[Cryptography] Regulations of Tempest protections of buildings

[Ray Dillinger]

On 04/02/2017 08:48 AM, mok-kong shen wrote:

> A. Stanoyevitch, Discrete Structures with Contemporary Applications. CRC
> Press,
> 2011. On p.301 there is:
> 
>      Buildings can be fitted using a special insulation procedure that
> protects
>      against tempest devices, but any company or individual in the US
> who has
>      this insulation must first obtain a license from the federal
> Government.
> 
> M. K. Shen

Huh.  I know half a dozen companies in the bay area that have meeting
rooms with such shielding, and at least one public library.  I assume
there are at least hundreds more.  I don't think it even occurs to
anyone that there might be a rule requiring them to ask for a license.
They just go, "Oh, this could be a problem," and assign some EE on their
staff to fix it.

The idea that you'd need someone's permission to build something that
doesn't attack anybody else or violate anyone else's rights is just
plain weird.

Especially when you need it for just plain business purposes.  "Oh,
look, our competitor is driving around with cars that scoop up traffic
from wireless networks, and we already know that WEP is just plain
broken.  Not having done this already is pretty irresponsible and could
get us sued by our shareholders....."  Or even, "Look, radio
interference from lightning etc makes the power supplies in our server
room wear out faster and in extreme cases could put other hardware at
risk. We can save money on our hardware budget by shielding them...."

I mean, seriously.  Just plain ordinary business purposes.

				Bear


"I have been asked, 'Pray Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong
figures, will the right answers come out?'  I am not able rightly to
apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a
question." -- Charles Babbage


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/attachments/20170402/be089196/attachment.sig>