a tinfoil hat is not enough!

[wossname]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03...sniffing_demo/

[Shaggy Hiker]

Hunt and peck may serve a function here.

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

Actually, wouldn't it be better in this case to be an extremely fast typist who makes lots of mistakes?

[Pradeep1210]

Great
You think 2 steps ahead of them.

[Shaggy Hiker]

A fast, but really bad, typist would be hard to figure out. Of course, anybody who types leet speak is hard to figure out anyways. Coders would be impossible, since most of what we type would fit the criteria for strong passwords.

A Dvorsak keyboard ought to be pretty rough on them, too.

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

Interesting point, they would have to determine first what the keyboard layout is.

[Lord Orwell]

if they are close enough to shine a laser directly on your keyboard, they have probably seen your layout. And the detecting pulses in electric lines one would not be affected at all by keyboard layouts.

In my opinion a slow accurate typist would probably be harder because according to the article they would have less of a sample of keypresses to work with.

[wossname]

The keyboard layout is irrelevant. You can simply associate a sound with a letter by using character frequency analysis ("e" is the most common letter followed by "s","t"... at least in English).

Interesting that the oscilloscope method only works for PS2 keyboards. No matter, USB 1.1 is susceptible to bus-sniffing if you can gain access to at least one of the target machine's USB hubs.

[Shaggy Hiker]

In my opinion a slow accurate typist would probably be harder because according to the article they would have less of a sample of keypresses to work with.

I would say that it has to do with whether or not the bad typist correct their mistakes. If the aodhtp just letg theiwr vifngers wander on the keywobard without doinge andy docresctions, then they would be mighty hard to understand, even if you saw the actual result.

[sparbag]

Late in the conversation but this is old news for me: during research into organisational monitoring policies last year I became aware that a university research team had identified the sound of every individual keystroke to the extent that they had applied a 99 percent absolute correction of key identification.

Kind regards

Steve

[FunkyDexter]

No matter, USB 1.1 is susceptible to bus-sniffing

I tried bus sniffing once. It was bloody hard to get it to fit on the mirror.

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

When you sniff bus, you don't just hurt yourself, you inconvenience those around you.