Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: notesfiles Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!qubix!ios!oliveb!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpcnoe!dat From: dat@hpcnoe.UUCP (dat) Newsgroups: net.micro Subject: Re: Zenith-U.S. Government Contract Message-ID: <10000001@hpcnoe.UUCP> Date: Sun, 14-Oct-84 18:07:00 EDT Article-I.D.: hpcnoe.10000001 Posted: Sun Oct 14 18:07:00 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 23-Oct-84 05:46:53 EDT References: <3365@ecsvax.UUCP> Organization: Hewlett-Packard - Fort Collins, CO Lines: 43 Nf-ID: #R:ecsvax:-336500:hpcnoe:10000001:000:1939 Nf-From: hpcnoe!dat Oct 18 14:07:00 1984 Having worked on 'Tempest' terminals for a while, I can say that they are yet another example of the extreme caution under which the Government functions; The 'Tempest' is typically an enclosure for the computer combined with a demonstrably secure central computing facility (if needed) and secure communications lines that do NOT radiate their signal outside of the wire (if needed). The enclosure and lines are to prevent an 'enemy' (generic term, I suppose) from pointing some sensitive electronic equipment tuned to the output bandwidth of the terminal screen (for example) and sitting back and smiling while a duplicate of the screen is received on his equipment. This can in fact be done, according to some guru engineers that I have talked to!! Similar with the wire...if you can keep track of the traffic on a communications line, you can decipher the information (especially if it is standard ASCII or something.) The process is again somewhat analogous to a Ham radio operator listening to the seemingly meaningless noise on a given frequency and actually getting valid data from it! Even with this, there is a bit of a tendency to use a secure environment which forces the users to be (up to) extremely uncomfortable while using the computer. The project I left was at the point where all the computers and terminals were in a large safe..like a concrete bomb shelter..with marines wandering in and out, and people being hussled off to be interrogated if they made a mistake like mounting a 'classified' tape on an 'unclassified' drive. (This happened!) I suppose the alternative is to essentially broadcast all our governmental secrets over the airwaves which would be bad news too! The only problem is that the Tempest machines tend to look like late 50's rejects for futuristic computers. Further questions, to the limit I understand, can be freely thrown at me. Dave Taylor now at HP - CNO