This is a future project for me. After hearing about Van Eck phreaking in high school (I think it was that far back) I have wanted to give it a try. I don’t have a real reason to do it other than to say that I did. Good enough. I just want to be able to see what my PC is displaying. I’ll have to get Linux up a running on a box first but that shouldn’t be a problem. Oh wait, my work bench is no more, a move to a tiny apartment took care of that for me. Hey, I have an idea, just click on the ‘donate’ button and send the TeamDroid site $5. All of it will go towards a new research center (bigger apartment). Once I have that I’ll have a place to build and review all sorts of cool stuff.
But I bet your still wondering what the hell this ‘Van Eck Phreaking’ thing is aren’t you? Well, think of your computer as a series of radio transmitters. You can pretty much think of all electronic devices as transmitters and receivers in some way or another actually. What a Van Eck rig lets you do is tune into the radio station in your computer that is coming from your video card. I think your seeing the idea here. Once you have all the timing right you should be able to see what is one someone else’s computer screen. Cool, eh? Sounds like a dandy cloak-and-dagger sort of thing that would be happening all over the place don’t it? Well, as will most things, the truth is that it’s hard to get it to work and when it does the results are sometimes not all that good. Van Eck Phreaking is also known my another name, TEMPEST – that was an old code word for a general electronic surveillance project back in the ’50’s and the name stuck.
Things like this are pretty much the reign of the NSA and cyberpunk authors, but if you have the time and will you can play with it yourself and if I get a larger work bench I’ll do the same.
EckBox – an Open Source van Eck Phreaker
AllYouEverWantedToKnowAboutTempest