Old Laptop Hard Drives Will Allegedly Crash When Exposed To Janet Jackson Music (arstechnica.com) 59
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It sounds like something out of an urban legend: Some Windows XP-era laptops using 5400 RPM spinning hard drives can allegedly be forced to crash when exposed to Janet Jackson's 1989 hit "Rhythm Nation." But Microsoft Software Engineer Raymond Chen stands by the story in a blog post published earlier this week, and the vulnerability has been issued an official CVE ID by The Mitre Corporation, lending it more credibility. According to Chen, CVE-2022-38392 was originally discovered by "a major computer manufacturer," and it can affect not just the laptop playing the song but adjacent laptops from other PC companies as well.
The specific hard drive model at issue -- again from an unnamed manufacturer -- would crash because "Rhythm Nation" used some of the same "natural resonant frequencies" that the drives used, interfering with their operation. Anyone trying to independently recreate this problem will face several obstacles, including the age of the laptops involved and a total lack of specificity about the hard drives or computer models. The CVE entry mentions "a certain 5400 RPM OEM hard drive, as shipped with laptop PCs in approximately 2005" and links back to Chen's post as a primary source. And while some Windows XP-era laptop hard drives may still be kicking out there somewhere, after almost two decades, it's more likely that most of them have died of natural causes. The PC manufacturer was able to partially resolve the issue "by adding a custom filter in the audio pipeline that detected and removed the offending frequencies during audio playbanck," says Chen. However, these HDDs would still crash if they were exposed to another device that was playing the song.
The specific hard drive model at issue -- again from an unnamed manufacturer -- would crash because "Rhythm Nation" used some of the same "natural resonant frequencies" that the drives used, interfering with their operation. Anyone trying to independently recreate this problem will face several obstacles, including the age of the laptops involved and a total lack of specificity about the hard drives or computer models. The CVE entry mentions "a certain 5400 RPM OEM hard drive, as shipped with laptop PCs in approximately 2005" and links back to Chen's post as a primary source. And while some Windows XP-era laptop hard drives may still be kicking out there somewhere, after almost two decades, it's more likely that most of them have died of natural causes. The PC manufacturer was able to partially resolve the issue "by adding a custom filter in the audio pipeline that detected and removed the offending frequencies during audio playbanck," says Chen. However, these HDDs would still crash if they were exposed to another device that was playing the song.
Crash or give up in despair? (Score:5, Funny)
If Janet Jackson comes on the radio, you and I can turn it off. HDs only have one option.
Simple enough to figure out (Score:5, Interesting)
Get a spectrum analyzer and listen to the hard drive with a microphone.
If it's a resonant mode that crashes it from the outside, it probably emits acoustically at that frequency too.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, vibration from fans is known to do this too. There is a YouTube video somewhere of a guy screaming at an array of drives, and every time he does the latency spikes.
I seem to recall one of the big guys, Dell or HP, found that certain frequencies played loudly enough could destroy their laptop speakers. Tried to refuse warranty claims too.
Re: (Score:3)
> There is a YouTube video somewhere of a guy screaming at an array of drives, and every time he does the latency spikes.
You mean like the Youtube link in TFA?
Re:Simple enough to figure out (Score:4, Funny)
> There is a YouTube video somewhere of a guy screaming at an array of drives, and every time he does the latency spikes.
You mean like the Youtube link in TFA?
C'mon this is /. you're not supposed to RTFA before commenting :)
Re: (Score:2)
> There is a YouTube video somewhere of a guy screaming at an array of drives, and every time he does the latency spikes.
You mean like the Youtube link in TFA?
C'mon this is /. you're not supposed to RTFS before commenting :)
FTFY
Re: (Score:3)
You can't seriously expect me to have read the summary before commenting. Everyone knows that if you don't comment from a position of ignorance in the first 3 minutes the story is live, you might as well not bother.
Re: Simple enough to figure out (Score:2)
Richard Feynman used to say that it's only possible to have polite conversations with strangers about things neither one knows anything about.
If either one of them has any expertise to speak of, the conversation cannot be polite. He concluded that it was therefore only possible to have polite conversations about international politics. He recounts telling this story to a diplomat when he accepted his Nobel prize.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Simple enough to figure out (Score:2)
One of his memoirs. I don't remember if it Sure You're Joking or one of the others.
Re: (Score:2)
He literally cited Feynman's Nobel Prize acceptance speech. I get not reading the articles, but did you not bother reading the post you were responding to?
Re: Simple enough to figure out (Score:2)
He recounts telling this story to a diplomat when he accepted his Nobel prize.
I hate point this out, but he did not cite his "acceptance speech" he cited a story he told a diplomat while in town to pick up his prize...
When you choose to correct someone, it behoves you to double-check your correction...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Simple enough to figure out (Score:3)
It depends on the mechanism's specifics, but there is a reason consumer grade drives and server grade drives cost different amounts.
The latter are designed to exist in an environment where lots of things that are mechanically coupled in a disk array are spinning and vibrating at the same frequencies. They tend to both mechanically isolate the mechanism from the chassis as much as possible and to suppress the vibration itself with hardware features and software control that minimizes the energies in the rele
Re:Simple enough to figure out (Score:4, Funny)
> it probably emits acoustically at that frequency too.
