EAVES DROPPING RISK : EMR

1. Imagine someone sitting in a van outside a person's house can read the EMR that is emanating from the user's laptop computer inside the house and reconstruct the information from the user's monitor on a different device. Different devices have different levels of susceptibility to Tempest radiation. A handheld calculator gives off a signal as much as a few feet away, and a computer's electromagnetic field can give off emissions up to half a mile away. The distance at which emanations can be monitored depends on whether or not there are conductive media such as power lines, water pipes or even metal cabinets in the area that will carry the signals further away from the original source.

2. This problem is not a new one; defence specialists have been aware of it for over twenty years.Information on the way in which this kind of "eavesdropping" can be prevented is not freely available. Equipment designed to protect military information will probably be three or four times more expensive than the equipment likely to be used for processing of non-military information.Until recently it was considered very difficult to reconstruct the data hidden in the radiated field, and it was therefore believed that eavesdropping on digital equipment could only be performed by professionals with access to very sophisticated detection and decoding equipment. As a result, digital equipment for processing information requiring medium or low level protection, such as private and business information, is not protected against eavesdropping of this kind.

3. The EMR that is emitted by electric devices contains the information that the device is displaying or storing or transmitting. With equipment designed to intercept and reconstruct the data, it is possible to steal information from unsuspecting users by capturing the EMR signals. The U.S. government originally began studying this phenomenon in order to prevent breaches in military security. The government was using the technology to their advantage during WWII and realized that they needed to protect themselves against others using the same tactics against them. The name Tempest, or Tempest radiation originated with the U.S. military in the 1960s as the name of the classified study of what was at the time called "compromising emanations."

4. Today the phenomenon is more commonly referred to as van Eck phreaking, named after Wim van Eck, the Dutch computer scientist who brought it to general attention in 1985 when he published his paper "Electromagnetic Radiation from Video Display Units: An Eavesdropping Risk?," in which he demonstrated that the screen content of a video display unit could be reconstructed at a distance using low-cost home-built equipment - a TV set with its sync pulse generators replaced with manually controlled oscillators.

5. Van Eck phreaking is a major security concern in an age of increasing pervasive computing. High-security government agencies are protecting themselves by constructing safe rooms that through the use of metallic shielding block the EMR from emanating out of the room or by grounding the signals so that they cannot be intercepted. It is possible, though costly, for individual users to shield their home computer systems from EMR leakage.

6. Thanks http://www.webopedia.com

RADIATION EFFECTS & UR MOBILE - QUANTIFIED

1. We all hear about how the radiations emitted from our mobiles keep effecting us on the wrong side……but what are the specifications laid down for quantification of these effecting variables? What are these variables ?How much do they effect us? Do separate mobile handsets effect us in different ways?Are their any safe limits in these? What are the available standards?

2. The first and the most significant variable is the Specific absorption rate (SAR) , a measure of the rate at which energy is absorbed by the body when exposed to a radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic field. It is defined as the power absorbed per mass of tissue and has units of watts per kilogram. SAR is usually averaged either over the whole body, or over a small sample volume (typically 1 g or 10 g of tissue). The value cited is then the maximum level measured in the body part studied over the stated volume or mass.

3. SAR is used to measure exposure to fields between 100 kHz and 10 GHz. It is commonly used to measure power absorbed from mobile phones and during MRI scans. Few specifications of good and bad mobiles as found rated from TOI site at their INFOTECH tab are shown below with details :

SAMSUNG IMPRESSION : GOOD

Maximum radiation: 0.35 Watts per kilogram (W/kg) (based on reported radiation level when held up to your ear)

SAR when held at the ear: 0.35 W/kg

SAR when worn on the body: 0.83 W/kg

MOTOROLA RAZR V8 : GOOD

Maximum radiation: 0.36 W/kg

SAR when held at the ear: 0.36 W/kg

SAR when worn on the body: 0.86 W/kg

SAMSUNG SGH-T229 : GOOD

Maximum radiation: 0.38 W/kg

SAR when held at the ear: 0.38 W/kg

SAR when worn on the body: 0.69 W/kg

MOTOROLA MOTO VU204 : WORST

Maximum radiation: 1.55 W/kg

SAR when held at the ear: 1.55 W/kg

SAR when worn on the body: 0.58 W/kg

BLACKBERRY CURVE 8330 : WORST

Maximum radiation: 1.54 W/kg

SAR when held at the ear 1.54 W/kg

SAR when worn on the body 0.99 W/kg

4. United States: The FCC requires that phones sold have a SAR level at or below 1.6 watts per kilogram (W/kg) taken over a volume of 10 gram of tissue while European Union specify SAR limits within 2 Watts/kg taken over a volume of 10 gram

5. So next times some one asks you or even mentions about radiation effect of mobiles on health….just make the aspect more clear of weather of not his/her mobiles in meeting the S.A.R norms or not?

6. Thanks Wiki,Tech gadgets and TOI.