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Science Quickly

Computer Snoopers Read Electromagnetic Emissions

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2015

⏱️ 2 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Researchers were able to track the keystrokes of a nearby computer via fluctuations in its electromagnetic radiation output. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

0:22.7

.j.p. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:33.4

This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher Ndallata. Got a minute?

0:39.8

Connecting your computer to the Internet gives would-be spies an obvious entry point to your machine.

0:45.0

But other ways exist to Snoop, because even computers that aren't connected to the Internet

0:49.7

broadcasts their activity in the form of electromagnetic radiation.

0:53.9

Basically, your computer is full of transistors,

0:56.0

and they're switching a current from high to low,

1:00.0

depending of is it a zero or a one of the bit that they're trying to execute.

1:04.0

Alenka Zait, an electrical engineer at Georgia Tech.

1:07.0

When you do that, you're creating a voltage fluctuation and current fluctuation, and that

1:14.0

basically creates electromagnetic field.

1:16.8

By hooking an antenna and receiver up to a laptop, Zich and her colleagues were able to

1:21.0

log the keystrokes of a computer in the next room by measuring exceedingly tiny fluctuations

1:26.3

in the computer's radiation.

1:28.2

The same technique can reveal which programs you're using too.

1:31.8

Every one of them has a different signature in electromagnetic field,

1:35.3

so I can tell which application you opened by looking into the spectrum.

1:39.4

The researchers quantified the signal available to eavesdroppers in a recent paper,

...

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