Indoor Optical Fiber Eavesdropping Approach and its Avoidance

Eavesdropping exploit found in fibre-optic cables

Researchers in China have created a new technique for long-distance eavesdropping by tapping into fibre-optic cables, which are prominently used in networks across the globe.Abstract: The optical fiber network has become a worldwide infrastructure. In addition to the basic functions in telecommunication, its sensing ability has attracted more and more attention. more

In this paper, we discuss the risk of household fiber being used for eavesdropping and demonstrate its performance in the lab. 

Using a 3-meter tail fiber in front of the household optical modem, voices of normal human speech can be eavesdropped by a laser interferometer and recovered 1.1 km away. 

The detection distance limit and system noise are analyzed quantitatively. We also give some practical ways to prevent eavesdropping through household fiber. more

Eavesdropping via fiber optics is actually far from being new, as anyone who dealt with Mason & Hanger last century could tell you. In fact, we were alerting our clients to fiber optic eavesdropping microphones on our thank you mugs...

"Spy Trick #409 - Fiber Optic Microphone"
1994 - 1999
Number made - 323

TSCM Questions We Get - "How small is a bug's microphone?"

A. Very small.
You probably carry the one shown in the photo, in your cell phone.


In some cases, microphones are invisible. Before you say impossible, hear me out...

You are surrounded by items which can be commandeered for surveillance eavesdropping wherever you go. Solids and liquids conduct sound even better than air. Vibrations through these items may be picked up and amplified at some distance using: a piezoelectric contact microphone, a hydrophone, or light / sound beams (laser / ultrasonic).

Optimic1140 fiber optical microphone

There is also one esoteric microphone to consider—the fiber optic microphone. No wires. No electricity. Just connected to a clear glass thread.

It is so unusual, many people who claim to be technical surveillance countermeasures (TSCM) technicians don't know it exists.

So, when you add Technical Information Security Surveys to your organization's security program, ask the vendor what they know about fiber optic microphones. Good ones will tell you all about it, and how it works. They will also be impressed with you for asking.

Click here for more questions we get.

TSCM Team Finds "Plug Bug" Eavesdropping Device

Japan - An eavesdropping device was found in a waiting room for conservative members of the Mito Municipal Assembly, local city government officials and other sources told the Mainichi Shimbun on Dec. 7.

Example of a "Plug Bug"

Ibaraki Prefectural Police seized the device and are investigating the case which they suspect could constitute trespassing into the building and violation of the Radio Act.

According to Mito Government officials, it was tipped off about the bug on Dec. 6.

Specialized workers hired by the local government began searching for the device from the evening of Dec. 7 and found it in a waiting room for three assembly members from "Suiseikai" -- a conservative parliamentary group -- on the first floor of the temporary two-story prefabricated assembly building. The bug plugs into an electric outlet. more

The example shown operates like a cell phone, but looks (and also operates) as a USB charger. It is powered 24/7, and may be called from a cell phone anywhere in the world. BTW, it can  also automatically call the eavesdropper when it detects sound. Available on eBay for $14.79. 

Don't you think its time to have your offices and conference rooms checked? ~Kevin

Photons FUBAR Eavesdropping

In a first, scientists have successfully teleported a photon – particle of light – over a distance of six kilometres, an advance that may enable secure communication without having to worry about eavesdropping.

Researchers at the University of Calgary in Canada, led by professor Wolfgang Tittel, set a new record for distance of transferring a quantum state by teleportation, using fibre optics cable infrastructure.

“Such a network will enable secure communication without having to worry about eavesdropping, and allow distant quantum computers to connect,” said Tittel.

The experiment is based on the entanglement property of quantum mechanics, also known as “spooky action at a distance” – a property so mysterious that not even German physicist Albert Einstein could come to terms with it. more

FutureWatch - The Dark Art of Light Eavesdropping is Coming

Maite Brandt-Pearce, a professor in the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mohammad Noshad, now a postdoctoral fellow in the Electrical Engineering Department at Harvard University, have devised a way of using light waves from light-emitting diode fixtures to carry signals to wireless devices at 300 megabits per second from each light. It’s like having a whole wi-fi system all to yourself; using light waves, there would be more network access points than with radio waves, so less sharing of the wireless network...

Their breakthrough means that data can be transmitted faster with light waves using no more energy than is already required to run the lights....

“You can use it any place that has lighting,” Brandt-Pearce said. “In a stadium, in a parking lot, or from vehicle to vehicle if using LED headlights and taillights.”

Like current wireless communications, encryption is necessary to keep data secure, but Brandt-Pearce noted that a secure network could be created in a room with no windows.

“It can’t be detected outside the room because the light waves stop when they hit something opaque, such as a wall,” she said. “That can keep communications secure from room to room.” (Generally speaking. However, a hair-like strand of fiber optic poking into the fixture from above the false ceiling should do the trick.)

And two separate networks in different rooms would not interfere with each other the way they do with present wi-fi networks.

She said devices with LED circuits in them can also communicate with each other. more more

Modulation of room lights for eavesdropping purposes is not new. The advent of ubiquitous LED lighting, however, will dramatically increase the effectiveness and ease of this tactic for eavesdropping... and the long-range wireless interception of computer data via optical means (even if it is encrypted).

Future Room Lighting to Double as Light "Wi-Fi"... or eavesdropping device.

VLC transmits data wirelessly using visible light as its medium instead of radio waves... Harold Haas, professor of Mobile Communications at the University of Edinburgh, successfully demonstrated the VLC technology at a TED conference. He streamed a HD video to a screen using a LED light bulb as transmitter.

Haas co-founded PureVLC, a corporate spin-off of the university’s research project, to turn the technology into commercially viable devices. The company is now beta-testing its first product: the Smart Lighting Development Kit (SLDK)...
 
Because the light changes superfast it is invisible to the human eye and can still function as normal lighting.

A standard Ethernet port connects the ceiling unit to a data network. The unit encodes the data onto the current feeding the LEDs. The desktop unit receives the data, decodes it and transfers it to a laptop or desktop computer. It can also send data to the ceiling unit. (more)

FutureWatch - The End of Privacy, Contraband & Cancer?!?!

via gizmodo.com...
Hidden Government Scanners Will Instantly Know Everything About You From 164 Feet Away

Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you.

And without you knowing it. The technology is so incredibly effective that...

...But the machine can sniff out a lot more than just explosives, chemicals and bioweapons. The company that invented it, Genia Photonics, says that its laser scanner technology is able to "penetrate clothing and many other organic materials and offers spectroscopic information, especially for materials that impact safety such as explosives and pharmacological substances."

...Genia Photonics has 30 patents on this technology, claiming incredible biomedical and industrial applications—from identifying individual cancer cells in a real-time scan of a patient, to detecting trace amounts of harmful chemicals in sensitive manufacturing processes. (more)