http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/na...ng20050914.html


If someone can hear you typing, they can recreate what you wrote. That's according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley.

The researchers said they recorded people typing on computer keyboards, then fed the audio into a computer, and used an algorithm to recover up to 96 per cent of the original text.

"It's a form of acoustical spying that should raise red flags among computer security and privacy experts," said Doug Tygar, a Berkeley professor of computer science and information management.

"If we were able to figure this out, it's likely that people with less honorable intentions can - or have - as well," Tygar said.

The research builds on similar studies conducted by IBM researchers, which had success rates of 80 per cent.

"The message from this study is that there is no easy escape from this acoustic snooping," Tygar said.

But computer security expert Peter Tippett said that while such research is interesting, the prospect of such spying should not concern individuals worried that employers would use it to monitor them or businesses fretting over possible snooping by rivals.

"It's like worrying about anvils dropping on automobiles," said Tippett, founder of Cybertrust Inc., a Herndon, Virginia-based information security services company. "There are all kinds of attacks like these but they are only relevant to top secret organizations."