From: "Mark W. Eichin" <eichin@cygnus.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 16:09:11 PST
To: ncselxsi!drzaphod@ncselxsi.netcom.com
Subject: TEMPEST pricing
In-Reply-To: <44511.drzaphod@ncselxsi>
Message-ID: <9212180008.AA07304@tweedledumber.cygnus.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>> Oh.. and what kind of prices are we talking about to, say, TEMPEST a small
>> room.. maybe enuf for a workstation and misc. accessories.  |-]
	I don't know about an entire room, but I seem to recall that
Sun has TEMPESTed workstations on the GPO pricelist, as do other
companies... and that a few years ago TEMPESTed PC's (286 boxes)
*started* around $10K. Most of this was because of the limited market
-- I doubt you'll find a mass-market PC that hasn't skimped as much as
possible on the RF shielding if it was cost effective (BYTE, Oct. or
Nov., or maybe the laptop issue, mentions Apple switching from
sprayed-on metallic paint on the inside of their cases to sheet-metal
liners because it ended up being significantly less expensive.) Given
the lack of a large-volume market to produce economies of scale, you'd
expect the prices for TEMPESTed hardware to stay high.
	Over at MIT, in building 20, there's a room that is entirely
RF shielded (built in place, years ago...) I don't know the story
behind it, I don't know if the shielding is even maintained any more,
it is decades old. It's now random lab-space...
							_Mark_