Evaluation and Improvement

of the Tempest Fonts

Hidema Tanaka, Osamu Takizawa, and Akihiro Yamamura

National Institute of Information and Communications Technology,

4-2-1, Nukui-Kitamachi, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8795, Japan
{hidema,taki,aki}@nict.go.jp

Abstract. Information leakage via electromagnetic emanation, usually

known as Tempest, has been recognized as a threat and countermea-
sures have been proposed. In particular, Kuhn and Anderson developed
a protective measure for Tempest called the Tempest fonts. Through ex-
periments, we have investigated and evaluated the effectiveness of the
Tempest fonts. Furthermore, we propose a new measure based on a sim-
ilar approach to prevent successful Tempest attacks. While Kuhn and
Anderson use Fourier transformation as a low-pass filter, our approach
uses a Gaussian filter in addition to Fourier transformation. Our exper-
imental results show that this approach is more effective.

1 Introduction
The unintentional emanation of physical energy is a major threat to privacy. Ad-
versaries can eavesdrop on sensitive information via electromagnetic emanation
from computers or their peripherals. Tempest refers to the techniques, investi-
gations, and studies of compromising emanations and their application to eaves-
dropping, as well as to the information leakage through emanations. Tempest has
been a concern regarding computer security in military and governmental insti-
tutions for a long time; however, much of the information gathered on Tempest
technologies has not been publicly disclosed.
Several Tempest test receivers are now available to non governmental insti-
tutions, and a few researchers have published details of their experiments [1,
2, 4, 8, 10]. These papers have verified that Tempest is a potential problem and
warn that it is a serious issue. Kuhn and Anderson [6, 8] have proposed a coun-
termeasure; the use of a filtered fonts with spectral characteristics. They claim
that their fonts, called the Tempest fonts, significantly reduces the effective range
of eavesdropping at a negligible cost in image quality and prevents adversaries
obtaining on-screen information.
In this paper, we report on our experiments on the reconstruction of images
containing text written in the Tempest fonts and verify the effectiveness in a
particular situation. We also show that the fonts do not provide sufficient secu-
rity in certain attack models where the adversary uses sophisticated equipment.
Furthermore, we propose and discuss an alternative to the Tempest fonts. Kuhn
and Anderson use only Fourier transformation as a low-pass filter. We use a

C.H. Lim and M. Yung (Eds.): WISA 2004, LNCS 3325, pp. 457–469, 2004.


c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004
458 Hidema Tanaka, Osamu Takizawa, and Akihiro Yamamura

Gaussian filter in addition to Fourier transformation. The reader is referred to

[5] for more detail on Fourier transformation and Gaussian filters.
In the following sections, we discuss our experiments, compare the two ap-
proaches, and show that our method is more effective in certain cases.

2 Tempest Fonts
Kuhn and Anderson [6, 8] performed experiments on recovering PC screen images
using an ESL model 400 Tempest monitoring receiver and a dipole antenna. They
developed the Tempest fonts to protect privacy from the Tempest threat, and
their Tempest fonts package can be downloaded at [7]. The fonts contained in
the package is a filtered and anti-aliased version of the Courier font.
Kuhn and Anderson claim that the Tempest fonts provide adequate security
in a certain situation at less cost than preparing perfectly shielded devices and
peripherals.

3 Outline of Experiments
3.1 Equipment
In our experiments, we used an FSET22 receiver and FrameControl ver. 4.24
image processing software. The FSET22 specifications are shown in Table 1.
FrameControl can process the signal from the FSET22 at 256 frames/3 s. We
used an Anritsu MP666A logarithm periodic antenna (20 ∼ 2000 MHz), an
Anritsu MA2601B/C near magnetic field probe (5 ∼ 1000 MHz) and a TOKIN
EIP-100 injection probe (80 KHz ∼ 30 MHz).
The effectiveness of image processing is especially important. Our image pro-
cessing software could create an averaged image from up to 256 frames. The soft-
ware we used has almost the same capabilities as Adobe Photoshop, and it works
in real time. Note that our equipment is not classified and can be purchased from
a commercial firm.

3.2 Target Machines

The targets in our experiments were an IBM ThinkPad S30 notebook PC (de-
noted as IBM), a SONY VAIO PCG-V505 notebook PC (denoted as VAIO),
and a NANAO FlexScan 77F 21-inch CRT (denoted as CRT). The CRT was
connected to the VGA connector of the VAIO. We tried to reconstruct the dis-
play image of each target, whose screen displayed the cur-13x24m-a.gif character
table (Fig. 1).

