Never mind potential e-mail break-ins…Big Brother can already listen in on you online, according to newly declassified documents from the National Security Agency. The concept has been code named TEMPEST, describing technologies used to intercept and decipher electromagnetic signals which all computers give off, according to Wired.
The magazine's Web site says TEMPEST has been familiar since the 1960s to the American spy community, with some people even patenting ways to shield their computers. But non- or de-classified details have been scarce until now.
But Wired cites John Young, a former architect who now works as an archivist and has begun publishing the results of TEMPEST documents he obtained from the NSA by way of the Freedom of Information Act. "People don't know it's out there as a snooping threat," he tells Wired. "Defense contractors have it but it's under non-disclosure. It's pretty carefully guarded."
One of the few non-classified studies, performed by British researchers Ross Anderson and Markus Kuhn, the magazine says, shows it is possible to capture images from a remote computer monitor, and government-specification shielded systems which can block that are more expensive and in limited availability outside the government.
The most interesting thing Young discovered among the documents he obtained, Wired says, is the ability to perform standoff surveillance without tapping. "That's the most lethal thing out there," he says.
The NSA gave him only two of the 24 documents he wanted, citing national security, the magazine says. One is called "Compromising Emanations Laboratory Test Requirements, Electromagnetics," by the NSA's Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Group, describing "test procedures for measuring the radiation emitted from a computer," Wired says. The second NSA document describes the agency's "Technical Security Program," which is responsible for assessing electronic security and providing "technical security facility countermeasures," the magazine adds.
Privacy experts tell Wired that, although spy agencies may use TEMPEST technology all too frequently, the law probably would limit how such evidence could be used in a criminal prosecution.