Shhh... we don't want those drives to get served a DMCA takedown notice.
Re: Simple enough to figure out (Score:4, Interesting)
Reminds me that in the late 80's it was necessary to replace harddrives on some of the computers used on the local ferries because the engines hit a resonant frequency on the harddrives.
Re: (Score:2)
it probably emits acoustically at that frequency too.
A crash is when the head contacts the platter vertically. A head doesn't normally move vertically, and there's no way to record an emission of this frequency without exciting it from the outside.
What you'll get on your spectrum analyser is the sound of the moving parts related to rotational speed.
Work it into the next Ghostbusters film or game (Score:2)
Just have it work like "Higher and Higher" was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Ooh! Possessed computers! Giant mainframes wreaking destruction!
Mars Attacks (Score:3)
Is this like Slim Whitman music causing the alien heads to explode?
put it into an superbolw ad! (Score:2)
put it into an Superbowl ad!
Brown note? (Score:2)
Resonances can do spooky things. (Score:3)
Re:Resonances can do spooky things. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
They've learned to strike in such a way that resonant frequency aids the force of the impact.
Occam's Razor suggests that such demonstrations are faked. [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Woodworker here.
Every woodworker knows that wood splits very easily across the grain. If you carefully observe these demonstrations, what you'll invariably see is that the boards are cut with the end grain running along the long edge of the board. That is, the grain is parallel to the short edge, not the long edge as it is in virtually every other piece of construction lumber - 2x4s, 1x6s, etc... So when the impact happens, it ends up splitting the wood fibers apart, rather than breaking the fiber its
Re: (Score:2)
If you could control a strike well enough to deliver a precise resonance, it would intuitively only be a matter of long practice and experimentation with different thicknesses to find a "sweet spot".
Crazy levels of physical control are possible. If a Buddhist monk can light himself on fire and neith
Human brain is vulnerable too. (Score:1)
My neurons suffer a buffer overflow and explode when her songs are played.
A 90hz tone is reminiscent of a humming drive (Score:5, Interesting)
Really just a worse version of this (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Wardrobe malfunction (Score:2)
Thus was born a new class of attacks (Score:2)
This is kind of exciting; It's time to whip out a tone generator and audio "fuzz" your kit to see what else fails. :)
Re: (Score:2)
I wish I could do this with my noisy neighbours. They seem to respond to my bass guitar treatment but I'm yet to find the perfect pitch which would send them to their grave.
Re: (Score:2)
Setup a big speaker attached to the wall, record their "noise" and play it back at them.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yes, I've seen the "Instant Karma Machine" video on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I had not heard of it from that video, but that is hilarious. Especially funny is that they called the police on him for just replicating the noises they were making. Did it not occur to them that he had as much reason to call the police on them if it was so annoying?
Blast from the past (Score:4)
Why (Score:2)
Why give the issue a CVE ID if they're not going to say which drives it affects? That's like reporting something like SPECTRE then keeping the which CPUs are affected a secret. Seems like a clickbait blog post.
Re: Why (Score:2)
I'm thinking the drives in question are the old Hitachi Deskstars (or Deathstar as they were known). Those had a reputation for failing, but no "Rythem Nation" needed.
Nasty (Score:3)
That's Mrs Jackson pal!
Holy Christ on a unicycle (Score:3)
I didn't realise the RIAA would take DRM to this extreme!
There's a worse one (Score:5, Funny)
I have it on good authority that if you type "Google" into Google, you can break the internet. So please, no one try it. EVEN for a joke.
Re: (Score:1)
lol, I'm sure we could pull 9 more commandments from The IT Crowd and create a religion at least as credible as most.
Re: (Score:3)
> you can break the internet
You can always try turning it off and back on again.
Re: (Score:2)
How about using it to break someone's poker face [youtu.be]?
Crab and Tortoise (Score:2)
Rick Rolled (Score:5, Funny)
I bet playing Rick Astley trips over all the washing machines.
Not the first time (Score:3, Interesting)
Makes me wonder (Score:2)
Related news ... yelling is also bad for HDDs (Score:2)
As this video [youtube.com] from many years ago shows, just yelling at hard disk drives affects latency by affecting the ability of the HDD heads to seek and stay on tracks.
Could it be the IBM Deskstar (aka "Deathstar")? (Score:2)
They said it wouln't last... (Score:2)
and then the hard drive crashed.
It's not hard to figure out... (Score:2)
There weren't that many laptop drive manufacturers back then.
You had IBM with their TravelStar drives (though at this point in time it may be part of HGST - Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, now part of Western Digital). These were pretty much the most used drives in laptops of the time period. They also were generally loud and obnoxious, and if you've used laptops of the era, you know the sound since so many of them used these drives.
The other companies making laptop hard drives would be Toshiba in #2,
The Rubber Shoe (Score:1)
XP-era laptop drives? (Score:2)
Sorry, the "adaptive drives" that they've been selling for 15 years, that you put in servers and desktops, also do 5400RPM. I suppose I should try the song on this workstation.
Britney Spears (Score:1)