NEW PRIVACY MENACE: Your Touch Screen Display is NOW a MICROPHONE!

a reply to: Bedlam

But that's too easy for an alphabet agency with money to burn.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: StargateSG7

Regarding the above papers...they are a bit of a stretch
but have SOME support for my assertions that indoor air
is dirty containing particulate matter that can have it's
electrical properties change is it moves about in a room
which was caused by exhalation (AND SPEECH!) which
can then affect in some small (or large?) way the noise
characteristics of an electronic device caused by induced
or stray current.

Sound is a rapid series of pressure waves. You don't get net motion of all the aerosols in a room. The waves are pretty high frequency. The aerosols don't have a chance to do much in the way of vibratory motion, because they're way heavier than air molecules, and the air molecules themselves don't move very much. Because the energy in conversational level sound is insanely small.

As the differences between the high and low pressures in sound waves aren't very high, and the characteristics of air's (even dirty air) dielectric constant doesn't give it much in the way of change even over very LARGE pressure changes, and the capacitive touch screen isn't designed to detect the tiny changes of capacitance caused by environmental dielectric constant ANYWAY, you've got infinitesimal pressure changes causing infinitesimal dielectric constant changes causing infinitesimal capacitance changes. Multiplied together, you get bupkes.

No matter how many backsprings and stretches you do, that isn't going to change.

In order to make it even worse, you're trying to do it with hardware that's barely up to doing its intended function, that has to be dirt cheap, and is next to three transmitters.

And the damned thing HAS a microphone.

====

Hard to argue with your points....but I would say
I am RATHER CURIOUS as to WHY someone would
spend lots of money on what looks like some large
amounts of lab time, high educated and expensive
personnel plus some university backing UNLESS
SOMETHING is inherent in the process that offers
som hope of obtaining acoustic (or otherwise?)
information from a display screen.....hmmmmmm.......

I am CONTEMPLATING as to how much I should
disclose further so that peer review may take
place but which does not "burn" my source(s)....!!!

Is the disclosure of Georgia Tech an enough
of a hint as to WHO MADE and WHICH entity
IS the primary agent of this "information" ?

I think I shall leave it at that...and close
this thread since I have put myself into
a pickle by not putting enough information
out there for you to make a more concrete
evaluation of just such a technology.

---

So as a last gasp....ask yourself WHY
DOESN'T SOMEONE just use the onboard
microphone to gather information from
a device...

a reply to: StargateSG7
Thank you for posting this! Now I have another reason to justify NOT having a smartphone! BTW, did anyone else get tired of their smartphones mysteriously developing issues after a couple years, especially after an Over The Air update? And when you bring it to the phone store they always say that the problem is that "You need to upgrade your phone to the newer one!" ?

I am also the guy who puts electrical tape over the mic and camera holes on the laptop the first day I get it.

The IRA were being listened to by using lasers to pick up the vibration on windows caused by conversations inside houses. Those vibrations were converted into audible sound and recordings made. That was early 80s eavesdropping. This sounds more than plausible to be honest.

originally posted by: peppycat
Hope they like listening to me singing to my cat about how wonderful he is!

They might think it's code for something!

a reply to: StargateSG7

I agree it be easier to write code to turn in the mic already in the phone. As far as this being in any way useful you would get really poor audio if at all since atmospheric conditions would have to be right and the phone couldn't be in a pocket.

instead of trying to convert a touchscreen into a microphone, then use advanced algorithms to decipher the resulting soundwaves into audible sound -
wouldnt it be WAY easier to just hack a phone to use the mic?
or, better yet, already have software pre-installed that does this?

oh wait....

You know I once tried to convince a girl that I too had a touch activated built in microphone she could sing into. She didnt believe me though. She was a brunette though, maybe I should have tried it on a blonde instead.

a reply to: alienDNA

Like how Google drive for your android already comes with the small print that they can activate your mic and camera at will, for any reason, without your permission or knowledge. Or onstar for your car. Or your voice activated xbox.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: alienDNA

Like how Google drive for your android already comes with the small print that they can activate your mic and camera at will, for any reason, without your permission or knowledge. Or onstar for your car. Or your voice activated xbox.

---

Many cell phone modem chips had extra CMOS layers
inserted into the die masks at production time which
were/are able to be activated via software hacks which
cause specific electrical signals/pulses to certain locations
on modem chip layers that are above/below the inserted
layer so as to cause localized heating in that layer which
THEN CAUSES or CREATES a thermal expansion which
breaks into the in-between/inserted mask layer to
cause an ON-PURPOSE SHORT CIRCUIT into the
inserted layer so that a customized chip pathway
can be created which creates a NEW ON-THE-FLY
chip circuitry which has pre-defined underhanded
and sneakily hardcoded data aquisition and transmission
circuits which can be used to intercept data and
communications on specific cell phone devices.

That is one method I am VERY WELL AWARE OF !!!!

The other method is to use hacks/mods to the ADAC
(Analog-to-digital converters) chips so that the electrical
noise floor can be full examined and manipulated to obtain
useful information from touchscreens, XYZ mems/motion
detection and other circuitry on any given tablet or cell
phone. This means voice and keyboard information can
be RECOVERED in a way that is BELOW the operating
system and application layers and is therefore
UNDETECTABLE by anti-virus programs and
common user-mode or maintanance mode
software and service personnel!

You would NEVER KNOW that your voices
and keyboard inputs are being hacked and
intercepted and sent on their merry way to
the NSA/DIA/MI5/MI6/GRU/FSB/CSIS/CSE etc.

a reply to: StargateSG7

So they do all of that instead of using the BUILT IN MICROPHONE?

