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.
Agent 1: "He's about to type his password. Here we go... 1...2..3..A..B..C"
Agent 2: "I feel like we could have figured this out with brute-force"
Agent 1: "Wait! He's on the move. ..no he was just scratching his balls. ... Judging from the sound of it, I'd say he hasn't trimmer his balls for a long time."
Agent 2: "The AI picks up at least 15cm long strands, and some breadcrumbs. 50% rye, 50 wheat. Is that nutella and ketchup?"
Agent 1: "Dear God, what a freak".
Agent 2 takes note. "He's basically a sex offender at this point"
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
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.
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....
Random unrelated thought I just had, can you guys think of any interesting musical applications to a laser microphone? I found this super cool video when I tried to look it up (there's practically nothing)
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.”"