3.3 Attack Scenarios and Experimental Design

We performed three experiments corresponding to attacks using a near magnetic
field probe, an antenna, or an injection probe as follows.
 Evaluation and Improvement of the Tempest Fonts 459

Table 1. FSET22 Specifications.

Frequency range 100 Hz ∼ 22 GHz

Frequency resolution 0.1 Hz
Bandwidth 10 Hz ∼ 500 MHz in steps of 1/2/5
Average noise level < -142 dBm (1 MHz)

Fig. 1. Tempest fonts (cur-13x24m-a.gif).

1. eavesdroppers embed a near magnetic field probe in the vicinity of the target,
2. eavesdroppers try to catch emanation outside of the room in which the target
machine is located,
3. eavesdroppers try to receive signals transmitted by the power supply line.

The results of each experiment are described in Sections 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3,
respectively.

3.4 Tempest Procedure

Knowing the synchronous frequency of a target significantly helps an eavesdrop-

per reconstruct the display image via electromagnetic emanation. An eavesdrop-
per who does not know the frequency can easily guess it from the standard
parameters of the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) [12]. In this
work, we measured the synchronous frequency of each target in the experiments
using a near magnetic field probe (see Section 4.1). The experimental procedure
was as follows.

[Step 1] Search for the source location of the electromagnetic wave emission.
[Step 2] Adjust the parameters for the received frequency.
[Step 3] Adjust the parameters for the synchronous frequency.
[Step 4] Apply image processing.
460 Hidema Tanaka, Osamu Takizawa, and Akihiro Yamamura

Fig. 2. Reconstructed images: (left) IBM, (right) CRT.

We repeated these steps until we got a clear reconstruction of the target dis-
play. Measurement of the synchronous frequency using a probe is very important
in Tempest. Our instruments were accurate to within six figures below a decimal
point with regard to both the horizontal and vertical frequencies of the VGA
signal. Since the synchronous frequency is a unique value for each PC, if we know
the correct parameters for the synchronous frequency, we do not have to carry
out Step 3. We show both the horizontal and vertical synchronous frequencies for
each of our targets in Table 2. Since the CRT was connected to the VAIO VGA
connector, the synchronous frequencies of the CRT and VAIO were identical.

4 Experiments

4.1 Experimental Results: Near Magnetic Field Probe

In this experiment, we placed the near magnetic field probe very close to the
targets (the IBM, VAIO, and CRT). Reconstructed images (for the IBM and
CRT) obtained by averaging 128 frames are shown in Fig. 2. The reconstructed
image for the VAIO was almost the same as that for the IBM, so we do not show
it in Fig. 2. The parameter values that provided the best results for the IBM and
CRT are listed in Table 3. We can distinguish many characters in the Tempest
fonts from the images in Fig. 2; this led us to conclude that we can obtain the
semantics of text (natural language) written in the Tempest fonts.
 Evaluation and Improvement of the Tempest Fonts 461

Table 2. Synchronous frequency of each target.

Horizontal frequency [MHz] Vertical frequency [KHz]

IBM 48.530874 60.211965
VAIO 48.338321 59.973150
CRT 48.338321 59.973150

Table 3. Parameter values used to reconstruct images using the near magnetic field
probe.
Frequency [MHz] Bandwidth [MHz]
IBM 461.2 20.0
CRT 57.4 20.0

4.2 Experimental Results: Antenna

A Tempest attack using an antenna is considered a more realistic attack than
one using a near magnetic field probe. In our experiment, the antenna was placed
4 m from the target. Since we could not successfully reconstruct the IBM image,
we show only the VAIO and CRT results in Fig. 3. The parameters in this case
are shown in Table 4.

4.3 Experimental Results: Injection Probe

Tempest attacks using injection probes are more realistic still than Tempest
attacks using an antenna. An injection probe looks like a clothespin and can be
clipped onto a cable to receive electromagnetic emanation. The attenuation of the
emanation of an electromagnetic wave depends on the distance from the target,
and is very low for conduction emanation from a power supply line compared
with direct emanation from the target to air. In this experiment, we set the
probe 30 cm from the target and on an extended cable at over 30 m from the
target. In both cases we succeeded in obtaining images from the CRT, and there
was little difference between the reconstructed images. That is, we could read
the Tempest font characters from the CRT (Table 5 and Fig. 4) as we could in
the experiment using a near magnetic field probe (Section 4.1). On the other
hand, we could not reconstruct the images at all from the IBM and VAIO. We
believe that the reconstruction failed in these cases because of the AC adapter.

