Daniel Genkin of the University of Michigan, Mihir Pattani of the University of Pennsylvania, Roei Schuster of Cornell Tech and Tel Aviv University, and Eran Tromer of Tel Aviv University and Columbia University investigated a potential new avenue of remote surveillance that they have dubbed "Synesthesia"[1]: a side-channel attack that can reveal the contents of a remote screen, providing access to potentially sensitive information based solely on "content-dependent acoustic leakage from LCD screens."
The research, supported by the Check Point Institute for Information Security at Tel Aviv University[2] (of which Schuster and Tromer are members) and funded in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, examined what amounts to an acoustic form of Van Eck phreaking. While Van Eck phreaking uses radio signal emissions that leak from display connectors, the Synesthesia research leverages "coil whine," the audio emissions from transformers and other electronic components powering a device's LCD display.
source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/08/researchers-find-way-to-spy-on-remote-screens-through-the-webcam-mic/
archived: https://archive.fo/ZmO62
[1] https://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tromer/synesthesia/synesthesia.pdf & https://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tromer/synesthesia/
[2] http://cpiis.cs.tau.ac.il/
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Osamabobama on Thursday August 30 2018, @05:07PM
The word 'modem' comes from 'modulator/demodulator,' which describes the process of encoding and decoding data in duplex communications. In this case, the microphone isn't demodulating, as it is only sending the data. On the other end, the receiver would need to demodulate the data in order to make use of it. Two separate devices, so not a modem.
If you like, you could say they reinvented the A/D converter, but of course that's not true, either.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.