technology without breaking the law. I hope they will present.
When a product based on this technology is manufactured, the manufacturer could face a law suit on these grounds:
The defendant manufactured a product which on usage as intended by manufacturer, breaks the law. That's tough.
Van Eck phreaking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Much ado about nothing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, and wasn't there a declassified NSA thing about just this late last year?
This sort of snooping was used in the '70's. (Score:2, Interesting)
In 1981, my supervisor in the Air Force, based on training he had as a forward air controller in Vietnam, told me how easy it was to electronically snoop in on the keystrokes generated by electric typewriters. This was in response to my question about what the "secure typewriter" was that we were standing there looking at. So the whole concept was proven, in use, and being counter-acted, years before the Van Eck phreaking article was even published.
So I'm quite baffled by this "research" being presented well over 30 years after that.
Re:Will they be allowed to present their stuff? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's significant legal use for keyboard sniffing. Parents watching children and employers watching employees on company computers are both legal in the US.
8 gauge wire (Score:4, Interesting)
By god, back then the electrons were so thick they had to use thick 8 gauge wiring to make anything work.
Some years ago I waked into a computer store to buy a hard drive. Along one of the walls was a series of glass displays containing a small selection of vintage computer equipment. One of the displays contained a gigantic object that looked like it would take two men to shift. It consisted of a really massive looking cast metal casing out of which protruded some disks, arms, some clumsy looking circuit boards and the thing was powered by a quite sizeable 220 volt electric motor of the type one is used to seeing attached to a really big fat lumber saw. I had to take a few steps back before I realised the thing was a (8 GB as it turned out) hard drive from the early 80s and not a piece of industrial machinery with it's panelling removed. I walked out of that place with a 20 Gb hard drive in my hand. Kind of makes one marvel over how far we have come in terms of miniaturisation.
Re:Guess what (Score:4, Interesting)
One second while I tune my antennas to your monitor frequency.
Re:Much ado about nothing? -pretty much (Score:3, Interesting)
USN has been doing it for years so has the german MAD
remember security is an illusion
regards
John Jones
Re:Will they be allowed to present their stuff? (Score:3, Interesting)
How thin is the air, up there where you're at, that you somehow believe that they wouldn't be allowed to present? Why is that "tough"
Since when does the Canadian government ask whether there is a "genuine use of [a] technology without breaking the law" before they pre-emptively restrict free speech? I'm pretty sure that they don't--go wikipedia it, yourself, and come back and tell me if I'm wrong, OK?
So where did you get this idea that somebody could stop their presentation/publishing?
* You may be confused by certain past cases (such as the RIAA/MPAA watermarking contest) wherein researchers are threatened with lawsuits by other private parties on contractual or copyright-related grounds. Zero application, here--these researchers aren't involved with any 2nd parties who have the legal standing and desire to bring such a tort.
* You may also be confused by the DMCA, or its counterparts in other countries, which criminalize the distribution of devices or methods that circumvent copyright protection mechanisms, like DVD's CSS encryption. Again, zero application, because this has nothing to do with copyright law.
* Is it possible that you were thinking of how governments will classify research that has national security implications, such as work on nuclear weapons or cryptography, muzzling the researchers with threats of criminal prosecution? Again, not an issue here--Faraday's law of induction isn't what you'd call a national secret.
So... Seriously: Am I missing something, here? Why DO you think these researchers would be stopped from presenting? And who do you think would do it, and how?
Re:The solution is obvious... (Score:3, Interesting)
.....The only solution is to shoot people with antennae....
The solution is to allow nobody anywhere at anytime to have any secrets of any kind whatsoever. Jesus Christ speaks of the time in the future of the world when all secrets will be known by everyone.
Jesus Christ said in Luke 12:2 -- For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, nor anything hidden that shall not be known. 3 Therefore whatever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light. And that which you have spoken in the ear in secret rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
In today's world, where people have selfish ideas and motives, security and secrecy are necessary evils. In a world where everybody knows what everybody else is thinking at all times and all places, anybody with evil plans would find it hard to carry them out. Someday, our world will become such a place where it will be next to impossible for anybody to do any harm to anyone else without everybody immediately knowing such an intent.
Re:LOL, yeah (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, the university I worked at did some government work and actually used a mechanically isolated power system. Basically they had a big motor (or several, actually) and it was directly connected to a generator (with a flywheel I think). This meant a totally independent power loop as inside the building, and the flywheel smoothed out any spikes. Obviously not highly efficient, but a good way to decouple for security and safety purposes.
Re:Guess what (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Guess what (Score:3, Interesting)
And this is new? (Score:2, Interesting)
How exactly can this be new or newsworthy?
I saw a demonstration 20 years ago almost to the day where guys from the swedish equivalent of NSA captured keystrokes from a Mac Plus at 300 meters distance (I was working in military research at the time).
As a consequence we built a room paneled entirly in copper, with copper chicken wire across the windows and baffled air vents.
Opto-couplers for the phone lines and stabilizers for the power and we were emission free. The whole TEMPEST package.