Your fingerprints can be recreated from the sounds made when you swipe on a touchscreen — Chinese and US researchers show new side channel can reproduce fingerprints to enable attacks | Tom's Hardware | Poal: Say what you want.

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Your fingerprints can be recreated from the sounds made when you swipe on a touchscreen — Chinese and US researchers show new side channel can reproduce fingerprints to enable attacks | Tom's Hardware (www.tomshardware.com)

Well, that is not creepy at all. Though, I am really not surprised. There are all kinds of interesting ways to get information that you think you should not be able to. Many many years ago when USB was "new-ish" there was research done that showed that if you tapped the power (ground) to a house with a older PC with a USB keybaord you could (in some cases) actually read the keys typed on the keyboard of the computer over the power line because of how the USB bus was wired and the lack of filtering on the line. Crazy stuff but.. yeah.

Archive: https://archive.today/IXgPz

From the post: "An interesting new attack on biometric security has been outlined by a group of researchers from China and the US. PrintListener: Uncovering the Vulnerability of Fingerprint Authentication via the Finger Friction Sound [PDF] proposes a side-channel attack on the sophisticated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The attack leverages the sound characteristics of a user’s finger swiping on a touchscreen to extract fingerprint pattern features. Following tests, the researchers assert that they can successfully attack “up to 27.9% of partial fingerprints and 9.3% of complete fingerprints within five attempts at the highest security FAR [False Acceptance Rate] setting of 0.01%.” This is claimed to be the first work that leverages swiping sounds to infer fingerprint information."

Well, that is not creepy at all. Though, I am really not surprised. There are all kinds of interesting ways to get information that you think you should not be able to. Many many years ago when USB was "new-ish" there was research done that showed that if you tapped the power (ground) to a house with a older PC with a USB keybaord you could (in some cases) actually read the keys typed on the keyboard of the computer over the power line because of how the USB bus was wired and the lack of filtering on the line. Crazy stuff but.. yeah. Archive: https://archive.today/IXgPz From the post: "An interesting new attack on biometric security has been outlined by a group of researchers from China and the US. PrintListener: Uncovering the Vulnerability of Fingerprint Authentication via the Finger Friction Sound [PDF] proposes a side-channel attack on the sophisticated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The attack leverages the sound characteristics of a user’s finger swiping on a touchscreen to extract fingerprint pattern features. Following tests, the researchers assert that they can successfully attack “up to 27.9% of partial fingerprints and 9.3% of complete fingerprints within five attempts at the highest security FAR [False Acceptance Rate] setting of 0.01%.” This is claimed to be the first work that leverages swiping sounds to infer fingerprint information."

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[–] • 4 pts

(edited )

Yeah, not a bad list. Some of them are old but there are older ones too.

A long time ago they were able to develop a system that could recreate what a CRT monitor was showing in near-real-time from a parked vehicle on a street in front of a building. It was a bit glitchy but the fact that they could see what a computer or tv screen was showing just by picking up the radiation emitted is kind of crazy.

Then there are all of the things like using speakers or fan speed to leak data in air-gapped systems. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Oh, all LED's can be used as a prox sensor too. Its a neat application because they can light up while being used as a sensor too. Its not high resolution (at least the projects ive seen) but its kind of crazy.

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[–] • 2 pts

(edited )

A long time ago they were able to develop a system that could recreate what a CRT monitor was showing in near-real-time from a parked vehicle on a street in front of a building. It was a bit glitchy but the fact that they could see what a computer or tv screen was showing just by picking up the radiation emitted is kind of crazy.

Related, TEMPEST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename), the elimination of such emanations from devices. I remember text files about this in the 1990s on BBSs.

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