Keyboard Hacking
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Not what you think. These hackers are figuring out what you're doing by how you type!!!! Now that is truly scary.
Imagine USB keys are banned, floppies removed from all systems, no CD burners, your office door is closed and locked when you aren't there, but someone standing outside the door with a tape recorder getting audio of your work. If it's possible, then your passwords aren't safe from prying eyes or ears.
It reminds me of parts of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon where the author talks about a technology that can "read your screen" from another room. It works by analyzing the electromagnetic radiation that is emitted by a computer screen. Supposedly this technology exists, but that was really scary. Someone sitting in a parking lot viewing exactly what is on your screen.
It is truly amazing what technological feats can be developed for illicit, or at the very least, immoral, purposes.
And incredibly scary.
Steve Jones
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IIRC, the technology in the Cryptonomicon is Van Eck Phreaking, and it does supposedly work.
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Gov't/military applications of the electronic snooping technology seem to be described under the code name Tempest (not an acronym as far as I know) though the technology is certainly within the realm of any electronically competent attacker.
CRTs are most vulnerable due to the high voltages and magnetic fields, LCD types of display are somewhat more difficult to read. Counter measures can include Faraday shielding and plenty of pink noise (mimicing random screen patterns). Silent keyboards and pink noise can also help the sonic snooping as well (though if an attacker can get a microphone into your location, it would be more productive to put a bug on the keyboard cable)
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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This is the very reason why NSA in Columbia MD had their buildings sheeted in copper back in the 80s. They believed that the Russians where able to detect, via satellite, what the NSA computers where doing via electro-magnetic release from the computers. Thus the copper acted as a shield to keep the magnetic release from prying eyes, now that is truly spooky.
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Having had security clearances and offices in the Pentagon over my career I can relate to this realistically. In an office on the F wing in the basement of the Pentagon in 1982... so far underground that we had water puddles from the Potomac River... we had two Xerox 820 word processors. A team located in the parking lot above picked up every keystroke typed on these machines and ultimately attributed it to the wire on the coffee pot plugged into the same outlet. The pot was removed - with the unfortunate side benefit of the next closest one requiring top secret and compartmental clearances, so for those of us without SIOP... a 20 minute walk to get coffee (and then a 20 minute walk to get rid of it). The problem was however solved.
Yes. A very real issue.
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Of course, as most spooks and military types will tell you, it is far easier and cheaper to just point a gun at someone and ask them what you want to know. If they are not motivated by their own safety, then the physical well being of somone they care about is a wonderful motivator. As always, the weakest link in any security system is the human.
In a lead and copper covered room, with tempested equipment, and a 15 foot air gap 360 degrees around the room, it is possible to record and identify every keystroke from the static on a radio plugged into an outlet that happens to be on the same circuit. This was a few years ago. The solution? Bring a stand alone generator into the room and disconnect from all external power. At least we kept the coffee pot.
G'day
Wayne
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Locks only keep honest people out !
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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