Watch How a Hacker’s Infrared Laser Can Spy on Your Laptop’s Keystrokes
www.wired.com
Hacker Samy Kamkar is debuting his own open source version of a laser microphone—a spy tool that can invisibly pick up the sounds inside your home through a window, and even the text you’re typing.
  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
    341·
    3 months ago

    Another great reason to use a custom, constantly shifting keyboard layout

  • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
    20·
    3 months ago

    The article doesn’t mention how it compensates for different keyboards. Like wouldn’t different switches and wear change the sound?

    • elltee@lemmy.one
      7·
      3 months ago

      Dude in the thumbnail is Samy. He’s been a bond villain for a long time now.

    • akwd169@sh.itjust.works
      29·
      3 months ago

      demonstrating that he can point a laser that’s invisible to the human eye at a faraway laptop, through a window, and detect the computer’s vibrations to reconstruct virtually every character typed on it

      Infrared is not visible

        • akwd169@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          3 months ago

          Ahh ok, that’s what you meant before I guess

          Since that function is usually meant for night vision, I wonder how well a security camera can pick out the laser during the day i.e. when the IR sensors are being swamped by daylight also coming in through the window

        • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
          2·
          3 months ago

          actually thats UV. transition lenses won’t change with a glass window thats not open. infrared is basically heat and does indeed pass through. Cars in the sun would not get hot so fast if they did not let in infrared.

            • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
              1·
              3 months ago

              yeah I encountered it when looking at infrared for another convo in the thread. its uvb for what we think of as glass. the clear stuff. which is what causes sunburns and the transition lenses to activate.

            • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
              6·
              3 months ago

              if this yahoo from the internet I found in a search is right then its both:

              “Glass will bock low frequency IR (red hot), but allow the passage of high frequency (white hot) IR. Hence, the heat of the sun will easily pass into a greenhouse, but once this energy is converted into low frequency heat by the objects within that absorb it, then the resulting low frequency heat is trapped. Hence, the Greenhouse Effect.”

        • akwd169@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          3 months ago

          I’m not going to argue with you but you should read the article perhaps? It’s pretty specific about where the laser is aimed vis a vis windows and whatnot

    • Chozo@fedia.io
      17·
      3 months ago

      It’s already infrared. Also, UV is partially visible to humans in some scenarios.

  • z00s@lemmy.world
    101·
    3 months ago

    Great, now hackers and spies can detect my typing instead of using RATs or Trojans or packet sniffers, or just beating me with a $5 wrench (XKCD)

    Also:

    The trick, which takes advantage of the subtle acoustics created by tapping different keys on a computer, works even without a view of the computer’s keyboard, so long as the hacker has a line-of-sight view of any relatively reflective portion of the target laptop.

    So… Closing the curtains is all it takes to defeat this amazing technological method. GG.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
      31·
      3 months ago

      I’m not sure why you’re so dismissive of this? It’s kind of asinine.

      Does everyone everywhere only ever use computers in an enclosed room? Is everyone with something value to exfiltrate easily accessible to kidnap and beat with a wrench?

      This is valuable for corporate espionage, political purposes, or for nation states. If miniaturized, even easier for targeted attacks where it might be difficult to inject malware, or for broad attacks on office workers.

      And the best part is that it doesn’t leave a trace which beating someone with a wrench and malware would do…

      • z00s@lemmy.world
        11·
        3 months ago

        You’re not James Bond. Or a 1337 haxx0r. This technology isn’t even new. Why are you stanning this guy? It’s an assinine position to take.

  • HowMany@lemmy.ml
    39·
    3 months ago

    Oddly enough - all my keystrokes sound exactly the same which makes this person’s claim so much bullshit.

  • AlexWIWA@lemmy.mlEnglish
    513·
    3 months ago

    So how do we fix this? Dumb nerds never think about the consequences of their creations.

    • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
      14·
      3 months ago

      From the article: “Even knowing that Kamkar’s silent, invisible, long-distance laser spy trick exists, how does anyone hide their secrets from it? He suggests that companies install double-paned or reflective glass. Some security device companies also sell protection devices that affix to windows and vibrate them to prevent laser microphone spying, and Kamkar concedes he hasn’t tested his attack against those. But he also suggests a safer countermeasure: “Don’t work on computers visible from a window,” he says. “Or just have dirty windows.””

      • AlexWIWA@lemmy.mlEnglish
        41·
        3 months ago

        Companies can’t even be convinced to have longer passwords on their wifi. And open office plans mean every computer faces a window

          • AlexWIWA@lemmy.mlEnglish
            3·
            3 months ago

            But I work at companies and I would like my info to not be hacked. Their fuck ups affect employees and customers

          • Ranger@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            3·
            3 months ago

            The problem is the companies aren’t suffering the majority of the consequences of the security breaches, it’s the people these companies have personal information on & that includes people who have never done business with these companies but that these companies purchased data on.