On Thu, May 13, 2004 at 09:32:40AM -0400, Sunder wrote:
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci96334...
'Whispering keyboards' could be next attack trend By Niall McKay, Contributing Writer 11 May 2004 | SearchSecurity.com
OAKLAND -- Listen to this: Eavesdroppers can decipher what is typed by simply listening to the sound of a keystroke, according to a scientist at this week's IEEE Symposium of Security and Privacy in Oakland, Calif. [...]
Today's keyboard, telephone keypads, ATM machines and even door locks have a rubber membrane underneath the keys.
"This membrane acts like a drum, and each key hits the drum in a different location and produces a unique frequency or sound that the neural networking software can decipher," said Asonov.
I wonder if my Model M keyboards (which have individual electrical/mechanical switches under each key) are vulnerable to this attack. It is pretty noisy, I can imagine that the noise of each key's switch is sufficiently different (due to wear, etc) that it would still work with modifications. -J