this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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It is possible to extract encryption keys by recording coil whine with a phone next to the computer (2013 paper) (web.archive.org)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/security
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A more TLDR article about this: https://www.extremetech.com/defense/173108-researchers-crack-the-worlds-toughest-encryption-by-listening-to-the-tiny-sounds-made-by-your-computers-cpu

FAQs from the researchers: https://web.archive.org/web/20230130225254/http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tromer/acoustic/

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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't know that much about audio sidechannels so I don't know how realistic this would be, but my immediate thought is whether this can be extended to extract not just a single key but other data as well. For example, if you had a phone next to a computer that was reading and displaying a text file that contained confidential information, or perhaps reading values from a database, could it be possible to leak the actual data this way?

I also wonder how many videos and audio recordings made near computers have encryption keys and other sensitive data hidden in them, just waiting to be decoded. Or whether a video recorded by a smartphone can reveal what the phone is doing in the background. A terrifying prospect.