Technology

60123 readers

2694 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

436

Boffins convert typing sounds into text with 95% accuracy (www.theregister.com)

submitted 1 year ago by kpw@kbin.social to c/technology@lemmy.world

147 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Researchers in the UK claim to have translated the sound of laptop keystrokes into their corresponding letters with 95 percent accuracy in some cases.

That 95 percent figure was achieved with nothing but a nearby iPhone. Remote methods are just as dangerous: over Zoom, the accuracy of recorded keystrokes only dropped to 93 percent, while Skype calls were still 91.7 percent accurate.

In other words, this is a side channel attack with considerable accuracy, minimal technical requirements, and a ubiquitous data exfiltration point: Microphones, which are everywhere from our laptops, to our wrists, to the very rooms we work in.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] ook_the_librarian@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like it's time to buy a bunch of random cherry switches and randomize them across my keyboard.....

And rotate them. While I don't plan to waste my energy, having hot swap sockets and swapping a few around should thwart the attack. You would have to do it frequently enough that relevant training data gets wasted before it's useful. I'm pretty paranoid, but not that much.

I'll just consider it good security hygiene to get a new keyboard often :)

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Have you considered only re-doing the tinfoil wrapper every day? It should crackle differently every time.