alt Hacker NewsWait for people to learn about that you can listen in virtually anywhere through fiber-optic cables, as sound waves are enough to redirect the light in the cable to a measurable degree by "bending" the cable itself. Special devices to filter these variances out and transform them back to audio signals are a thing. It's only per line though, as any repeating device will just output a new cleaned up signal again.
Oh well, there have always been ways to snoop on someone like that. Back in the day it was CRTs emitting measurable waves through the neighborhood, with some papers even going as far as restoring the displayed image through a wall. Nowadays it's fiber and WiFi, and those seem to be much easier to work with even. Plus everyone carries a device that is tracked by their mobile provider's cell network. shrug
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Funnily enough, first time I've seen it mentioned was in Ghost in the Shell manga from 1990s, where Major's side business illegally offers military grade optronic touch/etc senses in artificial skin for cyborgs, using measurements of bending fiber optic loops
> Back in the day it was CRTs emitting measurable waves through the neighborhood, with some papers even going as far as restoring the displayed image through a wall.
It's been some time since I've thought about Van Eck phreaking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking
I don’t get your point. Yes, there’s a lot of eavesdropping techniques available to actors with nation state capabilities (or with a lot of time, money, and expertise). This is another one of them. It’s good to be aware of things like this because it helps you better understand threat modeling for applications that require serious hardening.
There may also be unusual applications of this, like the traffic counting mentioned by another commenter.
(For anyone who needs hardening against things like this, you need a SCIF.)
Just toss a doppler laser interferometer on a window, mirror, etc. At least with fiber-optics you need physical access. Single mode (I think that's most of FTTH) is pretty insensitive to vibration and hard to localize so you'd really have to install something.
So when AI takes over the world, it will have a convenient tap into every living space of every hoomin. Lovely.
Fiber optic interrogators are (for now) expensive and bulky, so I don't think commercial modems are capable of that (yet).
trackers are also now becoming near microscopic
they track BUTTERFLIES from Canada to Mexico by attaching tiny trackers with eyelash glue
* https://celltracktech.com/products/ctt-blumorpho
smaller than a tic-tac candy (about two match-heads)
* https://cellular-tracking-technologies.github.io/ctt_documen...
You can also listen for audio simply by measuring any vibrating surface with a laser. Which goes all the way back to the late 40s, used by the USSR. |
Fun fact, it was invented by Leon Theremin. The inventor of the Theremin.