Researchers from Israeli’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science have discovered a new technique for long-distance eavesdropping on voice conversations by observing tiny vibrations these sounds make on the glass surface of a visible lamp.
They say it allows anyone with a laptop and less than a thousand dollars of equipment—just a telescope and a $400 electro-optical sensor—to listen in on any sounds in a room that’s hundreds of feet away in real-time, simply by observing the minuscule vibrations those sounds create on the glass surface of a light bulb inside. By measuring the tiny changes in light output from the bulb that those vibrations cause, the researchers show that a spy can pick up sound clearly enough to discern the contents of conversations or even recognize a piece of music.
ARCS TECHNICA has the story here.
