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Smartphones Can Steal 3D Printing Plans By Listening To The Printer (fedscoop.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the always-listening dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from FedScoop: Smartphones equipped with special programming can become a sophisticated spy sensor capable of stealing designs from a 3D printer -- just by measuring the noise and electromagnetic radiation the printer emits. Researchers from the University of Buffalo recently discovered how a smartphone on a bench about 8 inches away from a 3D printer could allow someone to reconstruct a simple object being printed with 94 percent accuracy. Complex objects can be copied with 90 percent accuracy. The attack basically reverse-engineers the printing blueprint by reconstructing the movement of the nozzle from the electromagnetic and acoustic energy it generates while working. Most information came from electromagnetic waves, which accounted for about 80 percent of the useful data. The remaining 20 percent came from acoustic waves. Wenyao Xu, assistant professor in the University of Buffalo's Department of Computer Science and Engineering, is the lead author of the study, "My Smartphone Knows What You Print: Exploring Smartphone-Based Side-Channel Attacks Against 3D Printers," which will be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery's 23rd annual Conference on Computer and Communications Security next month in Austria.

8 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. More "research" by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes we get it: you can obtain information by listening and measuring things. I can write software that can identify a car and how fast it is travelling with 90% accuracy just using the microphone on a smartphone. Is this what passes for research today in CS? If so, we are doomed.

    1. Re:More "research" by friesofdoom · · Score: 2

      Mod this guy up plz!

      Next up: Researcher discovers he can navigate in the dark using touch!

      Just wait till they figure out braille!

    2. Re:More "research" by RabidReindeer · · Score: 2

      This "obviously trivial" research is worth a lot of money to the right people.

      Just because you "know" something can be done doesn't mean that it can be done easily, economically, or effectively. And then there's the stuff that people "know" that's not so at all.

      People in industrial and military espionage can now take heart in the knowledge that all sorts of top-secret plans can be stolen with 90+% accuracy by simply "accidentally" leaving a phone on a workbench. That means that they don't have to chance possibly less unobtrusive ways that they might also "know".

      Conversely, security-minded installations have one more reason to prohibit cellphones in sensitive areas and even not-so-obviously sensitive ones like open production floors.

      Now, what do we "know" about that FitBit you're wearing?

  2. I can't wait for the future! by dohzer · · Score: 2

    Anyone else want to fly on a cheap knockoff plane who's fuselage is 94% correct?

    1. Re:I can't wait for the future! by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

      Actually, some of the parts of that plane you use are, in fact, built on a 3D printer.

      So, to quote someone "you're soaking in it".

      Or, to the point, you're flying in a plane built partially with 3D printed parts.

      Keep up, it's 2016, not 1996.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    2. Re:I can't wait for the future! by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      Actually, some of the parts of that plane you use are, in fact, built on a 3D printer.

      "Some parts" is hardly what was meant by either the OP or me. But I think you knew that.

      Or, to the point, you're flying in a plane built partially with 3D printed parts.

      Having a bezel on the seatback display printed in a 3D printer is a lot different than having a 3D printed fuselage. But I think you knew that. You're not "to the point", you are ignoring the point.

    3. Re:I can't wait for the future! by RabidReindeer · · Score: 2

      What made it a revolution was that now the parts and techniques required are cheap and ubiquitous.

      In 1989 there was a big to-do about 3-D output for computers, but the ultr-cheap miniature haptic sensors, color display units and other amenities that make stuff like the Oculus Rift possible weren't there yet.

      Even television didn't spring up out of nothing.

      Sometimes the revolution doesn't come until the time is right.

  3. WOW! by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2
    Smartphones do things a tape recorder and a computer could a decade ago. I wonder if there's an app for that.

    People were figuring out what was typed on a typewriter at least back as far as the 80s. I guess everything now done on a smartphone is new again. I can't wait for smart contact lenses can steal 3d printing plans by listening to the printer.