Researchers Sniff Keystrokes From Thin Air, Wires

Researchers Sniff Keystrokes From Thin Air, Wires

it.slashdot.org

That PC keyboard you're using may be giving away your passwords. Researchers say they've discovered new ways to read what you're typing by aiming special wireless or laser equipment at the keyboard or by simply plugging into a nearby electrical socket.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.itworld.com
www.techchuck.com

This news propably came a bit late, but I think implications of this are quite serious. You have absolutely no way to protect yourself from this by means that you are able to create yourself, unless you have a solid backgroun in electronics. Goverments do have a way to protect against this kind of intrusions, but that equipment is *expensive*. Basically then, they have a perfect way to snoop whatever they want without you ever knowing about it. They could just install a device into your electrical *grid* and listen whatever is done with your keyboard.

Some thousands of these devices will create an efficient network that will grap passwords and logins of entire parts of a city, easily. It is only a matter of will and when, not if and how. What do you guys think about this? I provided two alternative links for more thorough understanding of subject, but that slashdot link which includes conversation on a forum is the best source of understanding I found on the subject.

You have no way to protect yourself, even encryption won't help. This simply bypasses it.


it.slashdot.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

Sniff this:

I think the US government, MY governement is comprised of foreign spies, secret society insurgents, manipulating religion, school, and law in a game for future dominance and genocide. They are insane, they spy because they have something to hide. Because they are FALSE and deserve to be deposed by rational forces of citizens BORN in AMERICA..HAIL LIBERTARIANISM, THE CONSTITUTION AND DECLARATION.

Modern communists in the FBI, CIA and MILITARY..GET OUT. Go back to russia, china, canada, mexico, go back and make your country as great as ours. Give yourselves your own version of steven colbert..go now and be fishers of reality.

I would also like to give a big THANK YOU for intelligence community for not cencoring this. I have a decent oscilloscope, and apparently this actually works as my oscilloscope does react with right kind of setup. Thank you very much, I can now snoop all my family if I ever want to. (and if I am not lazy too much, to write software needed, but detecting volagelevels from recorded oscilloscopereading is trivial enough to be done by a teenager.)

Originally posted by mastermind77
Sniff this:

I think the US government, MY governement is comprised of foreign spies, secret society insurgents, manipulating religion, school, and law in a game for future dominance and genocide. They are insane, they spy because they have something to hide. Because they are FALSE and deserve to be deposed by rational forces of citizens BORN in AMERICA..HAIL LIBERTARIANISM, THE CONSTITUTION AND DECLARATION.

Modern communists in the FBI, CIA and MILITARY..GET OUT. Go back to russia, china, canada, mexico, go back and make your country as great as ours. Give yourselves your own version of steven colbert..go now and be fishers of reality.

No offence, but I see your post as being symptomatic of the need to blame America's failings on outsiders - it can't be us! It can't be our fault! This is America! It must be the fault of the non-Americans and the un-Americans! - as opposed to being suggestive of any real conspiracy per se.

It came into my mind whether you actually know the difference between socialism, democratic socialism and communism? Most people don't.

The government is like a jealous boyfriend, it eats them up inside that they can't know what we're doing 24/7. Of course there's always money to be made in the intelligence field, this is the information age after all.

However, I don't really think they'll use this to snoop on us commoners, it's not like the government cares to read your blog post on how that lady at Starbucks gave you a venti chai latte when you wanted a grande mocha.

Honestly, this sounds to me like a continuation of the old ECHELON

From Wiki:

In its report, the European Parliament states that the term ECHELON is used in a number of contexts, but that the evidence presented indicates that it was the name for a signals intelligence collection system. The report concludes that, on the basis of information presented, ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks (which carries most Internet traffic) and microwave links.

Let's fan the flames of paranoia here a bit folks.

the researchers were able to read keystrokes with 95 percent accuracy over a distance of up to 20 meters (22 yards), in ideal conditions.

20 metres ey?

Well I'm just sh*tting bricks.
Next time I see someone right outside my bedroom window with an oscilloscope, I might give a second thought to this crazy notion of the government snooping on our personal data by monitoring our key strokes.

I really would like to see someone try and pick up my keystrokes from the 22nd floor. Really go ahead.

The researchers found a way to sniff USB keyboards, but older PS/2 keyboards, which have ground wires that connect right into the electric grid, were the best.

Their work only applies to older, PS/2 keyboards, but the data they get is "pretty good," they say. On these 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.

And how many people still use those? Lol.

Look. The government has far easier ways, if they're truly determined, to find out your personal data.

Google to your heart's content: ECHELON, Carnivore, Magic Lantern, Room 641A, the CALEA Act...

And the hundreds of government-sanctioned, data-mining and wiretapping programmes the CIA/NSA/FBI have going on.

They don't need to send special agents to huddle outside your bedroom window and monitor your keystrokes.

Get a grip folks.

[edit on 21/3/09 by The Godfather of Conspira]

I think this has been around for awhile actually.

I've heard rumours that similar could be done with electric typewriter keystrokes as far back as the '60's - 70's.

According to this article the CSE of Canada has no problem picking up whatever they want...

The CSE of Canada

Here, mathematicians and linguists, political scientists and engineers collect and analyse foreign signals intelligence - known as SIGINT - for the CSE's "clients": the Prime Minister, the department of foreign affairs and international trade and other government departments. Set up in 1941 to decode enemy telegraphy and radar, the service's technology has now evolved to cover cellular telephones, faxes and even emissions from computer screens or electric typewriters. "There isn't a thing that's radiating that they can't get," says Mike Frost, a former undercover agent with the service.

I seem to recall a similar article from a year or so back in which a couple of students from MIT ( I think) had developed a program that could determine which keys were being pressed by simply "listening" to the sounds made. If memory serves they talked about being able to merely bounce a laser off the window in order to capture sounds and what not taking place within the room/office, etc... with 90+% accuracy.




[edit on 21-3-2009 by 12m8keall2c]