Smartphones Can Steal 3D Printing Plans By Listening To The Printer (fedscoop.com) 45
An anonymous reader quotes a report from FedScoop: Smartphones equipped with special programming can become a sophisticated spy sensor capable of stealing designs from a 3D printer -- just by measuring the noise and electromagnetic radiation the printer emits. Researchers from the University of Buffalo recently discovered how a smartphone on a bench about 8 inches away from a 3D printer could allow someone to reconstruct a simple object being printed with 94 percent accuracy. Complex objects can be copied with 90 percent accuracy. The attack basically reverse-engineers the printing blueprint by reconstructing the movement of the nozzle from the electromagnetic and acoustic energy it generates while working. Most information came from electromagnetic waves, which accounted for about 80 percent of the useful data. The remaining 20 percent came from acoustic waves. Wenyao Xu, assistant professor in the University of Buffalo's Department of Computer Science and Engineering, is the lead author of the study, "My Smartphone Knows What You Print: Exploring Smartphone-Based Side-Channel Attacks Against 3D Printers," which will be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery's 23rd annual Conference on Computer and Communications Security next month in Austria.
More "research" (Score:4, Insightful)
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Next up: Researcher discovers he can navigate in the dark using touch!
Just wait till they figure out braille!
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No! Mod him down! He is a known crackpot!
Lol, you may be a crackpot, but your original post was spot-on.
The only "newsworthiness" of this article is that it involves 3D printing. Otherwise, it's a non-story. Actually, it's a non-story either way.
One word... (Score:2)
Tricorder. We're getting there.
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Widdly-weep. Widdly-weep. Widdly-weep.
Captain, this entire planet is made of widdly-weep.
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Actually it is a good bit of research.
Conceptually, sure it was straightforward. That doesn't mean the implementation was simple. A huge part of stuff like this is what you learn while doing it. Sometimes things that seem obvious turn out not to be.
A famous example:
Supersonic flight. At some point as you cross the threshold your up and down are reversed in supersonic flight. Early pilots pulled up to avoid the ground and as a result crashed harder. Pretty counter intuitive, but that was the case.
I wou
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These types of attacks are well known, have been done in real life for decades, and can be done against anything that emits anything while operating. The only thing that's different is they used a cell phone instead of dedicated listening hardware. Since cell phones are more common and are packed with sensors, there's really nothing interesting in that.
Currently this is a really dumb attack, though once they improve the sensors and are able to get the software working through walls it'll be slightly usefu
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This "obviously trivial" research is worth a lot of money to the right people.
Just because you "know" something can be done doesn't mean that it can be done easily, economically, or effectively. And then there's the stuff that people "know" that's not so at all.
People in industrial and military espionage can now take heart in the knowledge that all sorts of top-secret plans can be stolen with 90+% accuracy by simply "accidentally" leaving a phone on a workbench. That means that they don't have to chance pos
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People in industrial and military espionage can now take heart in the knowledge that all sorts of top-secret plans can be stolen with 90+% accuracy by simply "accidentally" leaving a phone on a workbench.
If a 3D printer is printing a top secret thing, don't you imagine that the people running the printer might know that any phone "accidentally" left on a workbench is a problem? Like, "we're in a top secret facility working with top secret material -- how did ANY smartphone get in here?"
and even not-so-obviously sensitive ones like open production floors.
Top secret parts are not going to be printed on an "open production floor".
On the other hand, maybe the next Secretary of State will have a flunky email the top secret CAD files to her home server so they can be printed on t
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There are secrets and then there are Secrets. Sometimes things are done casually that wouldn't be done if there were explicitly-known attack vectors. Sometimes an "accident" might be forgivable if it was truly thought to be innocuous.
This has nothing to do with specific persons or political parties. If you insist on sliming the topic with drive-by political sniping, I'll have to ask Trump to sic our state officials on you.
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Who said the stuff had to be top secret? Theres tons of 3D printed stuff that's not top secret, but plenty confidential. Automakers go to great lengths to hide the body shape of new models - cloaking them with body panels fro
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Some people need to learn about screening and earthing.
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Some people need to learn about screening and earthing.
Most 3d printers have none of the former and precious little of the latter, since they're mostly made of plastic
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In related news: somebody with physical access to the printer can also photograph the object - or even take it!
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Or if somebody has hijacked your phone and can use its features without your knowledge, they can get your 3D printer plans too, no pointing your phone at the printer required!
I can't wait for the future! (Score:3)
Anyone else want to fly on a cheap knockoff plane who's fuselage is 94% correct?
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Anyone else want to fly on a cheap knockoff plane who's fuselage is 94% correct?
Anyone want to fly in a plane that is built on a 3D printer, even 100% correct?
Really, if you can get your phone next to the printer to measure the electromagnetic energy it emits, why not just have the phone measure the electromagnetic energy that reflects off the printer using the ubiquitous spy software called "camera"?
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Actually, some of the parts of that plane you use are, in fact, built on a 3D printer.
So, to quote someone "you're soaking in it".
Or, to the point, you're flying in a plane built partially with 3D printed parts.
Keep up, it's 2016, not 1996.
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Actually, some of the parts of that plane you use are, in fact, built on a 3D printer.
"Some parts" is hardly what was meant by either the OP or me. But I think you knew that.
Or, to the point, you're flying in a plane built partially with 3D printed parts.
Having a bezel on the seatback display printed in a 3D printer is a lot different than having a 3D printed fuselage. But I think you knew that. You're not "to the point", you are ignoring the point.
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What made it a revolution was that now the parts and techniques required are cheap and ubiquitous.
In 1989 there was a big to-do about 3-D output for computers, but the ultr-cheap miniature haptic sensors, color display units and other amenities that make stuff like the Oculus Rift possible weren't there yet.
Even television didn't spring up out of nothing.
Sometimes the revolution doesn't come until the time is right.
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And, some of the airplanes we fly in today are made of cloth, like fuselages were back in ~1910-~1935.
However they aren't direct comparisons. The paper used in those fuselages back then were stiffened using a dope not entirely dissimilar to a thick shellac. Today we do the same, only we use epoxy-resins and layer the cloth.
That 3d printing wasn't up to task back in the '70s or even just ten years ago doesn't mean that laser-sintered 3D-printed metals today are not up to task.
Kind of like how emission contro
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Well, the good news is that like all other technology, it will never get better, so we don't have to worry about the theft threat.
Stop giving away our intel (Score:1)
Seriously, next thing I know you'll let N Korea know we have defences against them
WOW! (Score:3)
People were figuring out what was typed on a typewriter at least back as far as the 80s. I guess everything now done on a smartphone is new again. I can't wait for smart contact lenses can steal 3d printing plans by listening to the printer.
Waste of time (Score:1)