On Mon, Mar 27, 2000 at 06:43:48AM -0500, John Young wrote:
> Last summer World Net Daily published an article on
> a hacker group called "Hong Kong Blondes" in which
> the hackers claimed that compromising electromagnetic
> emanations from computer equipment could be acquired
> up by cellular modems.
>
> Can cellular modems be used for this purpose? If so,
> what is involved in setting them up for it?
>
> Here's the article excerpt:
>
> As time progressed, members of the Hong
> Kong Blondes leadership told WorldNetDaily
> they began actually to install codes within the
> PLA computer mainframes. By using cellular
> modems, they were able to monitor the
> electromagnetic signals emitted by PLA
> computers by remote means. The Blondes even
> planted transmitters within the offices of the
> Chinese government,
Whils I have no direct knowlage of what was done, my reading of
this text is that a cellphone and modem was covertly placed inside the
offices of the Chinese government and dialed up by someone on the
outside to retrieve data. In this application the cellphone and
cellular modem represented a means of transporting information acquired
inside a computer complex (perhaps by TEMPEST technology) to someone on
the outside. As such the cellular modems were not being used to
intercept signals from the computers involved, but rather serving just
as a means of transporting the fruits of such an interception to a place
where it could be conveniantly processed, read and stored.
Aside from using a cellular modem to decode the transmission of
another cellular modem, I know of no way to use them as TEMPEST
intercept devices and rather doubt they would be useful for that
purpose.
--
Dave Emery N1PRE, [EMAIL PROTECTED] DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass.
PGP fingerprint = 2047/4D7B08D1 DE 6E E1 CC 1F 1D 96 E2 5D 27 BD B0 24 88 C3 18
