"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in
news
On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 20:56:50 -0000, John Carter
wrote:
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in
news
Can you pick up data from a computer without its cover on? I
read a post from someone about windowed cases allowing all your
data to be radiated out, including say.... your banking info.
NO
Unless you have a very sophisticated sniffer.
Back in the 70's when I was contracting at Eglin AFB, we were
audited by a branch of a non-disclosed government security
agency. They were trying to see whether or not they could detect
data going through a cable (1.5 inches in diameter) that
connected a large disk file to a CDC 6600 mainframe. We were
surprised to learn they could detect the movement of data
(whether data or control, we don't know) through the cable, but
were unable to actually interpret the data as there were streams
of data being sent and received by more than 40 different
programs multiprogramming at one time. They never tried to
detect and interpret a stream for a single progam. And we didn't
think they would be able to do so, as there are both control ad
dta signals running thru the cable simultaneously.
SO I think you are safe unless someone knows something that I
don't.
Surely if they could pick up everything going through the cable,
they could separate out one communication? After all, whatever
you had terminating the cable must have done so.
The cable was composed of many individual wires (I'm a bit out of my
element here - my background is real-time computing -software) the
exact number I can't tell you, but there were data wires and control
wires all of which had a ground and they were all wound around each
other and treminated in a multi-connector plug. To have a detector
be able to discern which of those wires is control and which is data
would be IMO impossible. It may be possible now, but in 1972?
If they were collecting the signals at the same time there was a
single program running and they knew what the program was doing wrt
disk activity, then a "post mortem" analysis could possibly
determine specifics. But spying activity doesn't happen that way.
This system was a Control Data 6600 that was made up of a CPU and 10
independently programmed Peripheral Processors (PPU). This
architecture which was designed by Seymore Cray before he left to
form his own company, and this CPU had NO I/O capability. All I/O
was done by one of the 10 PPUs. The PPUs had access to a crossbar
of 12 data channels that connected to Disk, Tape, nit record
devices. The design of the operating system was such that all disk
I/O went thru a single PPU. With 40 or more user programs running
and using mass storage, the PPU driving the disk was constantly
moving data to and from the disk. In addition the PPU in charge of
the disk I/O also did head movement optimization, prioritizing
queued disk requests inorder of nearest head/track. On a good mix
of programs, I have seen the disk heads (12 platters) do noting but
smoothly move from outer track to inner track and then back, over
and over.
Sorry for the treatise, but with all that differing streams of data,
that just does nothing but complicate the task of translating the
data into useful information.
The audit team finally gave up on our system and decided to audit
some other mainframes there. They audited an IBM 360/65 running
OS/MFT and a Burroughs B3500. They gave everyone an exit briefing
and declared the CDC 6600 the only system inthe computer center that
should be runing classified data. We learned later that they
audited the CDC systems at Edwards AFB, Kirtland AFB, Wright-
Patterson AFB and Cambridge Research Lab all if which were Air Force
Systems COmmand installations with the same results.