Comments on: Eavesdrop on keyboards wirelessly

By: aboriaAerorie

aboriaAerorie — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:22:00 +0000

Hello, I just became part of this forum and I love the contribution of this community. I would like to make a contribution of my own by posting a site I created informing users about computer repair. Online Computer Services Also, this is worth taking a look at - Online Computer Services There is lots of information regarding computer repair techniques and what one should do when prompted with certain instances.

By: Anton

Anton — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:03:33 +0000

Cool!

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:16:04 +0000

Did anyone think about the possibility that the laptop is on and running the host side of a program like remote desktop allowing the actual keystrokes to be transmitted in real time to the other “test” computer and processed via a simple script? If that was the case…he could have walked out of one building…across the parking lot…into another building and into a Faraday sealed monitoring room and everything shown in the video would still look the same. I am just saying.

By: Nobody

Nobody — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:11:02 +0000

I just put my cell phone in the microwave and called it. It rang. pwnd.

By: Strabo

Strabo — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:27:18 +0000

Hi all,
I’m about to start writing a research paper on Tempest attacks and peoples attitudes towards them as potential attacks.
It would help me greatly if you could complete a questionnaire for me, it very brief and will be kept completely anonymous.
If you are willing to help please email me at:
i9099809 at bournemouth.ac.uk and i’ll send you the questionnaire (.doc fomat)

Thanks

By: diomStoossy

diomStoossy — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:05:11 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JC9wPGvYM8

some of them are not bad but… internet is crazy

By: FsdkdDwsAs

FsdkdDwsAs — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:07:11 +0000

Hello. And Bye.

By: CestCeree

CestCeree — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 08:10:27 +0000

Test message
Sorry me noob…

By: vaLntine

vaLntine — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:04:40 +0000

After looking closer to the video I manage to find the program they used to decode the keystrokes:

http://optics.eee.nottingham.ac.uk/tek/source/tek/utils/tgetwf/

Actually it seems that they are using their own modified version but the printf banners are identical :)

if (count > 1) printf(“A total of %d traces were acquired.\n”,count);

printf(“%ld points acquired from source ‘%s’\n”,(long)(buf_size / 2), channel);

You can bet on that :)

By: Barabajagal

Barabajagal — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:20:56 +0000

Once a key is pressed, the circuit traces would be an antenna, however non-resonant, for the clock (20 to 30KHZ). In that case, position might be derived from signal phase or amplitude variations at the receiving antenna.

I have a device design for other purposes that could be adapted and far more effective for this purpose. That design wouldn’t depend on phase or amplitude changes (if that is what’s happening here). It would also work regardless of clock frequency and would not easily be shut out. I’m going to need to wake that one back up! :)

By: Artemisgoldfish

Artemisgoldfish — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:27:41 +0000

Maybe I should go down to Keytronics and ask if this is possible, hahah.

(I lives near Spokane, where Keytronics, a huge supplier in the Keyboard IC market, is based.)

By: carlton

carlton — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:47:50 +0000

@drew: it’s true, you often get an “even hum” on power supplies, typically 60 (or 50) hz from line noise. however, there is also tons of higher frequency noise, which you can’t hear, at the switching frequency and harmonics and also at 100+ MHz from switching edges themselves, as well as other sources, which are not trivial to filter out.

By: bobby

bobby — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:12:33 +0000

I highly doubt this is real. The only possible way I could imagine reading the EMI from the keyboard cable would be to have absolutely everything else with an electrical signal in it turned off. I would think that a computer power supply with a capacitor filtered rectifier would add a hell of a lot of noise. Not only does it have 60Hz noise but then there are all the current harmonics it creates with the power factor distortion.

Still I dont write it off. Maybe if you had the receiver perfectly filtered with a non shielded cable with wire and antenna perfectly parallel and minimal electrical noise…

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:26:51 +0000

First: Erm, a laptop is a pretty expensive power supply. Surely they could find a way to power a PS/2 keyboard that didn’t compromise their credibility? Like a battery, for instance?

Second: the loop could be written to print “[*] keystroke $n acquired” if the timeout was interrupted, and “A total of $n traces were acquired.” when the timeout is reached. The timeout would only have to kick in when the first trace was acquired. So there’s no “evidence” of it being faked in the display of the decoder.

It’s certainly possible, and doing this across a park or in a room full of keyboards would be a challenge, but not something insurmountable. It would take a lot of refinement to get it to that kind of quality, but I can see why certain groups might want to pursue this; both developing this technology, and designing technology to defend against it.

By: Louis II

Louis II — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:44:59 +0000

This simply shows the proof of concept that Linus talks about from one of his early gigs as a network admin (orrr Bastard operator from hell type jorb): nothing is ever secure, for certain, beyond a doubt, ever, so there is no point in having passwords on an in-house network; everything that an “attacker” is interested in will be extracted by that individual if they really want it badly enough… that and the fact that anything recorded can be mass produced pretty easily… and a number of other things. You are using technology? Be prepared to get used back! :-)