4.4 Conclusions Based on Experiment Results

We verified that character images written in the Tempest fonts are much more
difficult to recover than those written in a normal font, such as a 10-point ter-
minal font, when an attacker uses an obsolete Tempest receiver. On the other
hand, the improvements made in Tempest receivers have greatly reduced the ef-
fectiveness of the Tempest fonts. We could clearly reconstruct character images
by receiving electromagnetic emanation from the target on which the Tempest
fonts was displayed in our experiments. Therefore, while the Tempest fonts can
462 Hidema Tanaka, Osamu Takizawa, and Akihiro Yamamura

Table 4. Parameter values used to reconstruct images using an antenna.

Frequency [MHz] Bandwidth [MHz]

VAIO 844.8 20.0
CRT 973.2 20.0

Fig. 3. Reconstructed image of Tempest font averaged from 128 frames obtained using
an antenna at a distance of 4 m: (left) VAIO, (right) CRT.

prevent eavesdroppers from recovering character images under certain situations,

such as when an adversary has only obsolete Tempest receivers, it is no longer
an effective measure in more realistic environments.
Table 6 summarizes our experiment results. In Table 6, “TF” stands for
the Tempest font, “Normal” stands for a 10-point terminal font (normal font),
“readable” means we could recognize 80% of the characters, “nearly readable”
means we could recognize 50% of the characters, and “non-readable” means
that we could not recognize any characters. Here, our conclusions regarding
readability are based on a subjective evaluation.
We found that reconstructing the Tempest fonts was easier than reconstruct-
ing the normal font when we used an antenna. Since the normal font consists
of narrow lines, the high frequency spectrum generated from these lines cre-
ates sharp spikes on carrier waves. Such sharp spikes on electromagnetic waves
are easily attenuated after emanating through air, making it difficult for us to
distinguish the sharp spikes from air noise. Therefore, it was more difficult to
reconstruct images written in the normal font in this case.
 Evaluation and Improvement of the Tempest Fonts 463

Table 5. Parameter values used to reconstruct images using an injection probe.

Frequency [MHz] Bandwidth [MHz]

CRT 23.8 20.0

Table 6. Summary of experiments.

Near magnetic field probe Antenna Injection probe

TF Normal TF Normal TF Normal
VAIO readable readable readable non-readable non-readable non-readable
IBM readable readable non-readable non-readable non-readable non-readable
CRT readable readable nearly readable non-readable readable readable

Fig. 4. Reconstructed image of Tempest font averaged from 128 frames obtained using
an injection probe. The probe was set about 30 m from the CRT.

4.5 The Plausibility of Attacks

Radio frequency emanation decreases in proportion to the square of the distance

from the target, and other radio frequencies from electric devices also interfere
with radio frequency emanation. Therefore, we believe that an attack made by
attempting to receive the radio frequency at a distance is unlikely to succeed.
On the other hand, power supply lines may extend into the building structure
and eavesdroppers can use these lines to receive signals from anywhere in the
same building. Hence, attacks by receiving the radio frequency through power
supply lines is the most plausible threat.
From Table 6 and Figs. 2 ∼ 4, we see that the reality of an attack scenario
(as explained in Section 3.3) is inversely proportional to the quality of the re-
464 Hidema Tanaka, Osamu Takizawa, and Akihiro Yamamura

Fig. 5. Enlarged image of Tempest fonts.

Fig. 6. Another processed reconstructed image of Tempest fonts. (We used the same
image as in the left figure of Fig. 2.)

constructed images. An attack using near magnetic field probes is the most dan-
gerous in terms of the reconstructed image quality, so countermeasures against
Tempest attacks should be evaluated in terms of their effectiveness against at-
tacks using near magnetic field probes. In Section 5, we evaluate an improvement
made to the Tempest fonts in experiments where we used only near magnetic
field probes.
 Evaluation and Improvement of the Tempest Fonts 465

5 Improvement of the Tempest Font

5.1 Basic Idea
The Tempest fonts is produced by applying Fourier transformation to the source
font image and removing the top 30% of the horizontal frequency spectrum [7].
The high frequency spectrum creates large spikes in the carrier waves during
the digital-analog conversion process. Such large spikes are easily distinguished
from air noise. Therefore, the high frequency spectrum is valuable information
that eavesdroppers can use to reconstruct the target display image. Because the
high frequency spectrum provides eavesdroppers with a significant clue, removing
it is an effective Tempest countermeasure. This is the basic idea underlying the
Tempest fonts developed by Kuhn and Anderson.

