At 6:56 PM 7/23/96, Bill Frantz wrote:
At 12:30 AM 7/23/96 -0500, Douglas R. Floyd wrote:
Not really sure how. I have had heard of ways to tap a fibre optic link noninvasively, but its not related to Van Eck or anything like that.
You could break the fiber and add a repeater (if you know enough about the light protocol). Plastic fiber can be cut with a pocket knife, glass requires a machine which will make a square cut and polish the end. Those machines are not yet cheap.
Fibers can be tapped noninvasively, and without cutting them, by placing detectors in direct proximity to the fiber. That is, touching the glass or plastic. For fibers relying on total internal reflection at the fiber boundary, the waves actually partly exist beyond the boundary (with an imaginary component). Another fiber or a detector placed near this boundary can make this imaginary component become "real," and hence detect the wave. This is "tunneling," of course. (A simple demonstration is done with a glass prism reflector, a reflector relying on total internal reflection. If a symmetrical prism is placed up against the first prism, the "total reflector" ceases to be.) --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."