[H-GEN] Hmmmm - whose paranoid? ;)

[Anthony Towns]

A Bruce in the Land of the Bruces <brucec at humbug.org.au> writes:

> Now researchers at the University of Cambridge, home of groundbreaking
> work in intelligence over the years, are trying to adapt this technology
> to the fight against software piracy.

See the latest RISKS digest (19.59) for the latest. It's also been
mentioned on slashdot recently (`Anti-Tempest Software').

Apparently what happened was that Microsoft donated some obscenely
large amount of money for weapons against software piracy.

That's what they got.

Microsoft, however, didn't really care for it -- they didn't want to
have to drive around the cities, they wanted people not to be able to
copy Office in the first place. So they didn't take it up. Apparently.

The results that /did/ come out of the study, was that the Tempest
attacks can be foiled in -software-. These are the attacks where
you're local spook just sits outside, reading your monitor through a
brick wall. Up until now, to foil this you had to basically encase
your computer in lead.

Now, according to this study, you can foil their nefarious plans just
by using a different font.

> [...] If, say, 50
> beacons for a particular title were detected but the company had licensed
> only two copies of the software, that could become evidence on which a
> court would issue a search warrant. 

The RISKS report stated that it'd broadcast a hash of the serial
number, so rather than looking up your licensing records, you just
check that of the 50 beacons you received, they were all different. Or
at least, that was the impression the article gave.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.

      ``It's not a vision, or a fear. It's just a thought.''
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