"Every computer emits a frequency that can be picked up by our equipment and that allows us to read it by locking on to it manually," a senior executive of the firm told the Independent.
"It's a bit hit and miss at the moment, but it can be done and the technology is improving all the time."
I assume they were referring to TEMPEST. Basically every piece of electronic equipment has unintentional radiation. It's super-easy to read keyboard input even from a wired keyboard, or to read from a screen (CRT or LCD) based on the pattern, with about $50k (in 1999) of RF equipment -- could do it in the hundreds or thousands now.
Reading from a CPU is harder, but it can be done, especially if you only need to recover one thing (like a key), can force the processor to load the key on demand (like, sending a packet which needs to be decrypted), can record a lot of samples, and know the structure of the software and equipment which is processing it (like if it is a standard phone). Cryptography Research (Paul Kocher, aka one of the smartest people in security who doesn't work at NSA) and his team have done this for years -- live demo of the attack in ~10 minutes at various conferences.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-spy-who-loved-me...
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=860&dat=19950320&id=7V...
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archive/t-647100.html
"Every computer emits a frequency that can be picked up by our equipment and that allows us to read it by locking on to it manually," a senior executive of the firm told the Independent.
"It's a bit hit and miss at the moment, but it can be done and the technology is improving all the time."
What???
I assume they were referring to TEMPEST. Basically every piece of electronic equipment has unintentional radiation. It's super-easy to read keyboard input even from a wired keyboard, or to read from a screen (CRT or LCD) based on the pattern, with about $50k (in 1999) of RF equipment -- could do it in the hundreds or thousands now.
Reading from a CPU is harder, but it can be done, especially if you only need to recover one thing (like a key), can force the processor to load the key on demand (like, sending a packet which needs to be decrypted), can record a lot of samples, and know the structure of the software and equipment which is processing it (like if it is a standard phone). Cryptography Research (Paul Kocher, aka one of the smartest people in security who doesn't work at NSA) and his team have done this for years -- live demo of the attack in ~10 minutes at various conferences.