iPhone Keylogger Can Snoop On Desktop Typing 103
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Georgia Tech demonstrate that a mobile phone located near a keyboard can use its accelerometers to recover text typed by a target. 'The technique works through probability and by detecting pairs of keystrokes, rather than individual keys (which still is too difficult to accomplish reliably, Traynor said). It models “keyboard events” in pairs, then determines whether the pair of keys pressed is on the left versus right side of the keyboard, and whether they are close together or far apart. After the system has determined these characteristics for each pair of keys depressed, it compares the results against a preloaded dictionary, each word of which has been broken down along similar measurements (i.e., are the letters left/right, near/far on a standard QWERTY keyboard).'"
passphrases (Score:3, Interesting)
So with this technique, a password of "correct horse battery staple" would be detected, but "Tr0ub4dor" would not (http://xkcd.com/936/)...
Similar thing from 6 years ago (Score:2, Interesting)
Similar idea from 6 years ago, but using acoustics rather than vibrations
https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/acoustic-snooping-typed-information