
USB Snooping Made Easy: Crosstalk Leakage Attacks on USB Hubs (2017) - walterbell
https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity17/technical-sessions/presentation/su
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hawaiian
I've noticed the once ubiquitous ferrite core bulge (to prevent cables from
functioning as antennae when plugged into leaky equipment) has been absent
from the typical modern USB cable.

Is it possible this USB hub lacks a ferrite core entirely? Or are USB
peripherals sufficiently advanced nowadays that they've been tucked away
neatly, Apple-style?

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voltagex_
It's on some of my more expensive equipment, so I figured it was just a cost
saving.

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userbinator
_As such information is only sent along the communication path from the device
to the computer, it was hitherto thought to be protected from potentially
compromised devices outside this path._

That sounds like a very... naive statement, given that radio interference is
not an uncommon phenomenon and things like this have been known for years:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_\(codename\))

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dylan604
Would separate ground lines prevent this kind of data gathering?

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stcredzero
Carefully designed antenna geometry could be used to target a key sniffer on a
specific machine at a distance. This would make it easy for someone disguised
as cleaning or maintenance staff to target a specific machine. On the flip
side, even gathering all keystrokes in the immediate area in a jumble would
still yield useful data to an attacker.

As I've stated before, we're reaching the point where every device, no matter
how trivial, needs to be encrypted and robust against spoofing and replay
attacks.

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Razengan
At some point we're ultimately going to have brain-dumping/human memory
extraction technology which would render all encryption moot.

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stcredzero
We already have that. It's called, "Rubber hose cryptanalysis."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-
hose_cryptanalysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis)

(Doesn't really render cryptography moot. A part of the point, is that it
reduces the options of government to this point.)

~~~
nullc
At least in places where rule of law exists the use of rubber-hose
cryptanalysis is significantly restricted especially for powerful authorities.

Strapping someone into a fMRI with a loop that says "YOUR PASSWORDS FIRST
CHARACTER A B C ..." isn't (yet) so obviously restricted.

Rubber-hose cryptanalysis can also, at its extremes, be resisted by denial
(potentially at the cost of disfigurement or death) at least by some people.
Mind-reading cryptanalysis may require that you commit suicide in advance of
being questioned to protect information. They aren't equivalent.

~~~
stcredzero
I can picture a Sci-Fi story, where someone claims to have a brain scanning
technology that can pull information out of someone's head in this fashion.
However, the twist is that the device can't read memories. It can only
overwrite memories. So the way the extraction tech actually works, is that a
virtual reality memory of torture is projected into the subject's brain,
breaking the subject and getting them to divulge the information. Then, after
the torture, the torture memories are erased with a scene of their mind being
"read."

Of course, this doesn't work 100% of the time, so the startup which produces
this new tech tries to use it to cover its tracks.

~~~
nullc
That is sort of like the old "Scotty with the phaser" explanation for
transporters.

FMRI extraction of text has already been performed in a controlled setting. No
one has demonstrated it with an adversarial subject in the open literature,
yet.

An interesting consideration for the extraction of cryptographic keys is that
the extraction could be very noisy and yet still be a massive speedup for a
search. If the attacker can try a billion combinations per second they may not
need to get that many bits of search space reduction from the subject.

