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People who are capable of writing side-channel attacks like this have an intuition for radio and signal processing that must be completely overwhelming during t

People who are capable of writing side-channel attacks like this have an intuition for radio and signal processing that must be completely overwhelming during their day-to-day life.

wolfgke 10y ago
> People who are capable of writing side-channel attacks like this have an intuition for radio and signal processing that must be completely overwhelming during their day-to-day life. I might not be such a wizard :-( but still I know some things about how some everyday objects such as computers/laptops (hidden features), mobile phones, WiFi etc. can be used for surveillance. Even in a country such as Germany that has seen two surveillance states in the 20th century and is thus a lot more concerned about surveillance than, say, the US (as I observe it) I'm talking about this topic till I am blue in the face. So in other words: I don't believe you would consider such a person to be overwhelming, but instead you would consider him as flat-out annoying and paranoid.
- gruturo 10y ago
  I don't think he implied that the _people_ with this knowledge must be overwhelming. I think he means these people's intuition, and knowledge, about radio/signal processing, must be overwhelming (to _them_ first and foremost) during their day to day life. As in, everywhere you go, you realize how much information a knowledgeable evil actor could extract by simply analyzing what's being irradiated.
  - Jordrok 10y ago
    I'm imagining something like the brother in Better Call Saul, where it's painful for him to be in the presence of cell phones or fluorescent lights, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivi...
  - nickysielicki 10y ago
    Not just the practical considerations of someone extracting the information, but just that studying this and reasoning about it to the extent that you can extract information out implies such a deep understanding of another part of the electromagnetic spectrum. I would liken it to having the ability to imagine another color. They probably don't have an exact idea of the information flowing around them, but they know it is there and they have an ability to reason about it better than others. I can't imagine that's something that is easy to simply leave at the office.

People who are capable of writing side-channel attacks like this have an intuition for radio and signal processing that must be completely overwhelming during their day-to-day life.

wolfgke 10y ago

> People who are capable of writing side-channel attacks like this have an intuition for radio and signal processing that must be completely overwhelming during their day-to-day life. I might not be such a wizard :-( but still I know some things about how some everyday objects such as computers/laptops (hidden features), mobile phones, WiFi etc. can be used for surveillance. Even in a country such as Germany that has seen two surveillance states in the 20th century and is thus a lot more concerned about surveillance than, say, the US (as I observe it) I'm talking about this topic till I am blue in the face. So in other words: I don't believe you would consider such a person to be overwhelming, but instead you would consider him as flat-out annoying and paranoid.

gruturo 10y ago
I don't think he implied that the _people_ with this knowledge must be overwhelming. I think he means these people's intuition, and knowledge, about radio/signal processing, must be overwhelming (to _them_ first and foremost) during their day to day life. As in, everywhere you go, you realize how much information a knowledgeable evil actor could extract by simply analyzing what's being irradiated.
- Jordrok 10y ago
  I'm imagining something like the brother in Better Call Saul, where it's painful for him to be in the presence of cell phones or fluorescent lights, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivi...
- nickysielicki 10y ago
  Not just the practical considerations of someone extracting the information, but just that studying this and reasoning about it to the extent that you can extract information out implies such a deep understanding of another part of the electromagnetic spectrum. I would liken it to having the ability to imagine another color. They probably don't have an exact idea of the information flowing around them, but they know it is there and they have an ability to reason about it better than others. I can't imagine that's something that is easy to simply leave at the office.