Public Shielded Room Work

Mirimir mirimir at riseup.net
Sun Oct 14 15:43:36 PDT 2018


On 10/14/2018 12:45 PM, Karl wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> My name is Karl Semich and I have a desire to make available to
> everyone highly secure shielded rooms / SCIFs, for privacy and
> security in this modern age.
> 
> I was wondering if anybody else was pursuing this, or if anybody knew
> of anybody pursuing this, that I might stay in contact with them or
> support them.

I worked on this for a while. I was thinking about compartmentalizing
services in multiple Raspberry Pi, connected via opto-isolators. Like
Markus Ottela's Tinfoil Chat,[0] but expanded to work more like Qubes.
And indeed, the Qubes team have announced work on Qubes Air:[1]

| This approach even allows us to host each qube (or groups of them)
| on a physically distinct computer, such as a Raspberry PI or USB
| Armory. Despite the fact that these are physically separate devices,
| the Admin API calls, qrexec services, and even GUI virtualization
| should all work seamlessly across these qubes!

But, you know, I wondered about EMF cross-talk between qubes. So I
decided to learn how to measure that :)

> Or even if anybody had some experience with this concept, and might
> mentor me, it would be incredible.

Maybe a little ;)

> I don't have any formal training and have developed some cognitive
> issues, resulting in slow progress, but this is all I am spending my
> free time on.  I do not work a job, being supported for now by a
> trust.

Yeah, me neither. But no trust :(

> I'm currently residing in Green Bank, WV, where emissions are
> regulated for a radio observatory.  I am trying to develop some
> relatively simple software using the rtl-sdr to measure the power of a
> noise source independent of background traffic, so as to quickly and
> repeatedly measure shielding effectiveness.

I tried that approach. And it was a nightmare. The setup -- SDR stick,
upconverter and laptop -- generated far too much EMF noise. I played
with testing stuff in a Faraday cage. But I didn't manage a signal feed
to the SDR etc that didn't introduce unacceptable noise.

I believe that you'd need professional equipment, which is properly
shielded, and doesn't bleed noise into the testing environment.

> I then plan to try to measure a variety of setups ranging from
> homemade aluminum foil & iron paint to soldered copper and welded or
> bolted stainless steel, to identify ways for everyday people to
> cheaply create shielded environments that are actually effective.  I
> would like to find a way people can use off-the-shelf supplies to make
> environments that are isolated from DC to light, if desired.

That is also harder that it might seem. For high frequencies, with very
small wavelengths, even tiny cracks are enough to leak horribly. You
need joints with elastic seals, to mitigate against misalignment and
wear. Such as beryllium copper finger strips, elastic beryllium copper
tubular braid, etc.

> If anybody else is working on something like this, I would love to
> support you in any way available.  I can donate money, I can get
> drinks and run errands, I can read books and pursue a degree if
> needed, I can mode hardware around and even develop and debug
> software.

:)

> Please let me know,
> Karl
> 

0) https://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/oottela/tfc.pdf
1) https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2018/01/22/qubes-air/


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