[6467] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: How old is TEMPEST? (was Re: New Encryption Regulations have
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M. Bellovin)
Mon Jan 24 14:33:59 2000
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>
To: Antonomasia <ant@notatla.demon.co.uk>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net, reinhold@world.std.com
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Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 14:28:40 -0500
Message-Id: <20000124192845.552C241F16@SIGABA.research.att.com>
In message <200001241415.OAA18824@notatla.demon.co.uk>, Antonomasia writes:
> "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com>:
>
> quoting David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" (1967):
>
> > "... the department budgeted $221,400 in 1964 for 650 KW-7's. ... The
> > per-item cost of $4,500 may be due in part to refinements to prevent
> > inductive or galvanic interaction between the key pulses and the
> > plaintext pulses, which wire tappers could detect in the line pulse
> > and use to break the unbreakable system through its back door. "
> >
> > This would be the electro-mechanical equivalent of TEMPEST and
> > suggests that NSA was well aware of the compromising potential of
> > incidental emanations long before the computer communications era.
Similar attacks are discussed in Peter Wright's "Spycatcher". (Is that
legal yet in the U.K.?)
By chance, a profile of Transmeta's David Ditzel in today's NY Times states
that his father was working on Tempest issues for NSA circa 1962.
--Steve Bellovin
