Potential major security flaw on HP laptop?

[tlrobinson]

Relevant slides from a Defcon talk by Melissa Elliott / @0xABAD1DEA: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Z_IRt6R2FL7POeY4J-pY...

[Nick_C]

That's one of the most engaging presentations I've seen for years. I laughed out loud at slide 38.

Thanks for the link.

[cnlwsu]

wow thats a really interesting set of slides.

[ealexhudson]

It seems unlikely that the flaw was intentional - there are much better ways of leaking audio that are much more difficult to detect. But it's interesting that the design and the cheap components or whatever have all conspired to leak the audio in FM.

If nothing else, it's a great lesson in how security is just a very difficult subject, and 'secure' an almost nirvana-like state in terms of the impossibility of achievement.

[fnordfnordfnord]

Unintentional in what sense? As in not a gov't conspiracy? Sure. But cheap, poor quality is by design, unless you think this is the best HP could do.

Now, if only there were some gov't agency that could regulate the emissions standards for electronic devices sold in the US. /sarcasm

[warfangle]

My roomate was just issued one of these "laptops." They weigh a ton, the keyboard doesn't work worth a damn, the trackpad is all but useless, and the wifi is flakey -- and it's brand new. Judging from its build quality, it's completely unintentional that this kind of leak was possible.

It's obviously completely intentional that the laptop be put together with less aplomb than a speak 'n spell.

[simcop2387]

Yep I'd definitely chalk this down to being unintentional myself. I'd guess that there's leakage from the ADC on the mic which won't likely ever be turned off since clock gating it would be difficult (many of those guys talk on SPI or I2S or some such, which doesn't make that easy) and gating the power could have all kinds of noise issues during power on and off. Why it's that easy to pick up and why around 24mhz i'm not sure myself.

[bugmen0t]

</conspiracy> This one explains the issue quite well: http://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/1le3if/so_i_discover...

Learn your electronics and don't believe in rumors ;)

[codezero]

I'd like to see if others are seeing this same behavior on the same model. Maybe he has some weird malware that keeps the microphone live?

[mschuster91]

Malware, though, would likely not be able to actively send stuff out via the air.