You normally think of fiber optic as something used in network cables. However, scientists employ dedicated fibers to detect earthquakes. In simple terms, they fire a laser down the fiber and watch…
  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 hour

    Honestly, why not investigate the utility of this? Could one develop a fiber optic coil based microphone? It would probably result in a microphone immune to RF and magnetic interference.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zipEnglish
    4 hours

    Besides, if researchers can do this successfully, you would imagine three-letter agencies around the world could do it even better.

    You can’t just listen to a random fiber on the switch. You’d have to prepare a piece carefully and add the measuring system, by which point a micro is easier and smaller.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3 hours

      Yeah, it basically says, “researchers could potentially measure vibrations in the air to detect speech.”

      I know. That’s how speech works.

  • IWW4@lemmy.zipEnglish
    4 hours

    /boggle

    And in other news, water makes things wet.

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 hour

      Well, it’s more novel than that…

      A coil of fiber is not meant to be a listening device, so they almost certainly exist in places where it wasn’t previously deemed a risk.

      That said, exploiting this in the wild seems like a pretty difficult job, I can’t imagine how to do it without already having access to a target computer.