TEMPEST-busting tech reinvented by US student
A mysterious secret technology, apparently in use by the British intelligence services in an undisclosed role, has been reinvented by a graduate student in America. Full details of the working principles are now available.
Tristan Lawry, doctoral candidate in electrical and computer engineering, has developed equipment which can transmit data at high rates through thick, solid steel or other barriers. Significantly, Lawry's kit also transmits power. One obvious application here would be transmission through the steel pressure hull of a submarine: at the moment such hulls must have hundreds of penetrations for power and data cables, each one adding expense, weight and maintenance burden.
Regular Reg readers will recall that just such kit has previously been developed in the UK labs of arms globocorp BAE Systems: company boffins exhibited it at last year's Farnborough airshow, like Lawry suggesting that it would be of use in submarines. Intriguingly, the BAE inventors also revealed to the Reg that "other parties" within the British government – whom they couldn't name – had asked them to keep secret all details of how their equipment works.
