Sealing wax & eKeyboard

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, July 16, 2003, at 10:15  AM, Sunder wrote:

>
> And TEMPEST monitoring equipment (or again, a hidden pinhole camera 
> behind
> you, or a transmitter hidden in your monitor) won't see what's on your
> screen because????

 From a purely optical perspective, pinhole cameras have terrible 
spatial resolution. I doubt a pinhole camera behind a user, probably on 
a wall 10 feet behind the user, could resolve 12-point type. Resolving 
a large "virtual keyboard" on a screen would be a lot easier, of course.

We've talked many times about using laptops, heads-up displays (like 
the Sony glasses), and even putting mesh bags over a user and his 
laptop. Actual Faraday cage rooms are not really needed.

All security is economics, so I would think a lot of bang for the buck 
happens with solving the most pressing problems people have with 
security: leaving their machines unattended, not using any crypto at 
all, writing passphrases down on Post-It notes, not checking for audio 
bugs, etc.


--Tim May


"We are at war with Oceania. We have always been at war with Oceania."
"We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia."
"We are at war with Iraq. We have always been at war with Iraq.
"We are at war with France. We have always been at war with France."