Yeah, right.

a reply to: GetHyped

I don't get the reasoning behind this argument.. Don't buy it then? Is that what you're saying? This doesn't apply to most of humanity, they don't care. The default phone used by people is now an instrument for spying and collecting information and that's that, and that is a bad thing. It's almost like the "well if you don't like America, move out!" argument.. No, I would rather we fixed the problems. It's an excuse to not care, an excuse to be lazy and an excuse to let these people get away with whatever the hell they want to.

You think these few people that avoid smartphones because of this matter on the big whole? No.. If humanity had the balls and the sense they would correct this breach in trust.

originally posted by: TerryDon79
a reply to: StargateSG7

So they do all of that instead of using the BUILT IN MICROPHONE?

Yeah, right.

Hacking a built-in microphone at the operating
system level is quite easy to detect!

You need to go into the Baseband operating system
which runs the communications chips (i.e. qualcomm
broadcom, alcatel or erricson modem chips) so that
common upper-level data analysis tools cannot detect
the hacked software.

In my old industry (wink wink nudge nudge) one common
thing was to embed "employees" onto chip production lines
and have a separate photolithographic mask inserted in-between
one of the OTHER photomasks which caused low-grade electrical
faults to be introduced which could be exploited by upper-level
hacks to cause hard-circuitry breaks/short circuits to create a
pre-determined set of NEW chip traces as the introduced chip
mask faults manifested themselves.

When the upper-level hack software was run, they caused specific
parts of the layers above and below the "fake mask layer" to heat up
and damaging those above/below CMOS layers which makes a given
circuit trace short-out and cause a NEW pathway to be created
which can be LATER exploited and ENABLED by another
upper-level hack. The in-between photomask layers would
be designed as such that they would NOT be discoverable
and NOT affect the functionality of the rest of the chip.

Since it takes some time to cause the localized microheating
to create the new circuit path breaks, the inserted layers
would be designed such that this over-time new circuit trace
creation would NOT affect upper-level phone functionality
and when the time came (usually it takes a few weeks to do!)
that all the circuit breaks became active, the newly created
circuits could then begin their nefarious operations such as
phone call and data interception.

This was usually reserved for use against high-level "political
and military targets" in foreign lands and only SOMETIMES
against high-level cirminal organizations. JUST SO YA KNOW!

--

We can literally hack ANYTHING !!! Even your body!

So YUP some parties DO GO to SUCH EXTREME LEVELS
of using invasive technology and tactics to gain high level
tracking and record of people and data. Why do you think
the NSA/DIA gets up to SIX BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR !!!!

That sort of money AIN'T JUST FOR SALARIES !!!!!
There is a lot of high-powered gear and tactics
beng paid for and used there!

I kinda have some PERSONAL EXPERIENCE at
this level of intelligence-gathering nuttiness!

a reply to: StargateSG7

Again, more words with little substance.

You have still to prove that any of what you proposed is even real. Most of what you have given as "evidence" has actually countered your point.

originally posted by: TerryDon79
a reply to: StargateSG7

Again, more words with little substance.

You have still to prove that any of what you proposed is even real. Most of what you have given as "evidence" has actually countered your point.

===

Take one Analog to Digital Converter be it a cheapo
8 bit to a high end 16 bits (most are 10 to 14-bits per channel
in cell phone screens) has an electrical noise floor.

Like this one:
www.analog.com... s/ad7746.html

If you hack its update rate (into the KHZ level), remove the stray capacitance
rejection profile and make a few other electrically significant microcode hacks,
you can use your cell phone touch screen ADC as quite a nice sample-converter.

Then sample EVERYTHING and Interpret the noise floor caused
by fluctuations of any type be they acoustic, direct contact,
aerodynamic and type of load upon a touch screen (even if the
screen is capacitive and not directly contact-pressure sensitive)

The key thing is that at an ADC resolution of 12 bits and above, you can start
to make some serious probablistic interpretations of incoming noise data
ENOUGH to properly interpret a waveform in the acoustic range.

It's rather complicated on a software basis (i.e. useable signal vs noise ratio),
but not that hard technically chip-wise to do. It's a whole lot better than
puting an easy-to-find OS-based microphone hack into an iPhone/Android
for 3rd party detectability reasons!

The key issue is ADC bit-depth. I'm gonna say it can't really be done
with an 8-bit ADC...MAYBE with 10-bits....were good at 12 bits and
16-bits is the honeypot! --- Those numbers simply mean a method
to represent electrical signal strength (amplitude) and speed (Frequency)
and the GREATER THE ABILITY to contain a WIDER range of values
(a 16-bit number can represent 63336 possible values while an
8-bit number can represent only 256 possible values), the more
ability there is to eventually discern a pattern of signal (i.e.
acoustic waveforms) versus random noise.

Then it's a matter of either doing the waveform analysis
(Digital Signal Processing) on-chip or sending the captured
signals to another out-of-area system for further analysis.

One of my classmates was able to MODIFY the mouse sensors
of a modern light-based mice (i.e. the infrared ones not
the ball-based mice) such that the micro-movements measured
by the mouse viobrating as it sat on a desk was able to be DSP'ed
to obtain a low-level but very interpretable acoustic wave form
of keyboard input from a nearby keyboard AND the vibrations of
the table as a user spoke which was eventually able to to be
turned into an audio waveform.
.
THAT WAS AN AMAZING DEMO! --- AND YES HE WORKS
FOR A EUROPEAN INTEL AGENCY NOW!