Having finished Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon while on travel, I can safely say that it has secured itself a position in my top n books of all time, where n is a small positive integer. I heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in cryptography, though I suspect I'm probably the last of these people to get around to actually reading the book.
Anyway, I went online to see if I could find a working example of van Eck phreaking and failed. I understand that there was a working demonstration given at DefCon IV. I was at DC4, but don't recall seeing this presentation. I can't find any imagery from the demo online (or any other demonstration of van Eck, for that matter).
Anyone ever seen a working implementation?
--UPDATE--
Thanks to Robin and his link, here's a really amazing demonstration:
The above image was shown on a computer monitor that was pointed at a white wall about a meter away. A photomultiplier tube was aimed at the same wall from a distance of about 1.5m, with no line of sight between the sensor and the screen. Using some assumptions about the phosphor decay curve and a Butterworth filter, here is the reconstructed image:
Keep in mind that the wall is only diffusely reflective (like drywall) and the sensor is not a camera, just a light intensity meter. I'm impressed...
Try http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/TechReports/UCAM-CL-TR-577.html
The Wikipedia entry links to it; I haven't read the 167-page technical report, but it claims to be a ~2002 catalogue of experimental progress toward electronic eavesdropping on displays (i.e., Van Eck phreaking).
The only downside to this all is that by the time I get my working Van Eck phreaking rig up and running, it'll be about as useful as my ISDN wiretap kit.
I assume you're referring to the bulk of van Eck techniques working only on CRTs (like the example in this post). But the report goes into detail on DVI cable leakage phreakzoring (DVICLP). And hiring midgets to hang out in file cabinets with little cameras.
I was under the impression that the HV amplification on CRTs was what made this really usable in the first place--with the exception of the illuminator (which is unmodulated), LCDs are comparatively low-voltage devices.
I suppose that with a good enough antenna, though, any cable or interconnect is suspect...which is how he seems to be snarfing the DVI and LCD traces.
Yeah my understanding is that you can't do LCD screen van Eck from down the street, but the other side of a wall or an antenna built into a desk or something might work...