24-12-2012, 12:35 PM
Tempest and Echelon
Tempest and Echelon.doc (Size: 679.5 KB / Downloads: 24)
INTRODUCTION
Echelon is the technology for sniffing through the messages sent over a network or any transmission media, even it is wireless messages. Tempest is the technology for intercepting the electromagnetic waves over the air. It simply sniffs through the electromagnetic waves propagated from any devices, even it is from the monitor of a computer screen. Tempest can capture the signals through the walls of computer screens and keystrokes of key board even the computer is not connected to a network. Thus the traditional way of hacking has a little advantage in spying. For the common people it is so hard to believe that their monitor can be reproduced from anywhere in one kilometer range without any transmission media in between the equipment and their computer. So we have to believe the technology enabled us to reproduce anything from a monitor of computer to the Hard Disks including the Memory (RAM) of a distant computer without any physical or visual contact. It is done with the Electromagnetic waves propagated from that device. The main theory behind the Tempest(Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Emanation Standard.) is that any electronic or electrical devices emit Electromagnetic radiations of specific key when it is operated. For example the picture tube of computer monitor emits radiations when it is scanned up on vertical of horizontal range beyond the screen. It will not cause any harm to a human and it is very small. But it has a specific frequency range. You can reproduce that electromagnetic waves by tracing with the powerful equipments and the powerful filtering methods to correct the errors while transmission from the equipment. Actually this electromagnetic waves are not necessary for a human being because it not coming from a transmitter, but we have a receiver to trace the waves.
TEMPEST AND ECHELON
Interception of communications is a method of spying commonly employed by intelligence services, whereas there can now be no doubt that the purpose of the system is to intercept, at the very least, private and commercial communications, and not military communications, although the analysis carried out in the report has revealed that the technical capabilities of the system are probably not nearly as extensive as some sections of the media had assumed.
The Need for an Interception System
Interception of messages is the major work for the intelligence agencies all over the world, to keep track of the spies and terrorists for preserving the security of the country from the leaking of sensitive documents and the terrorist attacks. By the work of the intelligence agencies the government is ensuring the security of the state. For that we must setup an interception system. While developing this we have to consider about the privacy of common people and industrial organization. ECHELON is actually a vast network of electronic spy stations located around the world and maintained by five countries: the US, England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries, bound together in a still-secret agreement called UKUSA, spy on each other’s citizens by intercepting and gathering electronic signals of almost every telephone call, fax transmission and email message transmitted around the world daily. These signals are fed through the massive supercomputers of the NSA to look for certain keywords called the ECHELON “dictionaries.”
TEMPEST
TEMPEST is a short name referring to investigations and studies of compromising emanations (CE). Compromising emanations are defined as unintentiorial intelligence-bearing signals which, if intercepted and analyzed, disclose the national security information transmitted, received, handled or otherwise processed by any information-processing equipment. Compromising emanations consist of electrical or acoustical energy unintentionally emitted by any of a great number of sources within equipment/systems which process national security information. This energy may relate to the original message, or information being processed, in such a way that it can lead to recovery of the plaintext. Laboratory and field tests have established that such CE can be propagated through space and along nearby conductors. The interception/propagation ranges and analysis of such emanations are affected by a variety of factors, e.g., the functional design of the information processing equipment; system/equipment installation; and, environmental conditions related to physical security and ambient noise "compromising emanations" rather than "radiation" is used because the compromising signals can, and do, exist in several forms such as magnetic and/or electric field radiation, line conduction, (signal and power) or acoustic emissions.
Short wave attacks:-
If one wants to spy to a computer, then an important design criterion is the cost of the receiver. While intelligence services may already possess phased array antennas and software radios, such equipment is not yet generally available. The graduate student's Tempest spying kit is more likely to be just a radio receiver connected to an audio cassette recorder.
Broadband Transmission attacks:-
Above dither amplitude modulation of large readable letters was designed to allow easy low-cost reception of hidden broadcast information with a modified TV set. A professional eavesdropper is more likely to select a method that affects only a small part of the screen layout and that is optimized for maximum range and robust reception with sophisticated equipment. In this section, we outline what such a system might look like.Reception of monitor emanations with modified TV sets requires either exact knowledge of the horizontal and vertical deflection frequencies or a strong enough Signal to adjust the sync pulse generators manually. With larger distances and low signal levels, the emitted information can only be separated from the noise by averaging the periodic signal over a period of time, and manual adjustment of the synch is difficult.In a professional attack, one might use spread-spectrum techniques to increase the jamming margin and thus the available range. The attack software would dither one or more colours in several lines of the screen layout using a pseudorandom bit sequence. A cross-correlator in the receiver gets one input from an antenna and sees at its other input the same pseudorandom bit sequence presented with the guessed pixel clock rate of the monitor. It will generate an output peak that provides the phase difference between the receiver and the target. A phase-locked loop can then control the oscillator in the receiver such that stable long-term averaging of the screen content is possible. Information can be transmitted by inverting the sequence depending on whether a 0 or 1 bit is to be broadcast.
