CDR: Re: Burglar Politics, Tempesting PC's that watch TV and DVD regions

[jim bell]

----- Original Message -----
X-Loop: openpgp.net
From: Steve Furlong <sfurlong at acmenet.net>
Subject: Re: Burglar Politics, Tempesting PC's that watch TV and DVD regions


> Lucky Green wrote:
> > Sunder wrote, quoting
> > > It's my understanding that TV detector vans work by picking up
> > > the radiation emitted by cathode ray tube TVs - which should mean
> > > that, if you're rich enough to run an LCD monitor they'll never
> > > know you're a secret Paxman admirer.
> >
> > A popular, but false, myth. The video cards radiate more than the CRT's.
> > Laptops tend to be the worst offenders.
>
> Cables are a problem, too. Video signals from a fully-shielded computer
> connected to a fully-shielded monitor by a regular, unshielded cable can
> be read. Effective snooping distance goes down, though I don't remember
> by what factor.

Which is a good reason to use a shielded cable, of the lowest practical
length..  (check the resistance from one cable-end-housing  to the other.
If it's open it's NOT properly shielded.  If it's shorted it MAY be properly
shielded.)   Further, whether or not the cable is shielded, putting one of
those snap-on ferrite core filters at each end of the video cable, plus one
each foot or so, does an excellent job preventing RF from propagating along
the cable shield and radiating.

Jim Bell, N7IJS.