G S Osler wrote on 2003-03-04 13:23 UTC:
> The question is how feasible is it for an average electronics engineer
> to install the basics needed.  Slashdot Nov 99:
> 
> "New Scientist has an interesting article about a new toy we will all
> want. It's a card that plugs in one of your PCI slots and allows you to
> scan the EMF spectrum and read your neighbours terminal. In about 5
> years you might be able to get one for just under �1000. (Modern Tempest
> Hardware costs about �30000) " 
> http://slashdot.org/yro/99/11/08/093250.shtml

Slashdot is not very good in quoting, otherwise you would have noticed
that your interlocutor made that quick remark when a New Scientist
reporter rang him up sometimes in November 1999. But we are actually
getting there, with Analog Devices now shipping an 8-bit 1.5 Gsample/s
ADC for under 500 USD and companies such as Echotek starting to produce
first affordable data-acquisition boards where that chip is surrounded
by a couple of high-end FPGAs to do the interpolating and periodic
averaging necessary to lift the compromising emanations out of the
noise. Combine that with a decent analog RF preselector front-end and a
set of broadband antennas, and you too could be in the Tempest business.
Tedious in practice, but not unfeasible.

> For myself the paranoia set in when I began to use my computer for a
> �30,000+ legal claim.

I probabaly wouldn't start to worry much about compromising emanations
of a single device unless >> �1e6 were involved. Burglary risks might be
a far more important concern (as a friend of mine learned painfully
recently, when he finally realized the difference between a realdog and
a robodog after burglars took his Aibo).

Markus

-- 
Markus Kuhn, Computer Lab, Univ of Cambridge, GB
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ | __oo_O..O_oo__

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