TEMPEST FONTS:-
TEMPEST fonts are used for protecting the computers form the eavesdropper. There is some specific software for this and these softwares will calculate the power dissisipation of the normal fonts and if it is vulnerable to the TEMPEST attack, the software will filter that software and show that font as the most convenient way
The filtered text looks rather blurred and unpleasant in this magnified representation, but surprisingly, the loss in text quality is almost unnoticeable for the user at the computer screen, as the magnified photos in the lower half of Fig. 4 show. The limited focus of the electron beam, the limited resolution of the eye, as well as effects created by the mask and the monitor electronics filter the signal anyway.
TEMPEST PROOF WALLS:-
TEMPEST proof walls are developed for preventing from TEMPEST attacks. These walls are specially designed for reflecting the electromagnetic waves back to the same room it self. Many of the corporate firms have the TEMPEST proof walls for protecting the databases from the hackers and spies, otherwise the secret data will be leaked and the eavesdropper will cause threat to that corporate firm
CONCLUSION
The interception of communication is the main function done by the intelligence agencies all over the world. The intelligence agencies are searching for the sophisticated methods for surveillance and spying from its own people and from its enemies. Here the scientists in the NSA developed the modern techniques for finding the interception of messages. And they developed a network known as the Echelon System. It made them to leap ahead of the hackers in one step.The main topics discussed here is Tempest and Echelon. Tempest is the technology for spying from electronic equipments with out any physical contact. It is the wonderful technology which people ever experienced. It enables us to replicate the data on an electronic equipment from a couple of kilometres away. We can replicate the computer monitor and Hard disk (or even Memory) of computer system by this way.Even though we discussed about the advantages of the Echelon and Tempest there is some major disadvantages for these systems as nothing can be hidden from the Echelon system. But the Echelon system will not provide any secrecy for the common people. It will only preserve the states policies. This will cause the leaking of
the sensitive data of the industries and it will cause harm to that companies. And again the Tempest equipments are available in USA and is prohibited of exporting from there, and thus if some terrorists got these Tempest equipments then it will cause harm to our industries and society. But many of the corporate firms are protecting their companies from the Tempest attacks by use of software and equipments to prevent the Tempest attacks.
Tempest and Echelon.doc (Size: 679.5 KB / Downloads: 24)
INTRODUCTION
Echelon is the technology for sniffing through the messages sent over a network or any transmission media, even it is wireless messages. Tempest is the technology for intercepting the electromagnetic waves over the air. It simply sniffs through the electromagnetic waves propagated from any devices, even it is from the monitor of a computer screen. Tempest can capture the signals through the walls of computer screens and keystrokes of key board even the computer is not connected to a network. Thus the traditional way of hacking has a little advantage in spying. For the common people it is so hard to believe that their monitor can be reproduced from anywhere in one kilometer range without any transmission media in between the equipment and their computer. So we have to believe the technology enabled us to reproduce anything from a monitor of computer to the Hard Disks including the Memory (RAM) of a distant computer without any physical or visual contact. It is done with the Electromagnetic waves propagated from that device. The main theory behind the Tempest(Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Emanation Standard.) is that any electronic or electrical devices emit Electromagnetic radiations of specific key when it is operated. For example the picture tube of computer monitor emits radiations when it is scanned up on vertical of horizontal range beyond the screen. It will not cause any harm to a human and it is very small. But it has a specific frequency range. You can reproduce that electromagnetic waves by tracing with the powerful equipments and the powerful filtering methods to correct the errors while transmission from the equipment. Actually this electromagnetic waves are not necessary for a human being because it not coming from a transmitter, but we have a receiver to trace the waves.
TEMPEST AND ECHELON
Interception of communications is a method of spying commonly employed by intelligence services, whereas there can now be no doubt that the purpose of the system is to intercept, at the very least, private and commercial communications, and not military communications, although the analysis carried out in the report has revealed that the technical capabilities of the system are probably not nearly as extensive as some sections of the media had assumed.
The Need for an Interception System
Interception of messages is the major work for the intelligence agencies all over the world, to keep track of the spies and terrorists for preserving the security of the country from the leaking of sensitive documents and the terrorist attacks. By the work of the intelligence agencies the government is ensuring the security of the state. For that we must setup an interception system. While developing this we have to consider about the privacy of common people and industrial organization. ECHELON is actually a vast network of electronic spy stations located around the world and maintained by five countries: the US, England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries, bound together in a still-secret agreement called UKUSA, spy on each other’s citizens by intercepting and gathering electronic signals of almost every telephone call, fax transmission and email message transmitted around the world daily. These signals are fed through the massive supercomputers of the NSA to look for certain keywords called the ECHELON “dictionaries.”
