this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
439 points (95.6% liked)

Technology

60033 readers
2683 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
439
Boffins convert typing sounds into text with 95% accuracy (www.theregister.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
147 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Researchers in the UK claim to have translated the sound of laptop keystrokes into their corresponding letters with 95 percent accuracy in some cases.

That 95 percent figure was achieved with nothing but a nearby iPhone. Remote methods are just as dangerous: over Zoom, the accuracy of recorded keystrokes only dropped to 93 percent, while Skype calls were still 91.7 percent accurate.

In other words, this is a side channel attack with considerable accuracy, minimal technical requirements, and a ubiquitous data exfiltration point: Microphones, which are everywhere from our laptops, to our wrists, to the very rooms we work in.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd be curious how well this approach translates to multi-lingual keyboard layouts. For english users, perhaps theres another benefit to non-QWERTY layouts (e.g. Colemak or Dvorak) after all? ... and two factor authentication should remain helpful I presume. Especially physical key methods with no audible characters typed (e.g. Yubikey, Titan, etc.)

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

I was thinking the same, but it would be trivial for software to realize that “fnj xlg” maps to “the dog” with Colemak or Dvorak.