Printing Your Keys — In a Tent

Reassuring customers that you take security seriously

I recently outlined some research which revealed the RSA keys that someone was using on the mobile phone, just by listening to the electromagnetic waves emitted from the phone [here]. We have also shown here that you can pick up encryption keys, but just listening to the variations in the power supply. We thus leak information from electromagnetic radiation and from small variations in the power supply. Even sound waves can give away our encryption keys.

So isn’t it annoying when you can’t get a signal in a train? Well one of the reasons is because you are in a Faraday Cage, and where your signal will just bounce of the metal skin, and very little of it will get out of the spaces. Have you ever tried to use your mobile phone in the elevator too? You’ll find that your signal strength will be poor, and you’ll struggle to receive calls.

And so it is a well known technique for law enforcement to use Faraday cages, and where they will put a captured mobile phone in a tin foil bag, so that it cannot get a remote reset signal. They also have rooms which are lined with a metal layer — a…