5.2 Our Perspective

Through our experiments, we found another aspect of the Tempest fonts that
makes recovery of the display image difficult. We explain our observation and
this effect of the Tempest fonts in the following.
Figure 5 is an enlarged image of the Tempest fonts. We can recognize block
noise (dither) around the characters in this figure. We applied another filter
(“black/white reverse” and “edge emphasis”: a function of FrameControl) to
the reconstructed image of the Tempest fonts and emphasized the area around
the character edges. The resulting image of the Tempest fonts can be perfectly
reconstructed from the block noise. The block noise disrupts character forms that
are made of curves, but not the character forms made of straight lines. Since the
Tempest fonts produces block noise, it makes it easy to read characters made of
straight lines but hard to read characters made of curves.
Although Kuhn and Anderson show the result that an eavesdropper com-
pletely failed to reconstruct images in [8], we were able to sufficiently reconstruct
images from which we could read characters by reconstructing block noise. How-
ever, since the characters reconstructed from Tempest font are hard to recognize,
we conclude that the Tempest font is an effective means of protecting privacy in
certain situations.

5.3 Our Improvement

Since the generation of block noise reduces the resistance to Tempest, we propose
a method to decrease block noise. Our fonts is produced from the Tempest fonts
by applying a Gaussian filter. (See [5] for detailed information on Gaussian
filters.) A Gaussian filter basically makes images flat and smooth. It does not
lead to a high frequency spectrum because it causes a high correlation between
adjacent pixels.
We had to find the best parameter values for the Gaussian filter because
excessive values would substantially lower the display visibility. As parameters,
we used a radius of 3.0 pixels and a threshold of 25.0 pixels. Figure 7 shows
466 Hidema Tanaka, Osamu Takizawa, and Akihiro Yamamura

Fig. 7. Our filtered fonts.

our filtered fonts. Compared to the Tempest fonts (Fig. 1), our filtered fonts is
grayer and characters like  are harder to read.

5.4 Comparison and Discussion

We compare reconstructed images of the Tempest fonts and our filtered fonts
(IBM, using a near magnetic field probe) in Fig. 8. Our fonts is clearly harder to
read than the Tempest fonts. To confirm this subjective observation, though, we
carried out the following experiment. We ask eight testees to look at Fig. 6 and
identify as many characters as they could. The testees correctly identified almost
80% of all the characters in the Tempest font; in contrast, they made a correct
identification of close to 0% for our filtered font. Furthermore, the number of
attempted answers for our filtered font was 83% of that for the Tempest fonts.
This experiment thus objectively confirmed our subjective evaluation.
Our experiments verified the effectiveness of the Tempest fonts in a certain
situation (when an eavesdropper is using an obsolete receiver); however, the
Tempest fonts is not a sufficient countermeasure against an eavesdropper using
more sophisticated tools.
The characters of our filtered fonts, though, are dim, ambiguous, and weak
in contrast. Thus, fine characters and symbols are hard to read. This makes our
filtered fonts less user-friendly, especially for the elderly. Improved readability is
needed for practical use.
We show an enlarged image of our filtered fonts in Fig. 9. From this image,
we found that noise dots are uniformly scattered all over the background. Such
noise dots are reconstructed in the image reconstruction process. These lower the
 Evaluation and Improvement of the Tempest Fonts 467

Fig. 8. Best reconstructed image of (left) Tempest fonts and (right) our filtered fonts.
(IBM, near-magnetic-field probe).

readability of our filtered fonts in the reconstructed image, making it impossible

to obtain a clear reconstructed image.

6 Conclusion

Hardware-based countermeasures against Tempest, such as shields, perform well

but are inflexible and expensive. Software-based countermeasures, such as the
Tempest fonts, allow the emanation of electromagnetic waves, but prevent eaves-
droppers obtaining screen information via the received waves. Furthermore, these
countermeasures are flexible and inexpensive. Therefore, software-based counter-
measures are particularly promising.
The Tempest fonts was proposed as an inexpensive and easy to implement
countermeasure against Tempest threats. Unfortunately, our results indicate that
the Tempest fonts does not provide sufficient security in an attack scenario
where the adversary possesses up-to-date Tempest receivers. Current Tempest
receivers are unclassified and can be purchased by anybody. Removing 30% of
the high-frequency spectrum is no longer an adequate security measure against
eavesdroppers with such sophisticated receivers. In this paper, though, we have
shown that the effectiveness of the Tempest fonts can be improved by applying
a Gaussian filter.
It is important, however, to consider the trade-off between effectiveness
against Tempest attacks and the font visibility. Also, the parameter values that
468 Hidema Tanaka, Osamu Takizawa, and Akihiro Yamamura

Fig. 9. Enlarged image of our filtered fonts.

should be used in the Fourier transformation and Gaussian filter differ depend-
ing on the type and size of the source font and the pertinent environment. Our
future work will be aimed at solving these problems.

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