6 ms·

Nice. I wonder if something like this has been ever used to exfiltrate data from some air gapped computer. Some years ago I tried the FM transmitter via GPIO h

Nice. I wonder if something like this has been ever used to exfiltrate data from some air gapped computer. Some years ago I tried the FM transmitter via GPIO hack for the raspberry pi. The range was surprisingly high, around 100m. First google result. https://linuxhint.com/turn-raspberry-pi-fm-transmitter/ https://linuxhint.com/turn-raspberry-pi-fm-transmitter/

dmajor2 4y ago
It very much has been exploited since the beginning of computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)
- carapace 4y ago
  Yeah. If you've ever wondered why, when you type in a password, it shows up as asterisks or dots, now you know. TEMPEST is why.
  - toast0 4y ago
    Does showing asterisks or dots help mask the signals from the keyboard vs not showing anything (ala most unixy auth)? I'm pretty sure passwords are not shown to reduce shoulder surfing, especially from across the room.
    - jonathankoren 4y ago
      The dots are just there for shoulder surfing and to give a visual feedback to the user. If you want to steal a password, all the cool kids use a microphone or your phone's accelerometers. https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.09359 https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.09359 https://www.cise.ufl.edu/~traynor/papers/marq-ccs11.pdf https://www.cise.ufl.edu/~traynor/papers/marq-ccs11.pdf https://phys.org/news/2017-04-criminals-pin-tracking-motion.html https://phys.org/news/2017-04-criminals-pin-tracking-motion....
      - carapace 4y ago
        Those are much more recent attacks. We're talking about a time when CRT screens were the norm, they are noisy enough to read from quite a distance. > A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode-ray_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode-ray_tube That causes a bit more signal than a keyboard, mic, or MEMS accelerometer, eh? :)
idiotsecant 4y ago
Definitely. All you have to do is look at American military intelligence's insistence on using SCIFs for viewing and working with sensitive electronic (and physical, but for more boring reasons) documentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_information_facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_inform... They know it's important to limit what kind of emissions make it from your equipment to the outside world because they've successfully used exactly these techniques in the past to extract information from others.

dmajor2 4y ago

It very much has been exploited since the beginning of computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)

carapace 4y ago
Yeah. If you've ever wondered why, when you type in a password, it shows up as asterisks or dots, now you know. TEMPEST is why.
- toast0 4y ago
  Does showing asterisks or dots help mask the signals from the keyboard vs not showing anything (ala most unixy auth)? I'm pretty sure passwords are not shown to reduce shoulder surfing, especially from across the room.
  - jonathankoren 4y ago
    The dots are just there for shoulder surfing and to give a visual feedback to the user. If you want to steal a password, all the cool kids use a microphone or your phone's accelerometers. https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.09359 https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.09359 https://www.cise.ufl.edu/~traynor/papers/marq-ccs11.pdf https://www.cise.ufl.edu/~traynor/papers/marq-ccs11.pdf https://phys.org/news/2017-04-criminals-pin-tracking-motion.html https://phys.org/news/2017-04-criminals-pin-tracking-motion....
    - carapace 4y ago
      Those are much more recent attacks. We're talking about a time when CRT screens were the norm, they are noisy enough to read from quite a distance. > A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode-ray_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode-ray_tube That causes a bit more signal than a keyboard, mic, or MEMS accelerometer, eh? :)

idiotsecant 4y ago

Definitely. All you have to do is look at American military intelligence's insistence on using SCIFs for viewing and working with sensitive electronic (and physical, but for more boring reasons) documentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_information_facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_inform... They know it's important to limit what kind of emissions make it from your equipment to the outside world because they've successfully used exactly these techniques in the past to extract information from others.