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  • Be careful *how* you type ...

    http://www.computerworld.com.au/inde...08;fp;2;fpid;1

    Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a way to turn the clicks and clacks of typing on a computer keyboard into a startlingly accurate transcript of what exactly is being typed.

    In a paper released last week, the researchers explained how they developed software that could analyze the sound of someone typing on a keyboard for just 10 minutes and then piece together as much as 96 percent of what had been typed.
    "Women don't want to hear a man's opinion, they just want to hear their opinion in a deeper voice."


  • #2
    some genious figured out a way to translate keystrokes by hooking a torroid and a transmitter to the keyboard cable. Sends every keyboard stroke to a remote location

    SPying is fun ... despite being highly illegal. Maybe that's what makes it fun?
    “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out”
    –The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

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    • #3
      Or, you could produce the world's lowest cost wireless keyboard.
      Just set your computer's mic next to a keypad with no electronics in it.
      Chuck
      秋音的爸爸

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      • #4
        I challenge them to actually make this work for me without being able to see what I've typed.

        I could see it working for "most" typists, IF they can calibrate it first to the material that you're typing. But working double-blind? Not gonna happen.

        And even if you know what I've typed in the past, the odds of figuring it out from me? Practically nil. Ask Damian - he's seen me type.
        The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

        I'm the least you could do
        If only life were as easy as you
        I'm the least you could do, oh yeah
        If only life were as easy as you
        I would still get screwed

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Gurm
          I challenge them to actually make this work for me without being able to see what I've typed.

          I could see it working for "most" typists, IF they can calibrate it first to the material that you're typing. But working double-blind? Not gonna happen.

          And even if you know what I've typed in the past, the odds of figuring it out from me? Practically nil. Ask Damian - he's seen me type.
          There's a decent amount that can be done. 10 minutes of coherent typing should be more than enough to do some statistical analysis. You can make assumptions about letter frequency with that amount of time, and I'd be surprised if the space bar weren't a distinct sound.
          Gigabyte P35-DS3L with a Q6600, 2GB Kingston HyperX (after *3* bad pairs of Crucial Ballistix 1066), Galaxy 8800GT 512MB, SB X-Fi, some drives, and a Dell 2005fpw. Running WinXP.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Wombat
            There's a decent amount that can be done. 10 minutes of coherent typing should be more than enough to do some statistical analysis. You can make assumptions about letter frequency with that amount of time, and I'd be surprised if the space bar weren't a distinct sound.
            Sure sure. R S T L N E. Beyond that? Not so much.

            And yeah, the space bar makes a distinctive sound.

            But the rest of the keys, especially on one of these UltraX keyboards, are pretty much just consistent little chickle sounds.
            The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

            I'm the least you could do
            If only life were as easy as you
            I'm the least you could do, oh yeah
            If only life were as easy as you
            I would still get screwed

            Comment


            • #7
              The software probably measuers things like the time between keystrokes, the position of the sound in a three-dimensional space, the number of clicks between a spacebar stroke (a very distinct sound) and things like that. Of course, if you're IM'ing and do it like Gurm and I, you hit the enter key every 6-7 words...

              SO your sentences
              start to look like this
              because in IM'ing you have to
              things differently that normal
              just to drive people absolutely crazy
              that you are typing incoherently.

              Jammrock
              “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out”
              –The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

              Comment


              • #8
                assuming that the space bar makes the most distinct sound and you are capable of seperating words out, it wouldn't be too hard to run the statistically probably cases across a word list and come up with another list of what is likely and what is not.

                this goes in the basket with being able to read data from the lights on routers.
                "And yet, after spending 20+ years trying to evolve the user interface into something better, what's the most powerful improvement Apple was able to make? They finally put a god damned shell back in." -jwz

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                • #9
                  I HAVE seen Gurm type but I'd be willing to bet that if you can get this to work on more than one person in the first place you can get it to work on most anyone... including gurm. Quite laptop style keys or not it's going to make SOME sound.

                  Still 96% accuracy is still terrible. This is why speech recognition and/or OCR software doesn't do well even if you have 98-99% accuracy. 1% of inaccuracy can send a document into tailspin of illegibility. You take out the human element to clean it up and it's unprofessional and that terrible looking word document sent to the wrong person can get you fired.
                  Wikipedia and Google.... the needles to my tangent habit.
                  ________________________________________________

                  That special feeling we get in the cockles of our hearts, Or maybe below the cockles, Maybe in the sub-cockle area, Maybe in the liver, Maybe in the kidneys, Maybe even in the colon, We don't know.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Gurm
                    But the rest of the keys, especially on one of these UltraX keyboards, are pretty much just consistent little chickle sounds.
                    And their timing matters a good bit. You can't type two keys with the same finger very quickly. If their mics and algorithms are very good, they may even be able to sense the amount of occlusion from the hands. Timing, plus common letter combinations would yield a lot of data.
                    Gigabyte P35-DS3L with a Q6600, 2GB Kingston HyperX (after *3* bad pairs of Crucial Ballistix 1066), Galaxy 8800GT 512MB, SB X-Fi, some drives, and a Dell 2005fpw. Running WinXP.

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                    • #11
                      I still doubt that it's real. This ranks right up there, for me, with the "we can see through walls using multiple tomography" crap.
                      The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

                      I'm the least you could do
                      If only life were as easy as you
                      I'm the least you could do, oh yeah
                      If only life were as easy as you
                      I would still get screwed

                      Comment

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