Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!oddjob!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!urbsdc!aglew
From: aglew@urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: good passwords
Message-ID: <29500028@urbsdc>
Date: 27 Jul 88 04:11:00 GMT
References: <16436@brl-adm.ARPA>
Lines: 15
Nf-ID: #R:brl-adm.ARPA:16436:urbsdc:29500028:000:672
Nf-From: urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM!aglew    Jul 26 23:11:00 1988


>Except for terminals which use light fiber as their means of communications.
>There is no way of tapping these without cutting the wire, and even then
>you need an incredible amount of technology available.

Recently read that researchers at IBM have succeeded in wiretapping 
optic fiber, by shining a laser through the side of the fiber.
The light passing through the length of the fiber generates heat
through loss, which changes the refractive index and perturbs
the beam shining from the side.

Of course, you have to get access to the fiber - or do you?
Want to bet that optical fiber cladding isn't transparent to some
laser or maser frequencies?

aglew@gould.com