Tempest- Was Re: Just a note of interest

Doug Jones (random@qnet.com)
Fri, 29 Oct 1999 08:46:50 -0700

Larry Klaes wrote:
> >
> >Careful what you type ...
> >
> >http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/internetcrime/1999/10/27/tempest1027_01.h
> >tml?s=emil

Several points here, starting with netiquette-

  1. A bunch of headers on a forwarded message are not interesting.
  2. Cryptic comments are not informative.
  3. Tempest is really not news- I worked on making the Otrona Attache portable computer Tempest compatible back in *1980*. The real focus on most Tempest products is to make military and spook computers immune to spying, not to use the technique in an active sense.

Granted, access to Tempest info has dried up over time- see http://www.tempest-inc.com/services.htm for a really bad example of clumsy secrecy (and a really st00pid website). It does concern me that consultants do training with DOD approval only.

The problem with Tempest isn't so much government snooping, but industrial espionage- I've never seen any corporate attention to Tempest compliance, and with almost every executive in the world using an unshielded computer, the elint possibilites are immense... 

--
Doug Jones
Rocket Plumber, XCOR Aerospace
http://www.xcor-aerospace.com