Guarding Clinton's testimony from hackers

   August 17, 1998
   Web posted at: 9:42 a.m. EDT (1342 GMT)

   WASHINGTON  (CNN) -- President Clinton's testimony on Monday about his
   relationship  with  former  White  House  intern  Monica  Lewinsky  is
   supposed  to  be  a  top-secret  telecast  -- and security experts are
   trying to make sure that hackers don't find a away to intercept it.

   The  testimony  will  be  telecast from the White House, where Clinton
   will  answer  the  questions,  to the U.S. courthouse, where the grand
   jury is seated.

   "If  you're  talking  about  the standard computer hackers, they would
   love  to get their hands on Clinton's testimony just for the fact they
   could say they got it," security expert Ira Winkler told CNN.

   The  telecast  will  likely be broadcast via fiber optic lines and the
   signal  will  be scrambled by encryption, making it next to impossible
   for hackers to steal the president's testimony, experts said.

   "The  best anybody could possibly do is cut the wire and interrupt it.
   And if they interrupt it, they're not capturing data," Winkler said.

   However,  security  experts do worry about the television set that the
   jurors  will use to watch Clinton's statements. Radiation emitted from
   the  TV  screen  can  be picked up by using a special antenna called a
   Tempest  receiver.  If  monitors  are  not  specially  protected,  the
   testimony could be viewed from a distance of up to a quarter-mile away
   from the courthouse.

   It  is  not  difficult to get information about a Tempest receiver. In
   fact,  one  can buy a kit off the Internet, along with instructions on
   how  to  convert  a TV set into such a receiver. Tempest receivers can
   also be bought by mail order, at a cost of about $800.

   The  technology  also works on computer monitors, according to Winkler
   and  a  man  known as Kingpin, a member of a Boston-based hacker group
   known  for  testing  vulnerabilities in telecommunication and computer
   security.

   "I  can  pick  up  (information  from) a computer terminal from my van
   outside.  Basically, the distances vary on whether you're in a city or
   an  office  building  --  you  can get a hundred, even a thousand feet
   away," Kingpin said.

   But  Winkler  said that the weakest point, really, is the human factor
   -- leaks from the people watching the testimony.
   Correspondent Ann Kellan contributed to this report.