TEMPEST
TEMPEST is a short name referring to investigations and studies of compromising emanations (CE). Compromising emanations are defined as unintentiorial intelligence-bearing signals which, if intercepted and analyzed, disclose the national security information transmitted, received, handled or otherwise processed by any information-processing equipment. Compromising emanations consist of electrical or acoustical energy unintentionally emitted by any of a great number of sources within equipment/systems which process national security information. This energy may relate to the original message, or information being processed, in such a way that it can lead to recovery of the plaintext. Laboratory and field tests have established that such CE can be propagated through space and along nearby conductors. The interception/propagation ranges and analysis of such emanations are affected by a variety of factors, e.g., the functional design of the information processing equipment; system/equipment installation; and, environmental conditions related to physical security and ambient noise "compromising emanations" rather than "radiation" is used because the compromising signals can, and do, exist in several forms such as magnetic and/or electric field radiation, line conduction, (signal and power) or acoustic emissions.
Short wave attacks:-
If one wants to spy to a computer, then an important design criterion is the cost of the receiver. While intelligence services may already possess phased array antennas and software radios, such equipment is not yet generally available. The graduate student's Tempest spying kit is more likely to be just a radio receiver connected to an audio cassette recorder.
Broadband Transmission attacks:-
Above dither amplitude modulation of large readable letters was designed to allow easy low-cost reception of hidden broadcast information with a modified TV set. A professional eavesdropper is more likely to select a method that affects only a small part of the screen layout and that is optimized for maximum range and robust reception with sophisticated equipment. In this section, we outline what such a system might look like.Reception of monitor emanations with modified TV sets requires either exact knowledge of the horizontal and vertical deflection frequencies or a strong enough Signal to adjust the sync pulse generators manually. With larger distances and low signal levels, the emitted information can only be separated from the noise by averaging the periodic signal over a period of time, and manual adjustment of the synch is difficult.In a professional attack, one might use spread-spectrum techniques to increase the jamming margin and thus the available range. The attack software would dither one or more colours in several lines of the screen layout using a pseudorandom bit sequence. A cross-correlator in the receiver gets one input from an antenna and sees at its other input the same pseudorandom bit sequence presented with the guessed pixel clock rate of the monitor. It will generate an output peak that provides the phase difference between the receiver and the target. A phase-locked loop can then control the oscillator in the receiver such that stable long-term averaging of the screen content is possible. Information can be transmitted by inverting the sequence depending on whether a 0 or 1 bit is to be broadcast.
TEMPEST FONTS:-
TEMPEST fonts are used for protecting the computers form the eavesdropper. There is some specific software for this and these softwares will calculate the power dissisipation of the normal fonts and if it is vulnerable to the TEMPEST attack, the software will filter that software and show that font as the most convenient way
The filtered text looks rather blurred and unpleasant in this magnified representation, but surprisingly, the loss in text quality is almost unnoticeable for the user at the computer screen, as the magnified photos in the lower half of Fig. 4 show. The limited focus of the electron beam, the limited resolution of the eye, as well as effects created by the mask and the monitor electronics filter the signal anyway.
TEMPEST PROOF WALLS:-
TEMPEST proof walls are developed for preventing from TEMPEST attacks. These walls are specially designed for reflecting the electromagnetic waves back to the same room it self. Many of the corporate firms have the TEMPEST proof walls for protecting the databases from the hackers and spies, otherwise the secret data will be leaked and the eavesdropper will cause threat to that corporate firm
CONCLUSION
The interception of communication is the main function done by the intelligence agencies all over the world. The intelligence agencies are searching for the sophisticated methods for surveillance and spying from its own people and from its enemies. Here the scientists in the NSA developed the modern techniques for finding the interception of messages. And they developed a network known as the Echelon System. It made them to leap ahead of the hackers in one step.The main topics discussed here is Tempest and Echelon. Tempest is the technology for spying from electronic equipments with out any physical contact. It is the wonderful technology which people ever experienced. It enables us to replicate the data on an electronic equipment from a couple of kilometres away. We can replicate the computer monitor and Hard disk (or even Memory) of computer system by this way.Even though we discussed about the advantages of the Echelon and Tempest there is some major disadvantages for these systems as nothing can be hidden from the Echelon system. But the Echelon system will not provide any secrecy for the common people. It will only preserve the states policies. This will cause the leaking of
the sensitive data of the industries and it will cause harm to that companies. And again the Tempest equipments are available in USA and is prohibited of exporting from there, and thus if some terrorists got these Tempest equipments then it will cause harm to our industries and society. But many of the corporate firms are protecting their companies from the Tempest attacks by use of software and equipments to prevent the Tempest attacks.