Declassified Tempest Material Comes Online

D-Fly writes "John Young, who runs the Cryptome repository of cypherpunk documents, has obtained a small batch of declassified documents from the NSA on TEMPEST monitoring-getting computer data through electromagnetic emissions. Young got the stuff declassified through the Freedom of Information Act, and has appealed their denial of the rest of his request. A lot of what he has received so far is appendixes and tables of contents, and addresses testing equipment to prevent TEMPEST emissions. For a comprehensive archive of what is know about Tempest monitoring, check out a clearing house of information.. "

Comments

Another point lost in the shuffle...

[Ryandav]

I would like to point out something I thought was more relevant about the link and story, which I'd seen a this morning.

These documents were acquired by people submitting paperwork for the Freedom Of Information Act and acting on their beliefs. We can all sit around and argue about Echelon, or worry about some other terrible conspiracy, but I think that until people really start to hold their government responsible for it's actions, things will continue as before and worse.

Ask 'em for the documents. Make em worry about what to classify. Cause the office that checks for classification issues to overload; after all, classification decisions are pretty high level, and the model doesn't scale well. As the office becomes more clogged with requests for information, either they will mess up and release material they wouldn't have otherwise, or they will get so clogged they can't process all of the information coming in and going out.

Take responsiblity for the destiny afforded you by your government. Alone you are nothing, but in groups you are its greatest enemy.

Microsoft Using Tempest to Check Serial Numbers

[the eric conspiracy]

There was an interesting sidebar to an article in Scientific American about a year ago describing a technique to hide data on a screen so that the user could not detect it's presence, yet the data could be picked up by Van Eck freaking.

Microsoft was funding a project to use this to put product serial numbers on the screen so they could drive a truck through an office park and pick out software pirates. Honest.

This is not that big a deal

[DragonHawk]

EMSEC (Emissions Security, the name for the security practices the TEMPEST program evolved into) is common practice in the world of Information Assurance today. It mainly consists of buying shielded everythings from certified vendors. IBM is one of them. With simple protections, EMSEC is no problem. Such practices are universal in the military world (even if compliance is not). In the civilian world, as usual, it almost always is not worth the effort.

"Getting all my secrets department"? Uh-huh. More paranoid ravings from the YRO folks. The more YRO I read, the less it sounds like a legitimate concern and the more it sounds like the delusions of people who have been watching too many "X-Files" episodes. Here's a hint: TV isn't real.

Made by humans

[debrain]

Suprisingly enough to me, it would appear as though this was made by humans. For example, the following definition:

3.1.4 (U) Bit Rate. -- A general term used to express the dara transfer rate of binary digital signals.

clearly indicates the spelling error "dara" instead of "data". Well, this proves that, as of 1992, the entire government has not been usurped by artificial or alien intelligence.

However, since 1992, I can make no assurances. Or that dara represents some coset of the coin data, with more specific meaning (or more general meaning), of some purpose I cannot yet surmise.

Re:Microsoft Using Tempest (here's the article)

[sg3000]

Here's the article you were talking about:

From www.sciam.com/1998/1298issue/1298techbus4.html

Most computer users would be startled to realize that somebody parked outside their home with the right kind of (very expensive) receiving equipment can read the data that appear on their computer screens. The receiver uses the monitor's radio emanations to reconstruct the screen's contents.

And like a predictable villian from a tired James Bond movie:

The story began, Anderson says, when Microsoft made its $20-million investment in Cambridge's computer science lab and said the company was particularly interested in ways to control software piracy.

Of course Microsoft wouldn't abuse this technology, right? They may sneak the GUID serial number into user's documents, track users' PCs who install Windows 98, pay your college professors to push their products, organize an astroturf campaign to fake support for their DOJ lawsuit, disguise advertisements as news stories, and fake evidence during their DOJ trial, but they're honest, dammit!

Sorry if there are any typos in this, but it's hard to type when you have your head buried in the sand.

GUID: //www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,33413,00.html

Win98 profiling: //www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990312S0008

Professor Spokesman: /chronicle.com/data/articles.dir/art-44.dir/issue- 33.dir/33a03001.htm

Astroturf: http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/BUSINESS/UPDATES/ lat_microsoft0410.htm

Ads as news: //www.thestandard.net/articles/display/0,1449,6087 ,00.html?home.bf

Video: //www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/17938.htm l