Talk:Van Eck phreaking

cleanup

Can someone please add the date when van Eck published his paper? Also the description of the process, particularly the section about CRTs, reads very spottily. Could it perhaps be made a bit more straightforward? I'd love to make these changes myself, but I lack the technical familiarity to do so confidently. --user: Trinite

LCDs

"Van Eck phreaking is the process of eavesdropping on the contents of a CRT or LCD display by detecting its electromagnetic emissions."

The way the article describes the process is that some CRT components not present in an LCD (the electron beam and associated components) are required to eavesdrop. The external sources listed at the bottom don't describe LCD or TFT monitors either. Did someone just assume it would work for these and add them to that line, or is this actually possible? And are there sources to confirm or negate this?

-- MiG 09:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

TEMPEST treats the subject in a more comprehensive fashion, and explains that flat panel monitors are susceptible as well, by the same procedure — picking up stray electromagnetic emissions) — but from different sources of radiation. The actual display hardware seems unaffected, and consequently flat panel monitors should be easier to secure. JRM · Talk 12:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, I've added a few links to the main article ('see also' section)!

-- MiG 12:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks like TEMPEST says "With modern flat-panel displays, the high-speed digital serial interface (DVI) cables from the graphics controller are a main source of compromising emanations." It doesn't say what else can anything beyond DVI cables. I think this is missleading. LCD monitors are resistant to Van Eck phreaking and should be listed as so. Anyone disagree? If so please educate me.

-- Electiontechnology 18:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I take back some of what I said, but this article grossly underestimates the complexity of this concept. The results of this method are extremely different between LCD and CRT monitors. Overall, this article is woefully inaccurate.

-- Electiontechnology 18:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

telephones

"Phreaking is the process of tapping into phone lines, used here because of its connection to eavesdropping."

This is false. Phreaking encompasses much more than just "tapping into phone lines." I'm sure the entire phreaking culture would be pretty upset at their activity being summed up as just eavesdropping. I have changed this line to "Phreaking is the process of exploiting telephone networks..."

Dutch voting machines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B05wPomCjEY

This is linked at the bottom of the page saying it was Van Eck phreaking, but watching the video it doesn't seem like that's the case, or at least it's not obvious that it is. Can anyone confirm that the video is of Van Eck phreaking, or am I missing something? Cdills 22:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I can confirm that this is not Van Eck phreaking; the video just shows the detection of the changed refresh frequency of a LCD display (the frequency dropped for special characters like the è in Christen Democratisch Appèl), not reconstruction of the display. I've taken out the link. Oliphaunt 22:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The confusion here is that two different types of vulnerable voting machines have been used in the Netherlands. The above youtube video shows an eavesdropping demonstration by wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl against the Nedap ES3B machine (were it was possible to count the number of non-ASCII characters in the display), whereas the problem with compromising VGA video emanations related to the Sdu NewVote machines. I believe the latter problem was discovered by a government laboratory (AIVD) when they examined both types of machines after the youtube demonstration for the Nedap one was published. I don't think there is any youtube demonstration of an attack on the Sdu NewVote machine. Markus Kuhn (talk) 10:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hardware info

I had done this hardware for my University project. It is a very simple hardware. You only need to know the basics of electronics, electromagnetics and antenna concepts.

But the limitation is about the range and usage.

And the output is highly dependent on the target hardware(monitor, cpu) manufacturer.

Some monitors send it out to more than 100m range. Some monitors, less than 10m.

We tried it on LCD. But was not successful.

And dont believe what is said in fiction novels and movies. Unless you dont know the display characteristics of target monitor, it will be very difficult to do a phreaking suddenly from the dark.

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/1436/newindian2sp.jpg http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/1381/afinal8uk.jpg http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/7083/b28ck.jpg

Can disclose more info about this hardware ? I am willing to do.. But dont know the rules, since this is a hacking related one.

--Koroth 07:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

For wikipedia the rule here would probably be Original research. If you know of somewhere else it is published you could put it in, but if it is all your own work, leave it out. But also wikipedia is not a 'how to' manual. So you can describe how things work, what is in the equipment, techniques used etc, but no a step by step instruction on how to do it. Also you should not be doing anything illegal, such as encouraging hacking, or releasing trade secret or classified information. GB 23:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I hereby encourage hacking, you dickdouche. NOT ILLEGAL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.176.187 (talk) 07:18, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

About 1984 (I was in college at the time, taking CS classes), my then aging CS Professor Darrell Chris, of Rose-Hulman, said that during the war (I thought WWII, but my anachronism detector goes off), he had been working on a file on a CRT terminal, and a ship had gone by, (probably when he was at Harvard or MIT) and the guys from the ship had sent him a copy of the file he had been working on. I am therefore of the opinion that, like adaptive optical astronomy, van Eck phreaking has been practiced by US Intelligence types long before van Eck finally published and dubbed it. --Eric Christenson 71.53.223.73 (talk) 04:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

This discussed hacking technique doesn't allow one to make a copy of a file in any way, what you wrote seem irrelevant. And if you ask my personal opinion on the matter I think US Intelligence wasn't yet skillful enough to use such techniques at the moment of article release, they are just a little bit smarter than police in Sherlock Holmes novels from my experience. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.148.177.179 (talk) 19:31, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

"Limitated Use"

However, the practical applications are likely to be limited, unless substantial breakthroughs occur in operability.

Sorry to put this so bluntly, but what the FUCK does "operability" mean in this context? Is specialized training necessary? Is it time-intensive? Does the picture quality suck? Just what, pray tell, is the nature of this alleged limitation? --Lode Runner 02:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Youtube video in another language

Hardware is a basic van eck phreaking setup. I am not sure about the authenticity. http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=vvOAIeVGRfw

Koroth (talk) 13:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Sound

Back in the 80s I used to be able to tell what screen was displayed on some computer programs because the whine of the CRT would change noticeably depending on how many of the pixels were lit and how many were dark. I couldn't tell what was written on it, but I could tell e.g. a login screen and a spreadsheet app apart because they sounded different, and if the spreadsheet popped up a dialog the hum would change pitch and timbre. I could sometimes even tell if a co-worker's DOS or CP/M machine had crashed in some cases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.135.177 (talk) 03:15, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

YouTube video down / account closed

The link for the YouTube video is down, but there seems to be several still online-- if it's the same video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm_j9al13Wg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wjdenny (talk • contribs) 14:30, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

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