Re: NSA coughs up secret TEMPEST specs ... posted on Cryptome

["Michael Sorbera" <msorbera () rbfcu org>]

Solaar,
I commend your efforts to obtain and post information like this on the web.
My one suggestion is that you not play the headline game, but be truthful
about what is really on the document.  Your write-up here lead me to believe
that there is actually some real *meat* about how to protect/keep our equip
emanations quiet.  Once I read the actual referenced document on your site
(http://cryptome.org/nstissi-7000.htm), I found that not to be true.
 The -7000.htm document might seem a little juicy to the untrained eye, but
is nothing more than the document saying what measures would be taken where
and when.  It doesn't say how to do them.  No one will now know how to
actually do something to make their computer emanations less from reading
the article, and that's what you lead us to believe by your narrative below.
Bottom line, when you post stuff on this newsgroup, be factual, keep the
headline garbage for the tabloids, and we all also sign our names to what we
post.

Later,
Michael Sorbera
Ex. TEMPEST inspector
"In the land of the clueless, he who has half a clue is King!"
and, to quote Sid Ismail, "Remember, amateurs built the Ark, professionals
built the Titanic!"



----- Original Message -----
From: <solaar () hushmail com>
To: <firewall-wizards () nfr com>
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 6:46 AM
Subject: [fw-wiz] NSA coughs up secret TEMPEST specs ... posted on Cryptome


> NSA coughs up secret TEMPEST specs
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/15743.html
>
> The first of several documents related to the US government's TEMPEST
programme,
>  obtained by Cryptome.org's John Young under a Freedom of Information Act
> (FOIA) request, have been posted on his Web site. His original request was
> denied, but the persistent Young sought an appeal of that decision, which
> was recently granted in his favour.
>
> No one is quite sure what TEMPEST stands for (some say it's an acronym
for:
> Telecommunications Electronics Material Protected From Emanating Spurious
> Transmissions". Others say it is a nothing more than a code word), but
what
> it means is quite simple: electromagnetic and acoustic signals which can
> be remotely detected and interpreted by a spy.
>
> We live in a veritable ocean of electromagnetic radiation, produced by
every
> gizmo we use at home and at work. They all produce signals; and believe
> it or not, our input to the devices, and their output, create modulations
> which can be 'read'.
>
> The video signals leaking from your monitor change as you type using a
text
> editor or word processor. It is (just barely) possible to capture the
signals
> and correlate these changes with the actual text, enabling a spy to read
> over your shoulder, so to speak.
>
> Practically speaking, reading the signals from a person's monitor is no
> longer feasible, as they are now well shielded due to health paranoia. But
> then, modems are a notoriously loud class of item, from which the 'noise'
> can easily be overheard and reconstructed. So are speaker phones,
intercoms,
>  outdated CRT monitors, much R&D equipment, you name it. They're all loud
> enough to be monitored without the physical implantation of any bugging
> device.
>
> Electrical wiring and telephone lines can transmit such signals by
conduction;
> walls can vibrate subtly, as can pipes, beams, ducts, and the like. The
> only fix is to silence the equipment, or to actively distort its signal
> emanations.
>
> The NSA's concern, obviously, is any government equipment which process
> national security information in plain text. Hence its TEMPEST programme,
>  which explains how to shield equipment and buildings against such
exploitation.
> And now, thanks to Young, we will all soon be able to figure out how to
> make our electronic equipment as quiet as the government's. This could be
> quite useful to academic and corporate researchers, whose activities are
> of sufficient value to make them targets of TEMPEST-style exploitation.
>
> It will also offer great comfort to the many paranoid boneheads whose egos
> dispose them to imagine that their deluded rants are of interest to
national
> security operators. Many a blissful hour may now be spent pulling down
walls
> and ceilings and ripping the guts out of suspect computers, televisions,
>  telephones, stereos, microwave ovens, clocks and radios.
>
> Hey, if it keeps them off the streets, we're all for it.


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